Leaders speak against antiSemitism
OSWIECIM: The presidents of Israel and Poland yesterday called for greater efforts to combat antiSemitism as the world marked 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp amid concerns over a resurgence of antiJewish prejudice.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in the camp’s gas chambers or from starvation, cold and disease.
‘‘Our duty is to fight antiSemitism, racism and fascist nostalgia, those sick evils that . . . threaten to eat away at the foundations of our democracies,’’ Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said at a venue near the former camp, which is now a museum.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, who did not attend Israel’s national Holocaust Memorial last Thursday because he was not allowed to speak, thanked Rivlin for his presence at Auschwitz.
‘‘This presence is a sign of remembrance, it is a visible sign of opposition to inhuman treatment, hatred, against all forms of hate, especially racist hate,’’ Duda said.
Set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940, Auschwitz became the largest of the extermination centres where Adolf Hitler’s plan to kill all Jews, the ‘‘Final Solution’’, was put into practice.
It was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945.
During a sombre ceremony at the gate to the camp, Duda spoke of the chilling efficiency of the Nazis’ genocidal plan.
‘‘For years the factory of death operated at full capacity. Smoke was rising from the chimneys, the transports were rolling. People walked and walked in their thousands to meet their death,’’ he told a gathering that included several dozen ageing survivors, German President FrankWalter Steinmeier and French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. — Reuters