By CRAIG S. SMITH January 27, 2005

World Leaders Gather for Auschwitz Ceremony
By CRAIG S. SMITH
January 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/international/europe/27auschwitz.html
KRAKOW, Poland, Jan. 26 - Heads of state, prominent
Jews, Nazi death camp survivors and a handful of their
liberators began gathering here Wednesday in a heavy
snowstorm to commemorate the freeing of thousands of
people from the nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
camp 60 years ago.
As many as 1.5 million people, including 1 million Jews,
met their death at the Auschwitz complex, which included
three main camps and 39 smaller camps 40 miles
southwest of Krakow. Most were killed at AuschwitzBirkenau, the second of the main camps, that has come to
symbolize the much broader Holocaust in which 6 million
Jews died.
The commemoration Thursday, the largest ever, marks the
liberation of the camp on Jan. 27, 1945. It will take place at a memorial built between the ruins
of two of the camp's gas chambers.
The ceremony this year has an air of urgency as Jewish organizations work to ensure that
awareness of the Holocaust persists after living memories of it die. This is likely to be the last
major anniversary to be attended by both camp survivors and their former Soviet Red Army
liberators. Only seven liberators are expected to attend the ceremony Thursday. All of them are
in their 90's.
A forum on Thursday, sponsored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel and the
European Jewish Congress, will seek commitments from European leaders to institutionalize the
teaching of the Holocaust, drawing on educational programs and materials developed by Yad
Vashem.
"The numbers of world leaders coming and the readiness of the media to follow the
commemoration is greater than before, but the event is also more important now with a new antiSemitism building in Europe," said the head of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev, arguing that without
a systematic approach to teaching about the Holocaust, its meaning for future generations may
fade. "We need a concrete commitment out of this ceremony."
That commitment is all the more critical now because a growing number of Europe's young
Muslims are resisting, even rejecting, efforts to teach them about the Holocaust, arguing that
there is not enough attention paid to the killing of innocent Muslims by Israel or the United
States-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Teachers are reluctant to teach about the Holocaust in some schools, particularly in France,
Belgium and Denmark. Mr. Shalev said that most of his organization's educational exchanges
with France are now with the country's private Jewish institutions.
The commemoration will be attended by heads of state from Russia, Poland, Germany, France
and Israel along with political leaders from nearly 40 other countries. Vice President Dick
Cheney will attend on behalf of the United States. He arrived Wednesday and met with the
Polish President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq who is facing
increasing public pressure to bring Polish troops home.
"We have to remind our youth that these great evils of history were perpetrated not in some
remote uncivilized world but in the very heart of the civilized world," Mr. Cheney told a
gathering of survivors and their families at the Galicja Jewish Museum in Krakow Wednesday.
Exhibits there trace several centuries of Jewish history in southern Poland.
The commemoration means different things to each nation: for Russia it is a commemoration of
its often-overlooked role as liberator, while for Poland and other Central European countries it is
both part of a gradual recognition of their complicity in the killing and an opportunity to draw
closer to Europe. Poland and several other former Soviet bloc countries joined the European
Union last year and the rest are waiting to join.
A recent string of anti-Semitic attacks across Europe and other unsettling events, such as the
widely publicized photograph of Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, wearing a Nazi
uniform at a costume party earlier this month and a walkout by far-right German legislators
during a minute's silence for Nazi victims on Friday, have raised concerns that the horrors of the
Holocaust are being forgotten.
Moshe Kantor, chairman of the European Jewish Congress, warned that the rise in anti-Semitic
incidents should not be ignored.
"From broken windows to death camps was the blink of an eye," Mr. Kantor said, referring to the
four years between the 1938 attacks on German Jews known as Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken
Glass, and the 1942 Wannsee Conference at which German leaders discussed the "final solution
to the Jewish question in Europe."
At a dinner Wednesday, Mr. Kantor talked of the need to pass on personal recollections of the
Holocaust, not just statistics or historical accounts. As an example, he told of meeting an elderly
woman during a visit to the Birkenau camp several years ago. She remarked to him that the camp
looked different when she was interned there because there was no grass then; starving prisoners
had eaten it all.
Europe must educate its young to avoid repeat of Holocaust: Jewish
leader
By Tarmu Tammerk
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
KRAKOW, Poland Jan 26 – Europe must act urgently to ensure that creeping anti-Semitism does
not boil over into another tragedy, European Jewish Congress chairman Moshe Kantor said
Wednesday, a day ahead of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
"The highly commemorative date of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz has
prompted us to make a start for a major pan-European education programme to teach about the
Holocaust," Kantor told AFP in an exclusive interview.
The rising tide of anti-Semitism in today's Europe reminded Kantor of the situation on the eve of
World War II, and makes it urgent to launch a concerted effort to educate the continent's youth
about the Holocaust to ensure it does not happen again, he said.
"The situation in Europe is very similar to what happened just before World War II," Kantor
said.
