“Be sensitive to all manifestations of intolerance” warn Auschwitz survivors on 80th anniversary of camp’s liberation

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

On Monday, world leaders gathered at the site of Auschwitz, Nazi Germany’s largest mass extermination camp, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its liberation. No politicians gave speeches at the ceremony. Instead, the focus was placed on the voices of camp survivors, 56 of whom attended the event.

In their speeches, the survivors mourned, remembered and honoured the camp victims, referred to current events in Gaza, delivered warnings from history, and also gave messages of strength and hope.

“There are only a handful of us left”: Marian Turski

“There are only a handful of us left,” said Auschwitz survivor Marian Turski, a 98-year-old Polish-Jewish historian and journalist, in the opening of his speech.

“That is why I believe we should turn our thoughts toward the overwhelming majority, toward those millions of victims who will never tell us what they experienced, what they felt, because they were swallowed up by the Shoah [the Hebrew term for the Holocaust].”

Turski also spoke of the current “significant rise in antisemitism” across the world and cited the courage of American historian and diplomat Deborah Lipstadt in fighting Holocaust denial.

“Let us not be afraid to show the same courage today when Hamas makes attempts to deny the massacre of 7 October [2023],” he said, referring to the Hamas attack on Israel that killed around 1200 people and involved the abduction of over 250 hostages.

In his speech, Turski also highlighted that for centuries, many different nations and ethnic groups have lived alongside each other and, while sometimes such coexistence has led to conflict, “there are fortunately positive experiences”.

He called on the world to “not be afraid to convince ourselves that problems can be resolved between neighbours”.

“To repeat, let us not be afraid to convince ourselves that it is necessary to have a vision not only of what is today, but of what will be tomorrow, what will be in a few decades’ time,” Turski concluded.

“What happened could happen again”: Janina Iwańska

Janina Iwańska, a 94-year-old Pole who was deported from Warsaw to Auschwitz following the city’s failed uprising, recalled the mixed feelings present in society after the end of the war.

“When the war ended in 1945, euphoria spread throughout the world because the world war was over. Everyone believed that the slogan ‘Never Again War’ meant there would never be another war, that we would be happy,” she said.

“However, there were people who foresaw that what had happened during the Second World War could quite possibly happen again, since people had become so inhumane that it was very likely to repeat itself,” she explained.

She finished her speech by quoting Polish essayist Jerzy Stempowski: “If Europe, devastated by these insanities, is to avoid catastrophe, its inhabitants must learn to better foresee the consequences of our actions. And they cannot ignore those who can.”

“I thought we would all have to die”: Tova Friedman

Tova Friedman, an 86-year-old Polish-born American-Jewish therapist and social worker, who is one of the youngest Auschwitz survivors, expressed her gratitude for being able to “together mourn, remember and honour the memory of our people,” and highlighted that “we are here to proclaim and pledge that we will never, never, ever allow history to repeat itself.”

“At the time we were victims in a moral vacuum. Today, however, we all have an obligation, not only to remember, but also to warn and to teach that hatred begets more hatred, and killing more killing,” she warned.

Friedman said that the Holocaust survivors’ “revenge has been to build a strong Jewish country and to raise our families in peace” but warned that “Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is fighting for its existence and its way of life”.

“We mourn not only the fallen soldiers and hostages but also the turbulence and mistrust in our society. We pray for strength, resilience and hope”, she added.

“We were relegated to disposable items”: Leon Weintraub

The last survivor to speak, 99-year-old Polish-born Swedish-Jewish doctor Leon Weintraub, had a message for future generations. “In today’s digital world, it is incredibly challenging to distinguish between genuine intentions and the pursuit of popularity,” he said.

“I appeal to all people of goodwill and in particular to young people. Be sensitive to all manifestations of intolerance and dislike of those who differ in terms of skin colour, religion or sexual orientation,” Weintraub continued.

Ending his speech, Weintraub thanked the management and staff of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for their work, highlighting that “allowing the memory of millions of innocent victims to fade would be equivalent to robbing them of their lives a second time”.

This year’s ceremony was attended by, among others, Polish President Andrzej Duda, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Israel was represented by Yoav Kisch, its education minister. Benjamin Netanyahu did not attend, despite the Polish government’s controversial decision to ignore the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister if he chose to visit Auschwitz.

It is estimated that at least 1.3 million people were transported to Auschwitz, with at least 1.1 million of them killed at the camp. Around one million were Jews, most of whom were murdered in gas chambers immediately after their arrival. Upon its liberation, around 7,000 prisoners were still held in the camp.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Muzeum Auschwitz

Agata Pyka

Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.