On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it's up to us to take on the mantle of remembrance
27 January 2025, 08:11 | Updated: 27 January 2025, 08:18
80 years ago Soviet soldiers opened the gates of a place that soon became synonymous with evil – Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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It is hard to imagine the scenes they stumbled upon. The camp had been a central point for the Jews of Europe to be sent – in cattle trucks, with barely any food or sanitation – from ghettos across the continent. On arrival, they stumbled out of the trucks stood on train tracks, were sorted into columns by Nazi doctors. Those who were too old, too young or too weak to work, were sent one way. Those who were deemed fit to work were sent another.
This is the moment that many parted from their loved ones forever.
Renee Salt, who was sent from the Lodz Ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau still remembers seeing her father jump down from the train. She describes how he disappeared into the crowd ‘as if into thin air, without a kiss or a goodbye.’ She was 15 years old
Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, talked about seeing his mother and sister walk towards the gas chamber; "Tzipora held my mother’s hand, I saw them disappear in the distance; my mother was stroking my sister’s fair hair, as though to protect her… I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever. I went on walking, my father held on to my hand."
In total approximately a million Jewish men, women and children were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In January 1945, as the war was turning against Germany, the camps in Eastern Europe began to be evacuated. At Auschwitz, the Nazis gathered prisoners together and they set off on foot towards other camps. Anyone who could not march was shot.
The exceptions were those who were too sick to march and children, mostly twins, who had been experimented on by the infamous Dr Mengele and so had avoided the gas chambers.
So when the Soviets arrived at the camp 80 years ago, they found very few prisoners left. But what they did find was children who had endured horrific, torturous abuse at the hands of the SS. They saw the remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. They saw the vast expanse that stretched as far as the eye can see, filled with barracks that had been designed as stables to hold horses but instead held thousands of prisoners.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. In the following months Allied forces liberated Jewish prisoners across Europe. In April 1945 the 11th Armoured Division of the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen and reporter Richard Dimbleby famously reported the painful truth of what they found. The world began to understand the enormity and depravity of the Holocaust; that what had happened to the Jews of Europe was something entirely unprecedented, that must never again be allowed to happen.
In the intervening years we have learnt more about what happened. The Holocaust has become embedded in the national consciousness; in schools the length and breadth of the country this period in history is taught about.
But what happened is rapidly fading from living memory. Soon there will be no one left who can say that they were there, no one who can share their personal story.
That is why events like today’s international commemoration at Auschwitz-Birkenau are so crucial. Today, world leaders - including His Majesty The King, who met Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg earlier this month – will stand alongside Holocaust survivors, sending a powerful message about the place their stories will always have in the fabric of our society. In London, the Prince of Wales will be surrounded by survivors as he speaks at the national commemorative event.
As survivors become older, fewer, frailer, and less able to tell their stories, they are relying on all of us to take on the mantle of remembrance.
Michael Bornstein, a survivor of Auschwitz, said ahead of today’s commemoration ‘nothing will be easy about returning to Auschwitz, 80 years after I was liberated. This commemoration will be the last of its kind. We will be there. Will you stand with us?’
I hope that today, as the commemoration is broadcast around the world, we all can stand with Michael, and we remember.
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Karen Pollock CBE is the chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust.
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