"The speed with which the Kristallnacht of 1938 turned into the infamous Wannsee conference
of 1942 was just a historical second," he said.
The Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, was a nationwide pogrom launched in November
1938 in Germany, targeting Jews.
In January 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi party and German government leaders gathered at a villa
on Berlin's Lake Wannsee to discuss the "final solution to the Jewish question in Europe."
"From broken windows we reached the death camps in the blink of an eye. Today, we are
standing on pieces of crystal in Europe again. We see the same things happening in France, in
Britain, in Russia, elsewhere."
The European Jewish Congress is on Thursday organising an international forum in Krakow on
the Holocaust, called "Let my People Live", which Kantor hopes will be the starting point for
efforts all over Europe to educate people about the Holocaust.
"Xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racism are psychological diseases, which can be cured only by
a systematic dialogue of the doctor with the patient," Kantor said.
"The Let my People Live Forum launches this systematic dialogue, and may become the
physician."
Although many centres in Europe teach about the Nazi attempt to wipe out Europe's 11 million
Jews in World War II, not all countries are involved and the training is often drab and
monotonous.
"We want to take care of all nationalities and introduce country-specific programmes so that
young people can truly get connected," Kantor said.
"The training must be provocative and challenging, not just dry numbers," he added.
Thursday's forum will gather together some of the last, still-living survivors of Auschwitz and
Soviet Red Army soldiers who liberated the camp on January 27, 1945, many of them in their
80s, as well as young people from around the world.
It could mark "the last chance we have to gather this cross-section of people together in the same
room," Kantor said.
He also stressed that, to his mind, victims of the Holocaust, of whom at least one million died at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, should be regarded separately from the rest of the 50 million Europeans
who died in World War II.
"We maintain that Holocaust victims and war victims should not be mixed," he said.
"In the Holocaust, people were killed for being Jews, which makes them separate from war
victims."
Eduquer ses enfants pour éviter un nouvel holocauste: Moshe
Kantor
L'Europe doit agir vite pour éviter que l'antisémitisme rampant actuel ne finisse en nouvel
holocauste, a estimé mercredi le président du Congrès juif européen Moshe Kantor, présent à
Cracovie pour les cérémonies du 60ème anniversaire de la libération d'Auschwitz.
"La date très commémorative du 60ème anniversaire de la libération d'Auschwitz nous a amenés
à lancer un programme inter-européen d'éducation sur l'holocauste", a-t-il déclaré dans un
entretien avec l'AFP.
La montée de l'antisémitisme aujourd'hui en Europe évoque pour M. Kantor la situation
prévalant avant le déclenchement de la Seconde guerre mondiale. Ce qui rend urgente une
initiation des jeunes à ce qu'a été l'horreur de la Shoah pour que cela ne se reproduise plus
jamais, dit-il.
"La situation en Europe est très similaire à ce qui s'est produit juste avant la Seconde guerre
mondiale", dit M. Kantor.
"La rapidité avec laquelle la Nuit de cristal en 1938 a mené à l'infamante conférence de Wannsee
en 1942 n'a duré qu'une seconde dans l'Histoire", dit-il.
La Nuit de cristal en novembre 1938 été le lancement à l'échelle nationale en Allemagne d'un
pogrom contre les juifs.
En janvier 1942, les hauts responsables nazis se sont retrouvés dans une villa près de Berlin pour
mettre au point "la solution finale à la question juive en Europe".
"Des fenêtres brisées, nous nous sommes retrouvés dans les camps de la mort en un clin d'oeil.
Aujourd'hui, nous sommes de nouveau en Europe sur du cristal brisé. Nous voyons les mêmes
choses se produire en France, en Grande-Bretagne, en Russie et ailleurs", ajoute le dirigeant de la
communauté juive européenne.
Le Congrès juif européen organise jeudi un forum international à Cracovie sur l'holocauste, "Let
my people live" (Laissez vivre mon peuple) que M. Kantor souhaite devenir le départ d'efforts
d'éducation sur l'holocauste à travers toute l'Europe.
"La xénophobie, l'antisémitisme et le racisme sont des maladies psychologiques qui ne peuvent
être soignées que par un dialogue systématique entre un médecin et son patient", ajoute-t-il.
"Que le forum Let my People Live lance un dialogue systématique et devienne le médecin".
Bien que nombre de centres en Europe enseignent cette période noire de l'Histoire, nombre
d'Etats n'y sont pas impliqués et certaines formations sont sans relief ou perspective.
"Nous voulons prendre en considération toutes les nationalités et introduire des programmes
spécifiques dans chaque pays pour que les jeunes soient rééllement branchés" sur la question,
demande-t-il.
A ce forum jeudi, certains survivants d'Auschwitz et leurs libérateurs, ex-soldats de l'Armée
rouge, témoigneront devant nombre de jeunes.
Pour M. Kantor, il faut séparer ce million de juifs morts à Auschwitz, devenu le symbole de la
Shoah, du reste des 50 millions de victimes européennes du conflit 39-45.
