Holocaust Memorial Day: Survivors Return to Auschwitz, Warn of Forgotten Lessons
As the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is marked, survivors, now in their 80s and 90s, are reflecting on the horrors they endured during their time in the camp. Holocaust survivor Jona Laks, 94, described her experience as "absolutely impossible to understand" and "necessary for the world to know."
Laks was just 12 years old when she and her twin sister, Miriam, were sent to the camp. They were subjected to inhumane medical experiments by SS physician Josef Mengele and were initially lined up to be murdered in gas chambers. Laks believes that as time passes, the lessons of the Holocaust are being forgotten, and the world has not learned from its history.
Michael Bornstein, who survived for seven months inside Auschwitz as a child, described returning to the site as "not easy." World leaders, including King Charles, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and French President Emmanuel Macron, are gathering in Poland to mark the anniversary of the camp’s liberation, but instead of speaking, the event will focus on the voices of survivors.
All of Auschwitz’s remaining survivors are invited to the commemorations, which include a freight train car dedicated to the memory of the approximately 420,000 Hungarian Jews who were deported to Auschwitz. The United Nations declared January 27 as International Holocaust Memorial Day in 2005, which is observed annually to mark the liberation of Auschwitz and remember the six million Jews who lost their lives under the Nazis.
The event comes at a time of rising antisemitism in Europe, fueled by conflict in the Middle East and a surge in Islamophobic incidents across the continent. Holocaust Memorial Day is seen as an opportunity for shared commemoration and global reflection, as well as a warning about the need to remember and learn from the past.