Survivors and World Leaders Gather to Commemorate 80th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation

Between 1940 and 1945, Nazi troops murdered an estimated 1.1 million people at Auschwitz in southern Poland. The majority of the victims were Jews, though tens of thousands of Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and victims of other nationalities also perished.

The killing at Auschwitz stopped on January 27, 1945, the day the Red Army liberated the concentration camp. When Soviet soldiers arrived, they found roughly 7,000 emaciated prisoners, piles of human corpses, gas chambers, crematories and other evidence of the horrors that had taken place there.

Auschwitz, a complex of three main camps and more than 40 subcamps, was the site of the largest mass murder in human history. After the war, it became an enduring symbol of the Holocaust.

On Monday, Auschwitz survivors and world leaders gathered to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. They met in the Polish town of Oswiecim at the site of the former death camp, which is now a museum and memorial.

Auschwitz survivors commemorate 80th anniversary of its liberation – watch live

Britain’s Charles III, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and French President Emmanuel Macron attended the ceremony, as did Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The United States also sent a delegation, per the New York Times’ Andrew Higgins.

Auschwitz survivors also participated in the commemoration. Many are now in their 90s, and experts expect this to be one of the last times they convene.

“In five years, there will be very few left,” Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and chairman of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation, tells the Times. “And those who are still alive won’t have the energy to go.”

The number of survivors grows smaller each year. Some 200 attended the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation in 2020. This year, only 56 survivors made it, reports the Associated Press’ Vanessa Gera.

Returning to Auschwitz “doesn’t do any good for your heart, for your mind, for anything,” said Jona Laks, 94, who was brought to the camp when she was about 12 years old, to CNN’s Sophie Tanno and Lauren Kent.

“But it’s necessary,” Laks added. “It’s necessary for the world to know.”

Attendees placed candles in front of the camp’s Wall of Death before gathering under a large tent erected for the occasion. They sat facing an empty train car the Nazis had used to transport victims to Auschwitz.

The ceremony included music by James Simon, a German-Jewish composer who was murdered at the camp, as well as Józef Kropiński, a Polish musician who was sent to Auschwitz but ultimately survived. Many attendees wore blue and white scarves, “a nod to the clothes worn by the prisoners in the camp,” as BBC News’ Jamie Whitehead, Matt Spivey and Paul Kirby report. Most of the speakers were survivors.

“The world has become toxic,” Tova Friedman, who was brought to Auschwitz when she was 5 years old, told the AP before the ceremony. “I realize that we’re in a crisis again, that there is so much hatred around, so much distrust, that if we don’t stop, it may get worse and worse. There may be another terrible destruction.”

Leon Weintraub, a 99-year-old Auschwitz survivor, also warned against the “enemies of democracy.” During the ceremony, he encouraged “young people to be sensitive to all expressions of intolerance and resentment towards those who are different,” as reported by the Guardian’s Jakub Krupa.

Also on Monday, the former home of Auschwitz’s Nazi leader, Rudolf Höss, opened to the public. The house, which was featured in the film The Zone of Interest, is adjacent to the former death camp. It was purchased by the Counter Extremism Project, an international organization that aims to fight extremism and antisemitism.

“This house has been closed off for 80 years to humanity,” said Mark Wallace, the group’s CEO and the former American ambassador to the United Nations, to the London Times’ Magnus Linklater. “Remember the poor souls who were marched to Gas Chamber No. 1 and Crematory No. 1, a football pitch away. They always saw this ordinary house, a paradise to its occupants, but always beyond their reach.”