"Dans l'holocauste, les gens ont été tués parce qu'ils étaient juifs, ce qui en fait des victimes de la
guerre différentes".
Un forum international pour enseigner Auschwitz aux générations à
venir
January 27, 2005
CRACOVIE (Pologne) - Des dirigeants de nombreux pays, d'anciens détenus du camps de la
mort nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau et leurs libérateurs de l'Armée rouge se sont réunis jeudi à
Cracovie pour s'engager à enseigner la leçon de l'holocauste aux générations à venir.
Le forum "Let my people live" (Laissez vivre mon peuple), organisé par le Congrès juif
européen (CJE), le mémorial de Yad Vachem à Jérusalem et le ministère polonais de la Culture,
a ouvert jeudi les manifestations du 60ème anniversaire de la libération d'Auschwitz.
Selon le souhait du président du CJE, Moshé Kantor, ce forum doit donner un "départ d'efforts
d'éducation sur l'holocauste à travers toute l'Europe".
Le souvenir tragique du génocide de la Seconde guerre mondiale a été évoqué au théâtre
Slowacki à Cracovie à travers des documentaires, ainsi que par des témoignages de survivants
d'Auschwitz, dont le Prix Nobel de la Paix Elie Wiesel, et de leurs libérateurs représentés
notamment par Anatoly Shapiro, 92 ans, le commandant russe qui avait mené ses soldats à
Auschwitz le 27 janvier
Dans leurs discours, les présidents polonais Aleksander Kwasniewski, russe Vladimir Poutine,
israélien Moshé Katzav, ukrainien Victor Iouchtchenko et le vice-président américain Dick
Cheney ont déploré la persistance dans le monde du racisme et de la haine.
"La triste leçon des crimes nazi n'a toujours pas été bien entendue", a regretté le chef de l'Etat
polonais.
"Même en Russie qui a fait plus que d'autres pour sauver les autres nations, même chez nous on
voit des manifestations de cette maladie et j'en ai honte moi aussi", a reconnu M. Poutine.
Il a promis que "la Russie combattra toujours ces phénomènes", avant de lancer un appel à l'unité
de la communauté mondiale.
Le président ukrainien, après avoir évoqué avec émotion le souvenir de son père, ancien
prisonnier d'Auschwitz qui avait survécu à sa détention en 1944, a promis de "faire en sorte qu'il
n'y ait plus jamais en Ukraine d'antisémitisme, de xénophobie et de haine entre les gens".
S'adressant aux dirigeants du monde, aux anciens détenus, à leurs libérateurs soviétiques d'il y a
60 ans et aux jeunes, Elie Wiesel, leur a demandé de diffuser le souvenir de l'holocauste à travers
le monde.
"Vous devez sauvegarder la mémoire de ces événements tragiques et la transmettre au monde
entier. Vous êtes nos émissaires", a dit cet ancien prisonnier d'Auschwitz, alors que M. Katzav
évoquait sa "peur du négationnisme de l'holocauste".
"Nous avons peur d'une compréhension déformée de l'Histoire dans les esprits des jeunes", a
déclaré le président israélien.
Une jeune juive américaine de 20 ans qui assistait au forum, Rachel Orange, étudiante à
l'Université de Jérusalem, a confié à l'AFP:"Nous sommes la dernière génération qui peut encore
parler avec les survivants. Nous avons la responsabilité de transmettre leur message aux
générations futures, nous avons le devoir de souvenir et d'éducation envers les autres".
Survivors, world leaders gather to remember victims, underline
lessons of Holocaust on Auschwitz liberation anniversary
By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer
January 26, 2005
OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) - Vandalized Jewish graves in western Europe. Growing support for
extreme-right parties in Germany. Comments by France's far-right leader playing down the evils
of the Nazi occupation.
Decades after World War II, many think the lessons of the Holocaust still need reinforcing in
Europe. Survivors from Auschwitz, gathered for Thursday's 60th anniversary of the Nazi death
camp's liberation, vowed to keep telling their story to make sure that happens.
Trudy Spira, who came from Venezuela for the ceremonies, said Wednesday renewed efforts to
educate people about the dangers of hatred were even more important as the generation that
experienced the Holocaust ages.
"It's very important, you are the last generation that can talk to the survivors, we are every day
less," said Spira, who was deported to Auschwitz with her family as an 11-year-old from
Slovakia in 1944.
An estimated 1 million Holocaust survivors are still alive.
"We can give living testimony ... to let the world know, to try to get them to learn even though
they don't, so that it doesn't happen again," Spira, 72, said at a news conference held by the
European Jewish Forum in Krakow, about an hour's drive from Oscwiecim, the town where the
camp is located.
Romanian-born Auschwitz survivor Olly Ritterband from Copenhagen, Denmark, whose book
"Will To Survive" is read in Danish schools, made the painful effort for her father, who died at
the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
"For more than 30 years, I couldn't speak about the Holocaust," said Ritterband, 80, who lost 70
relatives in the Holocaust.
