On 75th Anniversary Of Auschwitz Liberation, Many Wonder If ‘Never Again’ Will Last Through The Ages
As the living memory of World War II and the Holocaust fades, the institutions created to guard against a repeat of such bloody conflicts, and such barbarism, are under increasing strain. “More and more we seem to be having trouble connecting our historical knowledge with our moral choices today,” said Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. It was a solemn day as survivors and others marked the anniversary of the liberation.
The New York Times:
75 Years After Auschwitz Liberation, Worry That ‘Never Again’ Is Not Assured
Even before the gas chambers were destroyed and the savage toll of years of industrialized mass murder revealed to the world, prisoners at the largest Nazi concentration camp were already repeating two words: Never again. But as the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz approaches, an occasion being marked by events around the world and culminating in a solemn ceremony at the former death camp on Monday that will include dozens of aging Holocaust survivors, Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, is worried. (Santora, 1/25)
Reuters:
Sorrow And Triumph, An Auschwitz Survivor's Journey Back To A Former Hell
Jona Laks could smell the burning flesh as she walked towards death at the Auschwitz crematorium. More than 75 years later, aged 90, she has returned to what was the most notorious Nazi death camp of World War Two's Jewish Holocaust. "I can see it now," she says, gazing upon the crematorium where the corpses of Jews from across Europe who were murdered in gas chambers were later burned in furnaces. (Lubell, 1/26)
The Associated Press:
Survivors Return To Auschwitz 75 Years After Liberation
Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered Monday for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, using the testimony of survivors to warn about the signs of rising anti-Semitism and hatred in the world today. In all, some 200 survivors of the camp are expected, many of them elderly Jews who have traveled far from homes in Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere. Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but today were being joined in their journey back by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. (Gera, 1/27)
Los Angeles Times:
On The Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary, A Survivor Returns A Fourth Time
Ralph Hakman thumbed through a display of books about the Holocaust on a table at the Jewish museum in Krakow, not far from where he was born. One was about Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death who performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz death camp. “Oh yes, I remember him,” Hakman said. (Kaleem, 1/26)
NPR:
75 Years After Auschwitz Liberation, Survivors Urge World To Remember
Alina Dabrowska was 20 years old when she first heard about Auschwitz. She was an inmate at a prison in Nazi-occupied Poland — incarcerated for helping Allied forces — and one day in 1943, while walking the grounds, a new arrival warned her about it." She said, 'You're all going to Auschwitz! Do you know what kind of camp that is?'" Dabrowska recalls. "She told us that if someone is out of strength, they were immediately killed. She told us many horrible things. None of us believed her." (Schmitz, 1/27)
