On Holocaust Remembrance Day, survivors mark Auschwitz liberation
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oswiecim, poland | Bundled tightly against the cold and snow, some elderly Auschwitz survivors on Jan. 27 walked among the barracks and watchtowers of Auschwitz and Birkenau, many clad in scarves bearing the gray and blue stripes of their Nazi prison garments decades ago.
Some 150 Auschwitz survivors and European leaders were on hand for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Poland, one of scores around the world marking the global day of commemoration established by the United Nations in 2005.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among those gathered to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“From this damned land of Auschwitz and Birkenau and the other death camps rise the voices of millions of our brothers and sisters of our people who were suffocated, burned and tortured in a thousand different and unusual deaths,” he told the crowd.
President Barack Obama, in a video message, thanked survivors for finding “the strength to come back again, so many years later, despite the horror you saw here, the suffering you endured here, and the loved ones you lost here.”
Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski recalled the pain of the Polish nation, which was occupied by Nazi Germany throughout the war, but also acknowledged the unique suffering of Jews at that time.
In other commemorations, German-born Pope Benedict XVI spoke at the Vatican of “the horror of crimes of unheard-of brutality that were committed in the death camps created by Nazi Germany.”
In Hungary, government officials promised to pursue efforts to criminalize Holocaust denial and drew parallels between the rise of pro-Nazi groups in the 1930s and the current strengthening of far-right parties. “The struggle against extremists begins with remembrance,” said Csaba Molnar, head of the prime minister’s office. Historians say about a third of those killed in Auschwitz were Hungarians. — ap
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01/29/2010 at 04:52 PM
No event in human history has been studied as thoroughly and carefully than the Holocaust. Thousands of thesis and dissertations papers have poured over all of the evidence, from anecdotal testimony to captured German war documents. Virtually every historian with a PhD in European History agrees that millions of Jews were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany. One can no more “revise” this fact than one can revise the existence of gravity. Captured German documents alone account for enough evidence to convict Nazi Germany of mass genocide in any civil (not Islamic) court. You can suggest that 5.6 million Jews were killed, instead of six million. But, you cannot deny that millions of innocent Jews were murdered. The Wansee Conference planned the killing. Nazi concentration camp records prove that it was carried out.
Whenever we stand up to those who deny or minimize genocide we send a critical message to the world. As we continue to live in an age of genocide and ethnic cleansing, we must repel the broken ethics of our ancestors, or risk a dreadful repeat of past transgressions. We know from captured German war records that millions of innocent Jews were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany - most in gas chambers. These facts have been proven repeatedly through countless thesis and dissertation research papers. Virtually every PhD in the world will stake their career on the veracity of known Holocaust facts. Despite this knowledge, Holocaust deniers ply their mendacious poison everywhere, especially with young people on the Internet. Such deniers have only one agenda - to distort the truth in a way that promotes antagonism against the object of their hatred, or to deny the culpability of their ancestors and heroes.
Museums and mandatory public education are tools to dispel bigotry, especially racial and ethnic hatred. Books, films and presentations can reinforce the veracity of past and present genocides. They help to tell the true story of the perpetrators of genocide; and they reveal the abject terror, humiliation and degradation resulting from prejudice. It is therefore essential that we disclose the factual brutality and horror of genocide, combating the deniers’ virulent, inaccurate historical revision. We must protect vulnerable future generations from making the same mistakes.
A world that continues to allow genocide requires ethical remediation. We must show the world that religious, racial, ethnic, gender and orientation persecution is wrong; and that tolerance is our progeny’s only hope. Only through such efforts can we reveal the true horror of genocide and promote the triumphant spirit of humankind.
Charles Weinblatt
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