"This is the Kaddish for my father," she said, referring to the Jewish prayer for the dead. "I don't
want to write. I was crying the whole time but I did it."
Leaders including Vice President Dick Cheney, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French
President Jacques Chirac and Israeli President Moshe Katsav are to light candles and hear
interfaith prayers at the sprawling camp to mark the arrival of advancing Soviet troops on Jan.
27, 1945, as World War II neared its end.
Germany's President Horst Koehler will attend but won't speak at the main ceremony in
acknowledgment of Germany's role as perpetrator of the Holocaust. He is to address a youth
forum about the Holocaust in Krakow.
Some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews from across Europe, died in gas chambers or of
disease, starvation, abuse and exhaustion at Auschwitz and neighboring Birkenau -- the most
notorious of the death camps set up by Adolf Hitler to carry out his "final solution," the murder
of Europe's Jewish population.
Six million Jews died in the Nazi camps, along with several million others, including Soviet
prisoners of war, Gypsies, homosexuals and political opponents of the Nazis.
Reports in western Europe of increasing anti-Jewish incidents such as vandalizing graves and a
walkout last week by members of a small German far-right party from an Auschwitz
commemoration in the Saxony state legislature are cited as examples of why it's important to go
on teaching about the Holocaust.
Earlier this week, a group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called for a sweeping investigation
aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing
Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and saying they provoke anti-Semitism.
In Moscow on Tuesday, Rabbi Adolf Shayevich condemned the lawmakers for their accusations.
The prosecutor general's office later said no investigation into the lawmakers' claims would be
made because the letter in which they were made had been retracted.
In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, caused an uproar this
month when he was quoted by a newspaper as saying the Nazi occupation "was not particularly
inhuman, even if there were a few blunders."
Moshe Kantor, chairman of the European Jewish Congress, said incidents such as the Saxony
walkout were challenges to education.
"The weakest department of human memory is historical memory," Kantor said at a news
conference with the survivors in Krakow. "To have this memory we must work hard."
"The nature of all these attempts to diminish the results and the events of the Holocaust are the
same, the shortage of historical memory, and xenophobia and nationalism in the local countries."
Cheney, in Krakow ahead of the ceremonies, said that "we will never forget" the dead and that
the survivors, by telling their stories, guarded against a repeat of the horrors.
He noted that the horrors of World War II took place not in a remote section of the globe, but in
the middle of Europe.
"Today, many Holocaust survivors have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren,"
Cheney said. "That I believe is the greatest victory of all. Evil did not have the final say.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who won't attend, said in a speech in Jerusalem that the
lesson to be learned was that the world "didn't lift a finger" to stop the Holocaust. He called
critics of Israeli measures in its struggle against Palestinian militants "new anti-Semites."
Sharon said Jews learned a lesson from the genocide that they can only rely on themselves.
In Poland, a recent survey indicated that only about half of the population was aware that the
majority of Auschwitz victims were Jewish -- a holdover mentality from the communist era,
when official historical accounts sometimes played down Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.
During communist rule, a plaque that stood at Auschwitz-Birkenau failed to mention that Jews
were killed there.
GAYS AMONG HONORED HOLOCAUST VICTIMS
By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer
January 27, 2005
OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) - Vandalized Jewish graves in western Europe. Growing support for
extreme-right parties in Germany. Comments by France's far-right leader playing down the evils
of the Nazi occupation.
Decades after World War II, many think the lessons of the Holocaust still need reinforcing in
Europe. Survivors from Auschwitz, gathered for Thursday's 60th anniversary of the Nazi death
camp's liberation, vowed to keep telling their story to make sure that happens.
Trudy Spira, who came from Venezuela for the ceremonies, said Wednesday renewed efforts to
educate people about the dangers of hatred were even more important as the generation that
experienced the Holocaust ages.
"It's very important, you are the last generation that can talk to the survivors, we are every day
less," said Spira, who was deported to Auschwitz with her family as an 11-year-old from
Slovakia in 1944.
An estimated 1 million Holocaust survivors are still alive.
"We can give living testimony ... to let the world know, to try to get them to learn even though
they don't, so that it doesn't happen again," Spira, 72, said at a news conference held by the
European Jewish Forum in Krakow, about an hour's drive from Oscwiecim, the town where the
camp is located.
Romanian-born Auschwitz survivor Olly Ritterband from Copenhagen, Denmark, whose book
"Will To Survive" is read in Danish schools, made the painful effort for her father, who died at
the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
"For more than 30 years, I couldn't speak about the Holocaust," said Ritterband, 80, who lost 70
relatives in the Holocaust.
"This is the Kaddish for my father," she said, referring to the Jewish prayer for the dead. "I don't
want to write. I was crying the whole time but I did it."
Leaders including Vice President Dick Cheney, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French
President Jacques Chirac and Israeli President Moshe Katsav are to light candles and hear
interfaith prayers at the sprawling camp to mark the arrival of advancing Soviet troops on Jan.
