Auschwitz Liberated (1945)
Sat Jan 27, 1945
Image: Prisoners being led out of the Auschwitz gates, possibly a re-enactment taken a few weeks after January 27th. The motto “Arbeit macht frei” (English: “Work sets you free”) can be seen above the gate. [Wikipedia]
On this day in 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, the largest such complex during the Holocaust. In 2005, the United Nations named today as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
As Soviet forces approached the camp, Nazis attempted to evacuate prisoners from the camp and to destroy evidence of their atrocities. Approximately 56,000 inmates were forced on a “death march” west away from the camp through the Polish winter.
Around 15,000 prisoners (about 1 in 4) perished during their forced march, and, by the time the Soviets had arrived, only 9,000 remained on-site, monitored by a handful of remaining SS guards and staff.
The buildings themselves were left largely intact, along with large amounts of clothing, seized items, and human hair, alongside the dying prisoners left behind.
One Red Army general, Vasily Petrenko, is quoted as saying, “I who saw people dying every day was shocked by the Nazis’ indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons. I read about the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in various leaflets, but there was nothing about the Nazis’ treatment of women, children, and old men”.
Efforts were made to document the atrocities, and to hospitalize the remaining inmates. Auschwitz remained in use as an ad hoc facility for German POWs until the end of the war in Europe later that year.
Since 2005, the day has been marked annually by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating all those targeted and killed by the Third Reich, including around six million Jews and five million others.
- Date: 1945-01-27
- Learn More: www.smithsonianmag.com, en.wikipedia.org, www.ushmm.org.
- Tags: #Fascism.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org
I grew up with one of the 9000 who survived those death marches, being a kind of foster-gran to me (some of my biological, and step, grandparents survived their own ordeals, but not in Auschwitz. Either way, it is not a surprise that none of them were really up for the job of being loving cuddly grandparents, or raising loving cuddly parents to be, and needed to share the task with others).
She was only 12 at the time, and watched her mother, who she was separated from when they arrived at the camp and never expected to see again, die on the side of a snowy road. She herself only survived that long because the Nazis found her attractive enough to keep around and abuse.
Actually visiting the place made me physically ill, and it still pops up in my nightmares.
On a less personal note, there are of course a lot of worthwhile and important documentaries to watch about the holocaust and Auschwitz in particular, do, but if you only watch one, I think The US and the Holocaust is the most relevant to our times that I have seen in a very very long time, and if it were up to me it would be compulsory viewing for everyone as soon as they are old enough to understand.
Another that comes to mind is Night Will Fall which contains footage from the much harder to find German Concentration Camps Factual Survey that was made during and immediately after liberation, but kept hidden away for decades. (E: if you’re in the UK and want to watch it, I’ve just seen that Night Will Fall is on tonight at midnight on ch4)
Those who refuse to learn from history are deemed to repeat it, which is precisely why we’re all only taught a whitewashed version of it.