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Auschwitz survivors and world leaders gather to mark 80th anniversary of concentration camp's liberation

Auschwitz survivors and world leaders gather to mark 80th anniversary of concentration camp's liberation

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Auschwitz, a former Nazi German extermination camp, is marking the 80th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops. Approximately one million Jewish survivors died at the site between 1940 and 1945, along with over 100,000 non-Jews. Currently, around 50 survivors are expected to attend the main commemoration outside the gates. Survivor Marian Turski condemned a "huge rise" in anti-Semitism. World leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, King Charles of Britain, and Polish President Andrzej Duda, are attending the event.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Ukraine Government
1. They were four young soldiers on horseback, who advanced along the road that marked the limits of the camp, cautiously holding their sten-guns. When they reached the barbed wire, they stopped to look, exchanging a few timid words, and throwing strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, at the battered huts and at us few still alive.
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin
1. We will always remember that it was the Soviet soldier who crushed this dreadful, total evil and won the victory, the greatness of which will forever remain in world history.
Andrzej Duda
Independent
1. We Poles, on whose land — occupied by Nazi Germans at that time — the Germans built this extermination industry and this concentration camp, are today the guardians of memory.
King Charles III
Buckingham Palace
1. We must all fight for the sake of life and remember that indifference is the breeding ground for evil. We must overcome hatred, which leads to cruelty and murder. We must not allow forgetfulness to take root. And it is everyone's mission to do everything possible to ensure that evil does not prevail.
Alice Weidel
Alternative for Germany
1. There is no doubt that Adolf Hitler was an antisemitic socialist – and antisemitism is primarily left-wing.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Social Democratic Party
1. Auschwitz stands for the murder of millions, planned and meticulously carried out by Germans.
Piotr Cywinski
Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum
1. Memory hurts, memory helps, memory guides… without memory you have no history, no experience, no point of reference.
Paweł Sawicki
Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum
1. There will not be any speeches by politicians.
2. This year we will focus on the survivors and their message.
3. Twenty years ago, we had more than 1,000 survivors here; 10 years ago it was 300. Five years ago, we had 100, and today – not many more than 50. In 10 years' time, how many will there be? That's why it's so incredibly important that we focus just on these survivors.