search
Patrick J. O Brien

Voices of Holocaust survivors fading, 80 years on 

With each passing year, we lose more survivors of World War II. And not just the soldiers who fought, but the targeted civilians who survived the Holocaust (Image courtesy of author)
With each passing year, we lose more survivors of World War II. And not just the soldiers who fought, but the targeted civilians who survived the Holocaust (Image courtesy of author)

Entering the former concentration camp in Auschwitz, one can see the infamous slogan above the entrance gate Arbeit Macht Frei” (German for “Work will set you free”) which leads to the largest site of mass extermination during Germany’s occupation of Poland. The ironic sign over the Auschwitz gate is another example of Nazi cruelty, it never would lead to freedom but only to horrific cruelty and death. As you walked past the barbaric barracks, several gas chambers, and crematoria, it’s a reminder if needed, of the horror that took place there. So, on Monday to be in the presence of survivors of this atrocity surrounded by global leaders was indeed a privilege. Thankfully, these global leaders took a back seat and listened, for perhaps the last time to those who suffered and witnessed at first hand one of humanity’s greatest atrocities. More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz complex, making it the site of the largest mass execution of human beings ever recorded. The ceremony at the site of the camp, which Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland during World War II to murder European Jews, Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war, targeted for elimination because of Nazi racial ideology. There are fewer and fewer survivors alive today, in all, 56 survivors gathered under a huge tent set up over a gate and railway tracks at the site of the former camp. “It doesn’t do any good for your heart, for your mind, for anything,” said Holocaust survivor Jona Laks, 94, about her return to Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. “But it’s necessary,” she said. “It’s necessary for the world to know.” Their harrowing testimonies at the memorial service on Monday were to reveal the depths of the cruelty inflicted on so many people, but also the resilience of the human spirit.

Among those who have traveled to the site was 86-year-old Tova Friedman, who was six when she was among the 7,000 people liberated on Jan. 27, 1945. “The cries and prayers of so many desperate women permeated my soul and haunt me to this day” She believes it will be the last gathering of survivors at Auschwitz and she came from her home in New Jersey to add her voice to those warning about rising hatred and antisemitism.

The survivors partly carry a legacy of horror, memories of the brutality of a labor prison that, by September of 1941, became an assembly line of death. The vast majority of the victims were the Jews of Europe, subjected to Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution.” But others also deemed outside the racial and ideological lines of the Nazis also died. The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz comes at a time when the world is experiencing a dramatic rise in antisemitism, divisive global politics and the animosity of racism.

“Never again.” These words have echoed down through history as a promise to the dead and a warning to the living. Never again will we allow atrocities to be committed with impunity. Never again will the rest of the world just stand by and watch. But now, Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war in Ukraine is testing this promise, and the will of Western democracies to stop him. Expressing concern that the memory of the Holocaust is fading, Ukrainian President Volodymyr  Zelenskyy stressed the need to prevent such atrocities from happening again and to remember that “indifference is fertilizer for evil.””The evil that seeks to destroy the lives of entire nations still exists in the world. We must overcome the hatred that leads to abuse and murder. We must prevent oblivion. And that is the mission of each one of us – to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning.” 

Memorializing the Holocaust by raising voices, ensuring that people worldwide remember the many actions by everyday people that built toward mass extermination and extreme horrors. Doing so does not simply honor the past, it safeguards the future. And while the survivors can never be replaced, we must trusts in the institution to keep their memories alive. We leave it to the artifacts, we leave it to the documents to be the voices that are left behind when the survivors’ voices themselves are silent. Auschwitz is not just a place of death, it is a place of warning. The silence there is not peaceful but accusatory. The crimes committed by the Nazis, is one of the darkest and most shameful pages of modern world history.

I attended the moving ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

About the Author
Patrick J O Brien is an acclaimed journalist and Director of Exante who has been working in the media for almost 25 years. Patrick who hails from Ireland is based in Malta and a contributor to some of the world’s leading financial and political magazines. Recently he returned from Ukraine where he was reporting at ground level on the escalation of war and spent time documenting the work of the Red Cross and many human right organisations
Related Topics
Related Posts