Holocaust survivor Mordechai Ronen is overcome by emotions standing next to the President of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder (R) as he arrives at the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim on January 26, 2015. PHOTO: AFP
Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, ageing survivors and dignitaries gather at the site synonymous with the Holocaust on Tuesday to honour victims and sound the alarm over a fresh wave of anti-Semitism.
On the eve of the landmark event, which is expected to draw several heads of state, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hollywood mogul Steven Spielberg were among those to highlight the violence against Jews in modern-day Europe.
Merkel said it was a "disgrace" that Jews in Germany faced insults, threats or violence, as she joined survivors Monday in Berlin observing 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Red Army.
Spielberg pointed to what he termed "the growing effort to banish Jews from Europe" amid a rise in anti-Semitism on the continent underscored by the deadly attack on a Jewish Kosher grocery in Paris earlier this month.
Awarded an Oscar for the Holocaust drama "Schindler's List", Spielberg - who has also videotaped the testimony of 58,000 survivors - met with hundreds of them, mostly in their nineties, in Krakow, southern Poland.
The meeting came ahead of today's ceremonies at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau site in nearby Oswiecim.
Royals from Belgium and The Netherlands are expected to be in attendance, as are more than a dozen presidents and prime ministers from across the globe.
French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko are to participate, but Russia, the United States and Israel have chosen to send lower-ranking representatives.
The Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz -- a former aide to Saint Pope John Paul II -- will be there on behalf of the Holy See.
Also attending is Celina Biniaz, elegant at 83, who was among the 1,200 Jews who escaped Auschwitz by being place on Oskar Schindler's famous list.
As a child she left death camp to work in a nearby factory run by the German industrialist.
"I so wish they would settle that problem in the Middle East because I so believe that it has a definite impact on what's happening with anti-Semitism all over Europe," said Biniaz, who came from California for the ceremonies.
"The Muslims have been disenfranchised and their young have no hope for the future, so they are desperate and it sounds glamorous for them to join things like ISIS," she said, referring to the Islamic State group that has captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
For survivor David Wisnia, his return to Auschwitz is bringing on nightmares and flashbacks for the first time.
"It's a lifetime ago really," the 88-year-old said.
"Last night sleeping... here, I had a horrible dream and woke up and looked out the window and sort of thought that I was back in Birkenau in cell block 14 where I started in 1942," he told journalists ahead of Tuesday's ceremonies. A choir boy as a child at Warsaw's Great Synagogue, which was blown up by Nazi forces in 1943, Wisnia will sing a memorial prayer in Hebrew on Tuesday.
"I pray to God that we as human beings are able to learn something from it," he said.
Part of Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler's genocide plan against European Jews, dubbed the "Final Solution", Auschwitz-Birkenau operated in the then-occupied southern Polish town of Oswiecim between June 1940 and January 1945.
Of the more than 1.3 million people imprisoned there, some 1.1 million - mainly European Jews - perished, either asphyxiated in the gas chambers or claimed by starvation, exhaustion and disease.
In all, the Nazis killed six million of pre-war Europe's 11 million Jews.
COMMENTS (12)
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@Toba Alu: Dear Toba, I will not reply to your doubtful narratives again and I can only hope you will stay away from me. However, a final point. You have accused me of deviating from the main topic, whereas you have both expanded and gone off topic by mentioning Richard Thurlow, George Orwell and even gone back and delved into two and a half thousand years old Greek mythology. Then you really went off topic by discussing persecution of Jewish people, which I am not denying. Double standards I am afraid, and you obviously do not wish to accept that the German people suffered dreadfully during and after WWII. You just downplay any facts which highlight that suffering, as well as doing putdowns on the few brave academics who risk their careers by explaining what they have determined actually happened. Incidentally, Colonel E F Fisher, Senior Historian of US Military History, who was involved in a 1945 investigation stated that the James Bacgue you mentioned wrote an accurate portrayal of what happened in regard to Eisenhower's inflicted genocide of German troops. EU: You have been quite patient and I can understand if you do not wish to print this missive. It has been going on too long
@John Marsh: I indeed did not read Douglas Reed's books. Lucky me. Here is just a quote about this anti-semite. "Richard Thurlow noted that Reed was one of the first antisemitic writers to deny Hitler's extermination of the Jews. In a review of Reed's Lest We Regret written in 1943, George Orwell compared Reed, with his unheeded early warnings about the Nazis, to the Greek mythological figure Cassandra. Orwell noted Reed dismissed the Nazis' persecution of German Jews, and even the pogroms, as just "propaganda."
This says enough about your credentials Mr. Marsh.
@John Marsh: and @Sexton Blake Like I said your conflating issues, refering to issues not at hand, we are talking about 18 Rheinwiesenlager if you want I can name them. What are you talking about: stolen lands sorry they are in Poland, nothing to do with the subject matter (near the river Rhein), 169 cities raised to the ground, that is NOT where we are talking about. Russian Bolshevic Jewish ....sorry we are talking about 18 Lager. Verstehen Sie was Lager bedeutet? The bombing of Dresden yes terrible, but that is not where we are talking about. Both of you are not talking about the subject under scrutiny, precisely what I said. World Trade Center that is not what we are talking about. Smoking Drunk Churchill that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about Mr. Sexton Blake's claim that millions of POW were killed in 18 Lager near the river Rhine. Btw this Canadian historian is James Bacgue and his research methods after so many years after the facts have been discarded. Please stay on topic, the war was atrocious but that is not what we discuss here. Mr. Blake all the time makes claims and conflates, deviates finally ending with a Prof talking about World Trade Center debris that is how you debate. Your claims about these Lager are false and not even one Neo Nazi supports your claim, that says enough, I guess.
