The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Holocaust recalled amid new fears of intolerance
U.N. chief decries rise in extremism, xenophobia, racism.
Jewish WARSAW, POLAND — and Christian leaders prayed over the ruins of gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau as some warned on International Holocaust Remembrance Day of rising xenophobic hatred against Jews, Muslims and others.
Camp survivors gathered Friday with political leaders and representatives of Poland’s Jewish community at the site where Germany murdered about 1.1 million people during World War II, mostly Jews from across Europe, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others.
Poland’s Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who is from the Polish town where Auschwitz is located, Oswiecim, recalled the “destruction of humanity” and the “ocean of lost lives and hopes” that resulted from the German genocide.
Dozens of Auschwitz survivors began a day of commemorations by placing wreaths and flowers at the infamous execution wall on the 72nd anniversary of the camp’s liberation by Soviet soldiers.
The United Nations recognized Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005, and many commemorative events were held across the world.
“Tragically, and contrary to our resolve, anti-Semitism continues to thrive,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We are also seeing a deeply troubling rise in extremism, xenophobia, racism and anti-Muslim hatred. Irrationality and intolerance are back.”
In Germany, outgoing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his nation sticks by its obligation to take responsibility for the crimes committed by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler.
Noting the political instability in the world today, Steinmeier said, “History should be a lesson, warning and incentive all at the same time. There can and should be no end to remembrance.”
Rising far-right sentiments cast a shadow on some remembrance day events, including in Germany.
The Buchenwald concentration camp memorial rescinded an invitation to a prominent member of a nationalist party who suggested that Germany should stop atoning for its Nazi past.
Bjoern Hoecke, the leader of Alternative for Germany in the state of Thuringia, last week called Berlin’s Holocaust memorial a “monument of shame” and saying Germany should take a “positive” attitude toward its history.
The Jewish community in Croatia boycotted official commemorations, saying the country’s conservative government is not doing enough to curb pro-Nazi sentiments. The decision was made after authorities failed to remove a plaque bearing a World War II Croatian pro-Nazi salute from the town of Jasenovac — the site of a wartime death camp where tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma perished.
Elderly survivors at Auschwitz, which today is a museum and partially preserved memorial, paid homage to those killed by wearing striped scarves to symbolize the uniforms prisoners were given when they arrived at the concentration camp.
They made their way as a group to the execution wall, where they lit candles and prayed.