Survivors of the Nazi's notorious Auschwitz death camp are taking center stage at the memorial service to mark 80 years since its liberation by Soviet troops.
Auschwitz survivors have warned of the rising antisemitism and hatred in the modern world as they gathered with world leaders and European royalty on the 80th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation.
The house, until this year, had always been in private hands. A U.S.-based group, the "Counter Extremism Project," has purchased it. Now, in conjunction with the Auschwitz Museum and UNESCO, they have created "The Auschwitz Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalisation." The home is now open to the public for the first time.
Auschwitz concentration camp is a symbol of the Holocaust in southern Poland, one of the most trying moments in human history.
By Barbara Erling and Kuba Stezycki OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) -Auschwitz survivors were being joined by world leaders on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops,
“God suffered a great deal in every single person who was here. God suffered a great deal in this place,” Cardinal Rys added.
Silence pervades the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau today. Sometimes the only sounds are the soft footsteps of visitors, people who come from all over the world to mourn and to learn, and the voices of their guides speaking in hushed tones into microphones trying to explain the ungraspable.
In just over four-and-a-half years, Nazi Germany systematically murdered at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, built in the south of occupied Poland near the town of Oswiecim. Auschwitz was at the centre of the Nazi campaign to eradicate Europe's Jewish population, and almost one million of those who died there were Jews.
In all, the Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews from all over Europe, annihilating two-thirds of Europe's Jews and one-third of all Jews worldwide. In 2005, the United Nations designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“It doesn’t do any good for your heart, for your mind, for anything,” said Holocaust survivor Jona Laks, 94, about her return to Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Education is essential in honoring Holocaust survivors, remembering victims and preventing history from repeating itself, speakers said at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration on Jan.