27, 1945, as World War II neared its end.
Germany's President Horst Koehler will attend but won't speak at the main ceremony in
acknowledgment of Germany's role as perpetrator of the Holocaust. He is to address a youth
forum about the Holocaust in Krakow.
Some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews from across Europe, died in gas chambers or of
disease, starvation, abuse and exhaustion at Auschwitz and neighboring Birkenau -- the most
notorious of the death camps set up by Adolf Hitler to carry out his "final solution," the murder
of Europe's Jewish population.
Six million Jews died in the Nazi camps, along with several million others, including Soviet
prisoners of war, Gypsies, homosexuals and political opponents of the Nazis.
Reports in western Europe of increasing anti-Jewish incidents such as vandalizing graves and a
walkout last week by members of a small German far-right party from an Auschwitz
commemoration in the Saxony state legislature are cited as examples of why it's important to go
on teaching about the Holocaust.
Earlier this week, a group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called for a sweeping investigation
aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing
Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and saying they provoke anti-Semitism.
In Moscow on Tuesday, Rabbi Adolf Shayevich condemned the lawmakers for their accusations.
The prosecutor general's office later said no investigation into the lawmakers' claims would be
made because the letter in which they were made had been retracted.
In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, caused an uproar this
month when he was quoted by a newspaper as saying the Nazi occupation "was not particularly
inhuman, even if there were a few blunders."
Moshe Kantor, chairman of the European Jewish Congress, said incidents such as the Saxony
walkout were challenges to education.
"The weakest department of human memory is historical memory," Kantor said at a news
conference with the survivors in Krakow. "To have this memory we must work hard."
"The nature of all these attempts to diminish the results and the events of the Holocaust are the
same, the shortage of historical memory, and xenophobia and nationalism in the local countries."
Cheney, in Krakow ahead of the ceremonies, said that "we will never forget" the dead and that
the survivors, by telling their stories, guarded against a repeat of the horrors.
He noted that the horrors of World War II took place not in a remote section of the globe, but in
the middle of Europe.
"Today, many Holocaust survivors have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren,"
Cheney said. "That I believe is the greatest victory of all. Evil did not have the final say."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who won't attend, said in a speech in Jerusalem that the
lesson to be learned was that the world "didn't lift a finger" to stop the Holocaust. He called
critics of Israeli measures in its struggle against Palestinian militants "new anti-Semites."
Sharon said Jews learned a lesson from the genocide that they can only rely on themselves.
In Poland, a recent survey indicated that only about half of the population was aware that the
majority of Auschwitz victims were Jewish -- a holdover mentality from the communist era,
when official historical accounts sometimes played down Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.
During communist rule, a plaque that stood at Auschwitz-Birkenau failed to mention that Jews
were killed there.
Cheney says Holocaust is a reminder that 'evil is real'
By Deb Riechmann
January 27, 2005
KRAKOW, Poland – Vice President Dick Cheney remembered the Holocaust on Thursday,
saying that the mass murder that went unanswered until Nazi death camps were liberated exactly
60 years ago is reminder that evil must be faced down in the world Thursday.
"The story of the camps remind us that evil is real and must be called by its name and must be
confronted," Cheney said. "We are reminded that anti-Semitism may begin with words but rarely
stops with words and the message of intolerance and hatred must be opposed before it turns into
acts of horror."
While he didn't draw the comparison directly, the subtext of Cheney's message melded with the
theme of President Bush's Inauguration Day speech about freedom versus tyranny as well as one
of his previous State of the Union addresses when he called Iraq, North Korea and Iran the "axis
of evil."
After his remarks at the international forum "Let my people live" held at a city theater in
Krakow, Cheney was being driven to two death camps where Nazis murdered 1.5 million people.
Cheney was participating in a candle-lighting liberation and interfaith prayer ceremony along
with scores of world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President
Jacques Chirac and Israel's Moshe Katsav.
There are two camps about a one-hour drive south of Krakow: Auschwitz I and Birkenau, a
much larger complex ringed by birch trees (birken in German) for which it was named. Still
visible are rail tracks on which prisoners in cramped railroad cars were transported into the came
and forced into slave labor, turned into guinea pigs for medical experiments or killed in
crematoria.
The Soviet Army freed prisoners at the camps on Jan. 27, 1945 as the war neared its end.
Between 1 million and 1.5 million prisoners – most of them Jews – perished in gas chambers or
died of starvation and disease at Auschwitz. Overall, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
"On this day in 1945, inside a prison for the innocent, liberators arrived and looked into the faces
of thousands near death – while miles beyond the camp, many thousands more were being led on
a death march in the winter cold," Cheney said.
"Inside barbed wire and behind high walls, soldiers found baths that were not baths, hospitals
meant not to heal but to kill and the belongings of hundreds of thousands who had vanished."
