More than 200 survivors join world leaders at Auschwitz commemoration

Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered alongside communal and political leaders from across the world on Monday, for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of its liberation.

In all, some 200 survivors of the camp were expected, many of them elderly Jews and non-Jews who have travelled from Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere.

Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but were being joined by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.

Some visited the site, now a memorial museum, on the eve of the anniversary.

When asked by reporters for their reflections, they were eager to share their stories, hopeful that their message will spread.

Sadiq Khan with survivor Hannah Lewis at Auschwitz

“We would like that the next generation know what we went through, and it should never happen again,” said 91-year-old David Marks, his voice cracking.

He lost 35 members of his immediate and extended family after they all arrived in Auschwitz from their village in Romania.

“A dictator doesn’t come up from one day to the other,” Mr Marks said, saying it happens in “micro steps.”

“If we don’t watch it, one day you wake up and it’s too late,” he added.

Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, with his wife Elke Buedenbender, lays a wreath at the Death Wall at the Auschwitz I Nazi death camp. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Most of the 1.1 million people murdered at the camp were Jewish, but among those imprisoned there were also Poles and Russians, and they will also be among those at a commemoration on Monday led by Polish president Andrzej Duda and the head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder.

Also in attendance were Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl and Chief Executive, Gillian Merron.

Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl (@BoDPres) together with @MayorofLondon, Sadiq Khan and @WJC President Ronald Lauder at today's ceremony at Auschwitz on #HMD2020 #WeRemember pic.twitter.com/64NoRr5MKA

— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) January 27, 2020

Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl (@BoDPres) together with Board of Deputies CEO Gillian Merron and the @MayorofLondon, Sadiq Khan, at today's ceremony at Auschwitz on #HMD2020 #WeRemember pic.twitter.com/1ADbNx6VFy

— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) January 27, 2020

Some of the Polish survivors walked with Mr Duda through the camp’s gate wearing striped scarves that recalled the prison garb they wore more than 75 years ago.

Among those attending Monday’s observances at Auschwitz were German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Israeli president Reuven Rivlin.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda walks along with survivors through the gates of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, .(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Mr Rivlin recalled the strong connection that Israel shares with Poland, which welcomed Jews for centuries.

“The glorious history of the Jews in Poland, the prosperity of which the Jewish community has enjoyed throughout history, along with the difficult events that have taken place on this earth, connect the Jewish people and the State of Israel, inextricably, with Poland and the Polish people,” Mr Rivlin said while standing alongside Mr Duda.

London mayor Sadiq Khan was guided through the camp by museum director Piotr Cywinski and viewed a plaque that includes the name of his city after it recently pledged a contribution of £300,000 for the site’s preservation.

A true honour to meet Holocaust survivors & Londoners Renee Salt and Hannah Lewis today. The suffering experienced here & in other camps is beyond comprehension. We must never stop telling their stories and the millions like them, in our fight to end the scourge of anti-Semitism. pic.twitter.com/PMDy8NqacA

— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) January 27, 2020

On the eve of the commemorations, survivors, many leaning on their children and grandchildren for support, walked through the place where they had been brought in on cattle cars and suffered hunger and illness and came close to death.

They said they were there to remember, to share their histories with others, and to make a gesture of defiance toward those who had sought their destruction.

For some, it is also the burial ground for their parents and grandparents, and they will be saying kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

“I have no graves to go to and I know my parents were murdered here and burned. So this is how I pay homage to them,” said Yvonne Engelman, a 92-year-old Australian who was joined by three more generations now scattered around the globe.

She recalled being brought in from a ghetto in what was then Czechoslovakia by cattle car, being stripped of her clothes, shaved and put in a gas chamber.

People arrive for commemorations at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

By some miracle, the gas chamber that day did not work, and she later survived slave labour and a death march.

A 96-year-old survivor, Jeanette Spiegel, was 20 when she was brought to Auschwitz, where she spent nine months.

“Young people should understand that nothing is for sure, that some terrible things can happen and they have to be very careful. And that, God forbid, what happened to the Jewish people then should never be repeated,” she said.

In Paris, French president Emmanuel Macron paid his respects at the city’s Shoah Memorial and warned about rising hate crimes in France, which increased 27% last year.

“That antisemitism is coming back is not the Jewish people’s problem: It’s all our problem… it’s the nation’s problem,” Mr Macron said.