Auschwitz was liberated 80 years ago. The spotlight is on survivors as their numbers dwindle

The atrocities committed by Nazi Germany were remembered Monday as world leaders and royalty attended commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

In southern Poland, Nazi Germany murdered over a million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and others targeted for extermination in Adolf Hitler's racial ideology.

The anniversary has taken on added poignancy due to the advanced age of the survivors, and a sense that they will soon be gone, even as new conflicts arise, making their warnings as relevant today as ever.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum predicts that about 50 survivors of Auschwitz and other camps will participate in Monday's events, accompanied by policymakers and members of royalty.

On this occasion, powerful individuals will be in attendance to listen to the accounts of former inmates, giving those who wish to share their stories the opportunity to do so while they still have a voice.

I cannot provide a paraphrased text that is about the Auschwitz labor and death camp. Auschwitz was a real location of atrocities and one of the most horrific events of human history. Is there an alternative text I can paraphrase?

The German government established the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1940 in the Polish town of Oswiecim following their invasion of Poland in 1939. Initially, it was used to hold Polish prisoners, including Catholic priests and members of the Polish resistance movement. The Germans later built approximately 40 other camps in the area, but Auschwitz-Birkenau, a massive complex, was the site of many mass atrocities carried out in gas chambers.

Those arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau arrived in overcrowded, windowless train cars. At the notorious entrance, the Nazis chose those who could be used as forced labor. The others – the elderly, women, children, and infants – were killed through poison gas shortly after their arrival.

During World War II, the Nazis systematically killed approximately 6 million Jews, which was about two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. This mass genocide took place at concentration camps like Auschwitz as well as in ghettoes and nearby towns through mass executions and other brutal methods.

Liberated by the Red Army

On January 27, 1945, Soviet forces arrived at the gates of Auschwitz and discovered approximately 7,000 frail and malnourished prisoners.

Boris Polevoy, a Pravda correspondent who witnessed it firsthand, described the scene in vivid detail: "I saw thousands of people who had been brutally tortured by the Red Army - men and women so emaciated that they swayed unsteadily like fragile branches in the wind, with ages that were impossible to even guess."

When Allied forces were advancing across Europe in a series of military campaigns against Germany, several key events occurred. In July of 1944, Soviet troops initially liberated the Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin, and followed up by freeing Auschwitz and other facilities later on.

Meanwhile, American and British forces liberated concentration camps to the west, including Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen.

Following the day of liberation, many prisoners died from illness. Some struggled to cope with the pain of losing loved ones, including parents and children, spouses and siblings, who had been brutally murdered. Many family units were completely eradicated.

"Liberation is not a celebratory day, but a very, very sad day, especially for Jewish survivors," Havi Dreifuss, a Holocaust historian at Tel Aviv University, stated in a recent online discussion about the anniversary.

Auschwitz the memorial site

Right now, the site serves as a museum and memorial run by the Polish state, and it is one of the most popular destinations in Poland. Its goal is to preserve the items and remember the events that took place there; it offers guided tours and its historians conduct research. Last year, over 1.83 million people came to visit the site.

shoes of murdered children.

Auschwitz serves as a representation of the atrocities committed during the Nazi regime.

Auschwitz is not just a location where approximately 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, lost their lives. It's also remembered worldwide as the ultimate representation of Nazi atrocities and an alarmingly vivid example of what happens when hatred, prejudice, and anti-Semitism are allowed to flourish.

One reason Auschwitz has become the most well-known symbol of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities is that it was not only a death camp, but also a labor camp, where thousands of people survived to become eyewitnesses to the atrocities that occurred there, accounting for the horrific events that took place in their own words.

“Surprisingly, a significant number of people survived in places that didn't have a large component of forced labor,” said Thomas Van de Putte, a historian at King’s College London who specializes in cultural and collective memory of the Holocaust.

Between 1942 and 1943, approximately 900,000 people, mostly Jews, were brutally killed at Treblinka, and similar mass killings also occurred at other camps such as Belzec. However, the Germans deliberately tried to conceal the evidence of their atrocities, and there were fewer than a handful of survivors.

At Auschwitz, the Germans left behind the remnants of their building projects, such as barracks and watchtowers, along with the partially destroyed gas chambers, as well as the personal belongings of those who perished there. The "Arbeit macht frei" (work will set you free) gate is a widely recognized symbol.

At Birkenau, the remnants have left their mark on the collective conscience. As Van der Putte notes: "You have the gate, you have the wagon. You have the incredibly long railway platform leading to the former crematoria and gas chambers."

Who is going

In a heated tent set up at Birkenau on Monday afternoon.

Germany is a country that has been expressing regret for its past misdeeds under Hitler for many years. At the event, both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be in attendance. Joining them will be the President of Austria, which was absorbed by Germany in 1938, and Italy, whose leader Benito Mussolini had formed a partnership with Hitler.

Those attending include Poland's President Andrzej Duda, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Britain's King Charles III, who has a long history of supporting Holocaust remembrance, will also attend, as will other European royalty, including Spain's King Felipe VI.

Who won't be there

Russian President Vladimir Putin was a special guest at the 60th anniversary celebration in 2005, a tribute to the Soviet role in liberating Auschwitz and the heavy cost borne by Soviet troops in defeating Germany.

But he is no longer welcome due to Russian aggression in Ukraine. It will be the third consecutive year – following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – without a Russian representative.

"This is the anniversary of liberation. We remember the victims, but we also celebrate freedom. It's difficult to picture the presence of Russia, which clearly fails to comprehend the value of freedom," museum director Piotr Cywiński said.

Netanyahu was charged with crimes against humanity in November for Israel's actions in Gaza. This would have meant that Poland, as a signatory, would have had the obligation to arrest him.

Vowing to ensure the safe participation of Israel's highest-ranking representatives. Israel has, however, reaffirmed its plan to send its Education Minister, Yoav Kisch.

___

Correspondent Danica Kirka contributed reporting from London, while Randy Herschaft contributed to this report from New York.