The solemn commemoration came amid a worldwide spike in antisemitism and new surveys suggesting basic knowledge of the Holocaust is eroding.
Lali Sokolov – better known as the Tattooist of Auschwitz, who was immortalised in the 2018 book that has sold more than 13 million copies in 40 languages – has done more to keep the horrors of the Second World War alive than most in recent memory.
Over 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, including nearly a million Jews. On the day of liberation 80 years ago, only 7,000 were saved.
World leaders rubbed shoulders with 56 survivors of Hitler's death camp as they marked 80 years since its liberation.
Ruth Cohen, a 94-year-old American Holocaust survivor, returned to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland for the first time. She recalled seeing family members before they were separated for the last time at the camp.
That creates risks: the Holocaust didn’t begin with mass murder. The dehumanization of Jews progressed gradually from public exclusion to eventual internment to finally extermination. Millions of regular Germans—and Europeans more broadly—facilitated or silently accepted these actions.
During World War II, men, women and children were transported from across Europe to Auschwitz-Birkenau, horrendous journeys in which they were packed into cramped cattle cars.
The ceremony is widely regarded as the last major observance likely to see a significant number of survivors in attendance.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the families of two survivors who resettled in Pittsburgh shared their stories.
Auschwitz survivors have warned of the rising antisemitism and hatred in the modern world as they gathered with world leaders and European royalty on the 80th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation.
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 Germany’s Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Friday and Saturday, the Los Angeles Ballet will present Melissa Barak’s Memoryhouse, about Jewish lives during the Holocaust