Last witnesses of the “catastrophe of humanity” which was conducted by the Nazis in World War II fell silent in prayer as they revisit site 80 years after liberation
Holocaust Memorial Day: Survivors pay respects at the Death Wall in Auschwitz
Shaky, red-eyed but determined, many holocaust survivors struggled to bend as they left candles in remembrance at the foot of the ‘Death Wall’ in Auschwitz this morning.
These are the last witnesses of the “catastrophe of humanity” which was conducted by the Nazis in World War II and they bravely returned to the scene of their nightmares to send a message to the world.
One elderly man wore the striped hat of his prisoner’s uniform, while another gripped the wall, where prisoners were exterminated, for support as he bent to lay his tribute to the dead. Others placed their palms flat in silent prayer on the recreated special cement and sawdust, which was used by SS guards to catch the firing squads’ bullets.
Among those to attend the ceremony was Holocaust survivor and former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner, Stanislaw Zalewski, aged 95, who describes the camp as a “hell that cannot leave a person”.
He was just 18 when he was arrested for underground activities and became a political prisoner. He painted Polish resistance symbols on walls. He has said previously that he returns to the “gates of hell” to teach the world the lessons of Auschwitz.
More than 50 Holocaust survivors arrived at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 80 years after it was finally liberated on January 27th 1945. Polish President Andrzej Duda said he was honoured to join the “last survivors” to lay their candles at the wall of death.
“Through this memory the world never again lets such dramatic human catastrophe happen and to be more precise, a catastrophe of humanity because representatives of one nation were able to cause such horrible unimaginable pain and harm upon other nations and especially upon the Jewish nation.
“…Today we are also seeing the last survivors coming to this site…It is a dreadful testimony of the extermination conducted by Nazis Germans… “May the memory of all the murdered live on, may the memory of all the dead live on, may the memory of all those who are suffering live on, may they rest in peace.”
Later today the survivors will be joined by King Charles, Emmanuel Macron of France and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.
The survivors who are now in their 80s and 90s have travelled to the site from all over the world, to the spot where 1.1 million people were murdered, the vast majority Jews.
They started their brave act of remembrance at the ‘Death Wall’ on Monday morning where the majority of executions by firing squad were carried out.
The wall sits in a red-bricked walled-off yard, next to Block 11, the deadliest of them all. Here condemned prisoners were stripped naked and then taken to the wall in pairs before being shot dead by the firing squad, many in the back of the head as they walked there.
Prisoners in the block next door could hear the shots and screams but had their own torment to endure as those still alive were kept in standing cells feet away, others were left to rot after being sentenced to death by starvation.
