Beneath a white marquee erected in front of the gate to the former Nazi death camp, four former inmates - the youngest aged 86, the oldest 99 - warned world leaders yesterday, the 80th anniversary of its liberation, against the danger of rising antisemitism.
Tova Friedman, 86, was five when she came to the camp but said her memories were still "so vivid". She recalled "the cries of desperate women", the "terrible stink" of the chimneys, six and seven-year-olds led shoeless through the snow to gas chambers.
"We are here to proclaim... that we can never, ever allow history to repeat itself," she said. But eight decades after the camp's liberation, she said, "our JewishChristian values are once more overshadowed by prejudice, fear, suspicion, extremism".
With nationalist and far-right parties advancing across Europe and disinformation increasingly distorting the history of the Holocaust, this year's anniversary carried special weight.
Memories of one of humanity's worst atrocities are fading.
In front of one of the freight wagons that carried people here like cattle, Marian Turkli, 98, condemned a "huge rise" in antisemitism and called for "courage" against Holocaust minimisers and conspiracy theorists.
Leon Weintraub, 99, who managed to sneak out of Auschwitz by joining a group of prisoners working outside the camp, urged vigilance against a resurgent European far right with its ideology of "hostility and resentment" against all who are different.
This story is from the January 28, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the January 28, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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