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Survivors at centre of ceremony to mark Auschwitz 80th anniversary

Survivors and relatives place candles at the Wall of Death in memory of the victims during a ceremony at the former German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Delegations from over 40 countries are expected to attend the solemn ceremony, honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. (Oana Jaroslav/CTK/dpa/ZUMA Press/TNS)
Survivors and relatives place candles at the Wall of Death in memory of the victims during a ceremony at the former German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Delegations from over 40 countries are expected to attend the solemn ceremony, honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. (Oana Jaroslav/CTK/dpa/ZUMA Press/TNS)
German Press Agency dpa

WARSAW, Poland – Polish President Andrzej Duda remembered the victims of the Nazis at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site, as commemorations got under way on Monday to mark 80 years since the death camp was liberated towards the end of World War II.

“We Poles, on whose land occupied by Nazi Germany this extermination industry and this concentration camp were built, are today the guardians of memory,” Duda said.

At the start of the ceremony, Duda laid a wreath at the Death Wall, accompanied by former prisoners.

Thousands of prisoners were shot in front of the wall by Nazi SS soldiers.

Survivors lead ceremonies

More than 50 former prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps are taking part in the ceremonies. Four of them are to give a main speech in the afternoon.

Given their advanced age, it may be one of the last large ceremonies at which survivors can take part.

Delegations from 55 countries are attending the commemoration. Germany is represented by its two top politicians, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

A 91-year-old survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Pavel Taussig, is one of those accompanying Scholz and Steinmeier to the ceremonies.

Taussig was deported by Nazi German forces from Slovakia to the Auschwitz camp in German-occupied Poland in 1944, shortly before his 11th birthday.

He survived Auschwitz and a forced death march to the Mauthausen camp in Austria, where he was freed by advancing U.S. soldiers in May 1945.

Taussig, whose tattooed prisoner number is still clearly visible on his left forearm, said that he is only “grudgingly” returning to Auschwitz, “but I think it’s my duty.”

Warning over ‘populism and demagoguery’

On Jan. 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, located in modern-day Oświęcim, Poland.

The Nazis had murdered more than 1 million people there, predominantly Jews.

Since 1996, this date has been observed in Germany as Holocaust Memorial Day and in 2005 the United Nations declared the date an international day of remembrance.

Piotr Cywiński, head of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, said he expected the speakers to also address current issues in their speeches.

“With the phenomenal increase of populism, demagoguery and informational chaos these days, we need firm and clear points of reference, and their experiences are part of this,” Cywiński told the Polish Press Agency.

Message from Paris

French President Emmanuel Macron called for the fight against anti-Semitism to continue during a visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Paris on Monday.

“We will not give in to anti-Semitism in all its forms,” Macron wrote in the guest book, before leaving to attend a large commemoration event at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

“Let us never forget the millions of victims of the Shoah,” Macron said. “Let us fight tirelessly against anti-Semitism and hatred in the name of all those who perished. Let us be the memory of their memory,” he said.