@Toba Alu: Records show that a minimum of one point eight million Germans Died in Eisenhower's Rhine Meadows death camps and some estimates run as high as two point two million! Your attempts to revise history are quite simply ridiculous! That is on top of the despicable treatment from the red army who slaughtered even greater numbers than Eisenhower! The German population living in stolen lands (Poland) ala the post world war one Versailles treaty bore the brunt of the Russian Bolshevik Jewish invasion. It was 1948 before Germany was allowed even basic essential supplies by the allies, the four power agreement still runs Germany, Germany is still designated as an occupied enemy nation. 169 German towns and Cites were raised to the ground in what is now euphemistically called thousand bomber raids which actually consisted of three thousand bombers in three waves on civilian populations what these had to do with the war effort no one has yet satisfactorily explained. oh and by the way the third American wave of bomber hit these towns between seven and nine am to maximize rescuer and school children's deaths! Quote from the obese Cigar smoking Drunk Churchill "We are going to give Mr Hitler his war whether he wants it or not" You really need to read Douglas reed's books on the History of WWII
@Toba Alu: There are several links I could send which completely refute your incorrect explanation of the many allied death camps, but you will just give another ridiculous rejoinder, and downplay the actual horrific events. Unfortunately, the victors always write history, and WWII is no exception. Thus, any academic who attempts to write the truth about how millions of Germans were slaughtered, raped, or treated appallingly, has been sidelined, denigrated, fired, sent to prison, or worse. However, there are a few brave souls who are resurrecting the truth, and despite people like you the truth is slowly staring to emerge. You also should be aware that in most western countries complex legislation is in place to ensure compliance. As a result most media outlets tend to be very circumspect when controversy rears its head, and the average person plays it safe by saying nothing. This of course allows people like you to knowingly espouse unsafe, but approved nonsense or live in ignorance of the actual facts. You did not name the Canadian historian so I cannot reply to that little gem. However, and arguably, perhaps the only Western country in the world where academics can speak the truth on controversial matters without fear of going to prison is the US due the 1st Amendment. Even then, can you imagine a Harvard Professor going public in regard to Eisenhower death camps? For example, I recall Professor Steven Jones lost his job at Brigham University almost immediately when he discovered nano-thermite in the World-Trade-Center debris, and went public. The bottom line is that I and a few other hardy souls have to work hard to make the truth public, and if that entails being labelled conspiracy theorists, by certain interest groups attempting to hide the truth, so be it. In the meantime I am grateful to publications such as ET which allows minority views, such as mine, to be printed. .
@Sexton Blake: I am only refering to your claim in your first comment that millions POWs died in the Rhine Meadow camps. Official estimates are between 3000 and maximum 10000. There is only one Canadian historian who claims that it could be maximum 1 million. His work has no credibilty according to most reknowned historians. So your claim of millions is utterly unikely, in common language it is false.
@Toba Alu: Dear Toba, It would appear that you are in fact suggesting that millions of WWII dead bodies are part of a conspiracy theory, but I make no such claim. Dreadful things happened in WWII on both sides and I do not deny it. In fact, just the reverse. However, you appear to be making mythical and personnel accusations as you go along, whereas I have made my position quite clear whilst remaining as impersonal and factual as possible. Another factor, in addition to the Rhine Meadow genocide, is the UK/US genocidal bombings of Germany and Japan which were quite clearly war crimes of the highest order. I know some of it because I have spoken to people from Dresden and Hamburg who survived the allied bombing campaign which knowingly targeted innocent civilian targets. Unfortunately in recent times, it has become fashionable to have selective memories, become emotional about some items and ignore others.
@Sexton Blake: Yes for sure you have been the only one to see what was under the lid and what did you find millions of dead bodies which nobody ever saw. A very credible conspiracy theory only known to Sexton Blake and a few survivors. That while claiming that Auschwitz was a small part of WWII. You are just too smart not to deny the holocaust, but you come close.
@Toba Alu: Dear Toba, I would prefer it if you went more deeply into the British/French/Eisenhower Rhine Meadow death camps, which resulted in the deaths of many young German POWs. The allies of WWII have tried to keep the lid on this problem for nearly 70 years. There are still a few of those who survived still alive and now is the time to resurrect those dreadful murders. Unfortunately, I do not think it will happen. It is a little like President Obama who when pressed about widespread US torture camps stated: "yes we have tortured a few folk". This may help you?
@Sexton Blake: As usual you distort facts. Of the 1.3 millions of German POWs who died in camps after the war 1.2 million died in the USSR. Every time you write I will not go to deeply into a subject a pack of distortions follows. Twisted mind.
I will not go to deeply into the Auschwitz facility which was a very small part of WWII. However, for various reasons it does receive much media attention, whereas the many US/French/UK camps which held German POWs after the war, and resulted in the deaths of millions never gets a mention. The Auschwitz facility was well built, but the allied camps referred to as the Rhine Meadow Camps were just open fields closed off by barbed wire. There were no toilet facilities or protection from severely cold, inclement weather, and dietary supplies per person were appallingly small. As a result death from hunger, ill treatment, hypothermia and disease was a daily routine event for several years.