WARSAW, Poland (AP) – A Jewish prayer for the souls of people murdered in the Holocaust echoed Wednesday about where the Warsaw Ghetto stood during World War II, as a world interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic celebrated its 76th anniversary. of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Most of the International Holocaust Remembrance commemorations were held online this year due to the virus, including the annual ceremony at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp where Nazi German forces murdered 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial is closed to visitors due to the pandemic.
In one of the few live events, mourners gathered in Poland’s capital to pay their respects at a memorial in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of all ghettos where European Jews were held in brutal and deadly conditions before being sent to die in mass destruction. struggling.
From the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke of the need to commemorate the genocide that took place in World War II, and said it was a sign of humanity and a precondition for a peaceful future.
Francis also warned that distorted ideologies could lead to a repetition of mass murder on a gruesome scale. Recalling the Holocaust, he said, “also means realizing that these things can happen again, starting with ideological proposals that claim to save a people and ultimately destroy a people and humanity.”
Among those commemorating at home on Wednesday will be Polish-born Auschwitz survivor Tova Friedman, who arrived at the camp when she was 5 years old and 6 when she found herself among thousands of survivors who were liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 2020.
Friedman, now 82, attended the event in Auschwitz last year and had hoped to take her eight grandchildren there this year to help them better understand her experiences. But the pandemic prevented that.
From her home in Highland Park, New Jersey, she recorded a warning message about the rise of hatred, which will be part of a virtual celebration hosted by the World Jewish Congress.
The victims were commemorated and honored in different ways across Europe.
Hundreds of survivors in Austria and Slovakia were offered their first doses of a coronavirus vaccine in both a symbolic and life-saving gesture, given the threat of the virus to older adults. In Israel, about 900 Holocaust survivors died from COVID-19 of the 5,300 infected last year.
Israel, which has 197,000 Holocaust survivors, officially celebrates its Holocaust Remembrance Day in the spring. But events were also staged by memorial and survivor groups across the country, usually with virtually or no audience attendance.
Meanwhile, Luxembourg signed a deal on Wednesday to pay reparations and repay dormant bank accounts, insurance policies and looted art to Holocaust survivors.
Politicians and ordinary people alike took part in a World Jewish Congress campaign where people posted photos of themselves and #WeRemember. These will be shown later Wednesday on a screen in Auschwitz next to the gate and a cattle car, as victims were transported there.
The online nature of this year’s commemorations contrasts sharply with the events surrounding the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz last year, when some 200 survivors and dozens of European leaders and royalty gathered at the site of the former camp. It was one of the last major international gatherings before the pandemic canceled most of the major gatherings.
More than 1.1 million people were murdered by the German Nazis and their henchmen in Auschwitz, the most notorious in a network of murder sites in occupied Europe. The vast majority of the dead in Auschwitz were Jews, but others, including Poles, Roma, homosexuals, and Soviet prisoners of war, were also murdered.
In all, about 6 million European Jews and millions of other people were murdered by the Germans and their collaborators. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Although commemorations have first gone online, one constant is the drive of survivors to tell their stories as words of warning.
Rose Schindler, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor who originally came from Czechoslovakia but now lives in San Diego, California, has been speaking to school groups about her experiences for 50 years. Her story, and that of her late husband, Max, also a survivor, is also told in a book, “Two who survived: keeping hope alive and surviving the holocaust.”
After Schindler was transported to Auschwitz in 1944, she was selected more than once for immediate death in the gas chambers. She survived by escaping and joining work details each time.
The horrors she’s endured – the mass murder of her parents and four of her seven siblings, the hunger, the shaving, lice infestations – are hard to convey, but she has continued to talk to groups in recent months, only through Zoom.
“We have to tell our stories so it doesn’t happen again,” Schindler said from her home this week during a Zoom phone call. “It’s unbelievable what we’ve been through, and the whole world was silent while this was going on.”
Friedman says she believes her role is to “raise the alarm” about rising anti-Semitism and other hatred in the world, otherwise “another tragedy could happen.”
That hatred, she said, was evident when a mob inspired by former President Donald Trump attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Some insurgents wore clothing with anti-Semitic messages such as ‘Camp Auschwitz’.
“It was downright shocking and I couldn’t believe it. And I don’t know what part of America feels that way. I hope it is a very small and isolated group and not an ubiquitous feeling, ”Friedman said Monday.
In her recorded message to be aired Wednesday, Friedman said she compares the virus of hate in the world to COVID-19. She said the world today is witnessing “a virus of anti-Semitism, of racism, and if you don’t stop the virus, it will kill humanity.”
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Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.