Auschwitz marks 80 years since liberation, potentially last with living survivors

Officials say the commemorative event marking the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation could be the last of its kind.

By HAGAY HACOHEN JANUARY 26, 2025 19:01 Updated: JANUARY 26, 2025 19:03

Auschwitz (photo credit: REUTERS)

Holocaust survivors, heads of state, and other dignitaries will gather Monday morning in Auschwitz-Birkenau to lay wreaths in memory of the roughly 1.1 million victims murdered in the Nazi death camp.

Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk will be present, as will British Monarch King Charles III, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, and Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch, among others.

Despite the inmates being liberated by the Soviet Red Army eight decades ago, no Russian delegation will participate due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.  

When entering the Auschwitz museum gate, guests will see the freight train car used to transport thousands of people to the camp, where most of them were murdered by gas and their bodies cremated. A minority was deemed fit for slave labor.

As the famous cynic slogan on the camp gate stated, Arbeit macht frei [Work Liberates], this so-called liberation often came as death. While Jews were the largest group of victims, Poles, Russian prisoners of war, Roma and Sinti, and homosexuals were also marked for destruction.   

The main tower at the entrance to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, covered under a large tent, stands illuminated during the official ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp on Jan. 27, 2020. (credit: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES)

The last of its kind

Hugo Lowy, a Romanian-Jewish man, was among those so “liberated.” He was beaten to death in May 1944 by SS men on the ramp after he refused to leave his tefillin and tallit behind. The car that transported him and others was preserved thanks to the support of his son, Australian businessman Frank Lowy, and will be the one visitors see.

The chilling reminder of how "German Nazis brought people here," Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Piotr Cywinski remarked, is important during a time we increasingly move away from the reality of the Second World War and part with its last living witnesses.

"This commemoration will be the last of its kind," Auschwitz survivor Michael Bornstein said, "we will be there. Will you stand with us?"

"I want to inform young people about the barbarism of yesterday to defend our democracy today", Holocaust survivor Simon Gronowski said. Now 93 years old, Gronowski jumped from the car that carried his mother and sister from Brussels to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.  

Bornstein and Gronowski will be joined by roughly fifty other survivors, Jews and non-Jews, in an effort to preserve and share history before it is too late.

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“It’s important survivors and delegation members interact,” Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation Director General Jack Simony told The Jerusalem Post.

The foundation maintains the sole surviving synagogue in Oświęcim, now at the Oshpitzin Jewish Museum. On Monday, survivors and visitors will recite the morning prayers together before they take part in the commemoration events.

This delegation includes the philanthropist Robert Frederick Smith, CNN host Van Jones, and Rev. Carl Day, among others.  

“This is a Black-Jewish solidarity trip,” Simony told the Post about this year’s AJC delegation.

He emphasized the importance of building bridges between both communities, as they share a long history of oppression and leading the fight to end it.

“I was not aware how deep Polish-Jewish connections really are,” Simony added, noting the profound work done by AJC director in Poland Tomasz Kuncewicz and others who devote their lives to the study of the Holocaust and preserving the Jewish legacy in that country.    

Polish television (TVP) will offer live coverage of the day-long events with a rich program. It includes interviews with Polish survivor Stanisław Zalewski, a 99-year-old former inmate of Gusen concentration camp in Austria, Lord Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer.

TVP General Director Tomasz Sygut emphasized that this is "the last milestone anniversary" with Holocaust survivors.

Glazer’s film depicts the seemingly ideal lives of Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his family, who live “as the führer wanted” on the land conquered by the Reich in the east. It is built on the often-repeated warning by Hannah Arendt about “the banality of evil.” The idea Nazi crimes were possible due to the high degree of separation between the vile murders and the people who benefited from them.