A grim anniversary
Nazi death camp survivors mark liberation of Auschwitz
OSWIECIM, Poland — A group of survivors of Nazi death camps marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during World War II in a modest ceremony Saturday in southern Poland.
About 20 survivors from various camps set up by Nazi Germany around Europe laid wreaths and flowers and lit candles at the Death Wall in Auschwitz, where the Nazis executed thousands of inmates, mostly Polish resistance members and others.
Later, the group gathered for a ceremony by a brick women’s barrack at Birkenau that has recently undergone conservation. They prayed and lit candles at the monument near the crematoria ruins to memorialize around 1.1 million camp victims, mostly Jews.
The theme of the observances was the human being, symbolized in simple, handdrawn portraits that were beamed on a screen during the observances in Birkenau. They were meant to stress that the horror of Auschwitz-Birkenau lies in the suffering of people held and killed there.
Observances were also held in many other countries on Saturday, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Nearly 6 million European Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust — the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II.
In Germany, where people laid flowers and lit candles at memorials for the victims of the Nazi terror, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country would continue to carry the responsibility for this “crime against humanity.”
He called on all citizens to defend Germany’s democracy and fight antisemitism as the country marked the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“‘Never again’ is every day,” Scholz said in his weekly video podcast. “Jan. 27 calls out to us: Stay visible! Stay audible! Against antisemitism, against racism, against misanthropy — and for our democracy.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country is fighting to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion, posted an image of a Jewish menorah on X, formerly known as Twitter, to mark the remembrance day.
“Every new generation must learn the truth about the Holocaust. Human life must remain the highest value for all nations in the world,” said Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and had relatives who were lost in the Holocaust.
In Italy, Holocaust commemorations included a torchlit procession alongside official statements from top political leaders.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said that her conservative nationalist government was committed to eradicating antisemitism that she said had been “reinvigorated” amid the Israel-Hamas war. Meloni’s critics have long accused her and her Brothers of Italy party, which has neofascist roots, of failing to sufficiently atone for its past.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jews and Muslims from the country and from abroad gathered in Srebrenica to jointly observe Holocaust Remembrance Day, and to promote compassion and dialogue amid the Israel-Hamas war.
It was organized by the center preserving the memory of Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust — the massacre in 1995 of more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks in Srebrenica in Bosnia’s interethnic war.
The event underscored the message that the two communities share the experience of persecution and must stay united in their commitment to peace.
New York law Prof. Menachem Rosensaft told The Associated Press on the eve of his participation in the Srebrenica commemoration that this year’s observances were especially important. He said that’s because they come just months after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, which became the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
“We need to bring people together and find common ground,” said Rosensaft, the son of Holocaust survivors.
“To make sure it doesn’t happen again, this has to become the conscience of the world.”