Ceremonies mark liberation of Auschwitz

WARSAW: The world has marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day amid signs that younger generations know less and less about the genocide of Jews, Roma and others by Nazi Germany during World War 2.

As survivors of Auschwitz marked the 74th anniversary of the notorious death camp’s liberation, a farright activist who served time in prison for burning an effigy of a Jew placed a wreath there with about 50 other Polish nationalists to protest the official observances.

Piotr Rybak said the group opposed the annual ceremony, claiming it glorified the one million Jewish victims killed at the AuschwitzBirkenau death complex and discounted the 70,000 Poles killed there.

‘‘It’s time to fight against Jewry and free Poland from them!’’ Rybak said as he marched to the site.

Rybak’s claim is incorrect — the ceremony at the memorial site paid homage, as it does every year, to all the camp’s victims, both Jews and gentiles.

Former Auschwitz prisoners placed flowers at an execution wall at Auschwitz, paying homage before the arrival of the nationalists at the same spot.

They wore striped scarves that recalled their uniforms, some with the red letter ‘‘P,’’ the symbol the Germans used to mark them as Poles.

Auschwitz was later transformed into a mass killing site, operating until the liberation by Soviet forces on January 27, 1945.

In Germany, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned that across Europe, ‘‘farright provocateurs are trying to downplay the Holocaust.’’

‘‘We shall never forget. We shall never be indifferent. We must stand up for our liberal democracy,’’ Maas wrote.

The appearance by nationalists at Auschwitz comes amid a surge of rightwing extremism in Poland.

It is fed by a broader grievance many Poles have that their suffering during the war at German hands is little known abroad while there is greater knowledge of the Jewish tragedy.

However recent surveys show that knowledge of the atrocities during World War 2 is declining generally.

A new study released in recent days by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the Azrieli Foundation found that 52% of millennials in Canada cannot name even one concentration camp, and 62% of millennials did not know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

In Britain, a new poll by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust found that one in 20 adults in Britain do not believe the Holocaust took place. — AP

PHOTO: REUTERS Nationalists in action . . . Far right activists walk past the ‘‘Arbeit Macht Frei’’ gate at former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz, to pay tribute to Polish victims at the ‘‘death wall’’, during the ceremonies marking the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the camp and International Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day, in Oswiecim, Poland, yesterday.

PHOTO: REUTERS A survivor is seen at Auschwitz as he attends ceremonies marking the liberation of the camp and International Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day yesterday.