He reminded his listeners, many of them young people, that the cruelty of the death camps did
not happen in a faraway corner of the world, but in the "very heart of the civilized world."
"The death camps were created by men with a high opinion of themselves – some of them welleducated and possessed of refined manners – but without conscience," he said. "And where there
is no conscience, there is no tolerance toward others ... no defense against evil ... and no limit to
the crimes that follow."
Hell camp remembered; Never again: survivors
January 28, 2005
KRAKOW -- Leaders from 30 countries gathered overnight to remember the victims of the
Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and Israeli President
Moshe Katsav were to join survivors at the infamous railway siding at the nearby Birkenau
camp.
That was where Nazi doctors chose who could be worked to death and who was to go
immediately to the gas chambers. Most went directly to their deaths.
About 1.5 million people, most of them Jews , died in gas chambers or of disease, starvation,
abuse and exhaustion at Auschwitz and Birkenau -- the most notorious of the death camps set up
by Adolf Hitler to carry out his "final solution" -- the elimination of Europe's Jewish population.
Soviet troops reached the camp on January 27, 1945, finding just 7000 survivors, many barely
alive. The retreating Nazis had driven most of the prisoners who could stillwalk out into the
snow on a "death march" toward camps further west.
Six million Jews died in the Nazi camps, as well as millions of Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies,
homosexuals and Nazi opponents.
Vice-President Dick Cheney was to represent the United States. Germany's President Horst
Koehler was to attend, but not to speak -- an acknowledgement of Germany's role in the
Holocaust. He was to speak to a youth forum instead.
The forum, organised by the European Jewish Congress, brings young people from around the
world face to face with Auschwitz survivors and the Soviet soldiers who freed the camp, many
of them in their 80s.
It could mark "the last chance we have to gather this cross-section of people together in the same
room," said Moshe Kantor, chairman of the European Jewish Congress.
Survivors said each new generation needed to be educated about the Holocaust.
"It's very important. You are the last generation that can talk to the survivors. We are every day
less," Trudy Spira, who was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 with her family as an 11-year-old
from Slovakia, told reporters.
"We can give living testimony . . . to let the world know, to try to get them to learn even though
they don't, so that it doesn't happen again."
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Auschwitz commemorations begin with prayer service
AUSCHWITZ, Poland Jan 26 – Events to mark the liberation 60 years ago of the Auschwitz
death camp began Wednesday with an ecumenical prayer service in a southern Polish village
where the Nazis dumped ashes of many of the victims of the camp's gas chambers and
crematoria.
Around 100 people, including survivors of the camp, gathered in Harmeze, five kilometers (three
miles) from the main Auschwitz camp, on Wednesday morning in freezing weather and snow to
pray for all victims of World War II, including the at least 1.1 million who died at Auschwitz,
most of them Jews.
On Thursday, world leaders, survivors and former Soviet soldiers who freed them will gather for
an emotional ceremony at a memorial wedged between the ruins of two of Auschwitz-Birkenau's
gas chambers.
The main ceremony will begin amid tight security on Thursday at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) at the
memorial erected to the memory of the men, women and children who died at the camp.
Most of them were Jews sent to their deaths immediately on arrival at the Nazi death factory.
Because many of the victims were "selected" by the SS for immediate extermination in specially
built gas chambers and they were never registered at Auschwitz, making it impossible for
historians to say precisely how many people died here. The actual death toll is believed to be as
high as two million.
Among those who will address the main ceremony are former Polish foreign minister Wladyslaw
Bartoszewski -- Auschwitz prisoner number 4427 -- who will give a speech on behalf of the tens
of thousands of Poles who died at the camp, not counting the hundreds of thousands of Polish
Jews.
Former French health minister Simone Veil -- Auschwitz prisoner number 78651 -- will speak on
behalf of Jewish victims and Romani Rose, president of Germany's Central Council of Sinti and
Roma, for victims from Europe's gypsy community.
On Wednesday, Vice President Dick Cheney who is representing the United States at the
ceremonies, told a small gathering of survivors of the death camp that the world must teach its
youth tolerance and moral courage to avoid a repetition of the Holocaust.
"We have to remind our youth that these great evils of history were perpetrated not in some
remote uncivilised world but in the very heart of civilised Europe," Cheney said said at a
museum in Krakow that recounts the history of Jews in southern Poland.
"We must teach the values of tolerance, decency and moral courage. In every generation the free
nations must maintain the will, the strength to fight tyranny," he said.
Moshe Kantor, head of the European Jewish Congress, which will host a forum on Thursday
bringing together young people from around the world and the elderly survivors of Auschwitz
and former Soviet soldiers who freed them, earlier warned against rising anti-Semitism in
Europe.
"The situation in Europe is similar to what happened just before World War II," Kantor told AFP
in an interview in Krakow.
"The speed with which the Kristallnacht of 1938 turned into the infamous Wannsee conference
of 1942 was just a historical second," he said.
The Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, was a nationwide pogrom launched in November
1938 in Germany, targeting Jews, while the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, brought
together Nazi leaders to discuss the "final solution to the Jewish question in Europe."
"From broken windows we reached the death camps in the blink of an eye. Today, we are
standing on pieces of crystal in Europe again," Kantor said.
As the morning prayer service began, a group of rabbis from Canada and the United States
staged a protest outside a church in the village of Brzezinka - Birkenau in German - near the
memorial where Thursday's ceremony will be held.
Braving snow and temperatures of minus six degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit), they held
placards declaring "No to a church at the world's biggest Jewish cemetery" and "The Birkenau
church desecrates the memory of one million Jews."
Israeli President Moshe Katzav was among world leaders already in Krakow, where he held talks
with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and braved the cold to visit the memorial at
Rakowicki cemetery to British soldiers who died in Poland during World War II.
Ukraine's new President Viktor Yushchenko has also arrived and met Cheney over dinner in
Krakow.
But Russian leader Vladimir Putin's arrival was put back until Thursday as a snowstorm socked
Krakow airport.
Schedule of main events to mark Auschwitz liberation
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
AUSCHWITZ, Poland Jan 26 – Survivors of the Auschwitz death camp will take part in a series
of emotional events Thursday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the most
notorious of Nazi camps by the Soviet Red Army.
Alongside them will be dozens of their liberators, leaders from around the world and members of
European royal families.
Commemoration of the day on which, 60 years ago, the Red Army prised the Auschwitz death
camp from the Nazis, will begin at 9:30 am (0830 GMT), with a forum in Krakow's Slowacki
Theatre, entitled "Let my People Live."
The forum, organised by the European Jewish Congress, will bring young people from around
the world face to face with survivors of Auschwitz and the former Soviet soldiers who freed the
camp, many of them in their 80s.
It could mark "the last chance we have to gather this cross-section of people together in the same
room," Moshe Kantor, chairman of the European Jewish Congress, told AFP.
At the forum, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski is due to decorate several former
soldiers of the Red Army.
At 10:30 am, British Veterans Minister Ivor Caplin will unveil a memorial at the Monowice
subcamp of Auschwitz, honouring British prisoners of war who died there.
That ceremony will be attended by families of the British soldiers, representatives from the
soldiers' regiments and a group of British schoolchildren.
A deputy director of the Auschwitz museum, set up on the site of the death camp to preserve the
memory of all who perished there, representatives from the Polish army and a group of Polish
schoolchildren will also attend.
After the ceremony they will be joined by Britain's Prince Edward at a lunch organised by the
mayor of Oswiecim, the town on whose outskirts the main camp sits.
French President Jacques Chirac will, at 11:30 am, inaugurate an exhibit in recently renovated
prisoner block 20 at Auschwitz's main camp, in honour of 80,000 French nationals who were
deported to this death camp in southern Poland and others in Nazi-occupied Europe.
The main commemorative ceremony will begin at 2:30 pm at the memorial erected at Birkenau,
three kilometers from the main camp, to the memory of at least 1.1 million men, women and
children who died at the camp, most of them Jews who were sent to their deaths immediately on
arrival at the Nazi death factory.
The start of the ceremony will be signaled by a train entering the Birkenau camp on the same
track that brought hundreds of thousands of European Jews, and tens of thousands of others into
the Nazi camp, where an estimated 75 percent went to immediate death in the gas chambers.
Polish Culture Minister Waldemar Dabrowski will give a welcome speech to guests and officials,
after which former camp prisoners will address the gathering: former Polish foreign minister
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski on behalf of Polish prisoners, French lawmaker Simone Veil on behalf
of Jews, and Romani Rose, of Germany's Council of Roms, for European gypsies.
An address from Pope John Paul II will be read out, followed by official speeches by
Kwasniewski, Russian President Vladimir Putin, on behalf of the Soviet soldiers who liberated
the camp, and Israeli President Moshe Katsav, for the majority of the camp's victims.
An ecumenical prayer will follow, after which Cantor Joseph Malowany will intone the Kaddish,
the Jewish mourner's prayer.
At around 3:25 pm, according to the official programme, a delegation of six former camp
prisoners and three Red Army soldiers will light candles by the memorial slabs of the Birkenau
monument, as a tribute to the victims of Nazi terror at Birkenau.
Then, presidents and heads of official delegations at the ceremony will light candles to the
memory of Auschwitz-Birkenau's victims.
The ceremony will be closed with the wail of the Shofar, the ritual instrument of ancient and
modern Hebrews, and a piece written by Krzysztof Knittel sung by Cantor Malowany and a
choir.
Participants at the ceremony will then light candles by the main part of the Birkenau memorial
before leaving the site.
World leaders gather to remember Auschwitz horror: 60 years
later, anti-Semitism still works its evil
By Bernard Osser and Tarmu Tammerk
January 27, 2005
OSWIECIM, Poland - World leaders began converging on southern Poland yesterday for two
days of emotional ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the biggest Nazi
death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than one million people died.
Events to mark the liberation of the camp by the Soviet Red Army began unofficially at the
village of Harmeze, about five kilometres from the notorious camp, as 100 people gathered for
an ecumenical prayer service for all victims of the Second World War, including at least 1.1
million who died at Auschwitz, most of them Jews.
It was in Harmeze that the Nazis dumped the ashes of many of the victims of the camp's gas
chambers and crematoriums.
Today, leaders from 44 countries including Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, his French
counterpart Jacques Chirac, and the President of the host nation, Aleksander Kwasniewski, will
stand alongside survivors of the camp and veterans of the Red Army in a solemn tribute to the
victims of Auschwitz.
Adrienne Clarkson, the Governor General, will represent Canada. Dick Cheney, the U.S. VicePresident, will represent the United States.
The main ceremony will begin amid tight security at 2:30 p.m. at the memorial erected at
Birkenau to the memory of the men, women and children who died at the camp. Most were Jews
who were sent to their deaths immediately after they arrived at the Nazi death factory.
Because many of the victims were "selected" by the SS for immediate extermination in specially
built gas chambers, they were never registered, making it impossible for historians to say
precisely how many people died at Auschwitz. The actual death toll is believed to be as high as
two million.
Among those who will address the main ceremony are Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, the Polish
Foreign Minister and Auschwitz prisoner number 4427, who will give a speech on behalf of the
tens of thousands of Poles who died at the camp, not counting the hundreds of thousands of
Polish Jews.
Simone Veil, the former French health minister and Auschwitz prisoner number 78651, will
speak for the Jewish victims and Romani Rose, president of Germany's Central Council of Sinti
and Roma, for victims from Europe's Roma community.
Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor, has warned Germans to be vigilant against the rise
of neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism.
"That anti-Semitism still exists is not to be denied. It is the duty of all of society to fight against
it," he said.
Moshe Kantor, head of the European Jewish Congress, which will host a forum today bringing
together young people from around the world and the elderly survivors of Auschwitz and former
Soviet soldiers who freed them, also warned against rising anti-Semitism in Europe.
"The situation in Europe is very similar to what happened just before World War II," he said
yesterday.
"The speed with which the Kristallnacht of 1938 turned into the infamous Wannsee Conference
of 1942 was just a historical second," he said.
In Jerusalem, Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, accused the Second World War Allies of
knowing about Nazi Germany's efforts to wipe out Europe's 11 million Jews but doing nothing to
prevent it.
January 27, 2005
KRAKOW, Poland, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Israeli President Moshe Katsav on Thursday accused the
World War Two allies of failing to take sufficient measures to save Europe's Jews and urged the
European Union to act to root out modern-day anti-Semitism.
Katsav, addressing a forum marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz death
camp by Soviet troops, said Allied action to bomb Auschwitz or rail lines leading to it could
have saved the lives of countless Jews.
"The Holocaust is not only a tragedy of the Jewish people. It is a failure of humanity as a whole,"
Katsav told the gathering in the Polish city of Krakow before commemorations at the AuschwitzBirkenau complex, 70 km (44 miles) to the west.
"The Allies did not do enough to stop the Holocaust, to stop the destruction of the Jewish people.
The allies knew about the destruction of the Jews of Europe, the allies did not take any initiative
to prevent the destruction of European Jewry.
About 1.5 million prisoners were killed at Auschwitz during its four years of operation in Nazioccupied southern Poland, including some 1.1 million Jews.
Katsav said destroying Auschwitz from the air "could have saved many hundreds of thousands of
Jews from the gas chambers".
"Hundreds of missions of fighting aircraft passed next to, and sometimes over Auschwitz and
Birkenau. But Auschwitz was not bombed, was not attacked by the armies of the allies," he told
the gathering.
"Bombing the railways which led to the concentration camps in Auschwitz in so many missions
of aircraft could have stopped the destruction of the Jews."
It was now up to European leaders, he said, to educate their peoples about what occurred in the
Holocaust and guard against any new rise of neo-Nazi groups and anti-Semitic sentiment.
"We fear anti-Semitism. We fear Holocaust denial, we fear a distorted approach by the youth of
Europe. We fear a distorted approach that the youth of Europe might develop towards their past,"
he said.
"We call upon the European Union -- do not let Nazism dwell in the imaginations of the young
generations as a 'horror' show so to speak."
Dignitaries and Auschwitz survivors remember the Shoah — and
liberation
By Toby Axelrod and Carolyn Slutsky
OSWIECIM, Poland, Jan. 27 (JTA) — The last time Trudy Spira was in Auschwitz, she was 12
years old. The day of liberation “is my second birthday — I was reborn on that day,” said Spira,
who came from Venezuela with her son Ernesto, 48, to show him the place that robbed her of her
childhood.
Ziggy Shipper, 75, and his grandson Elliott Stern, 16, arrived together from London.
“He will never forget till the day he dies that he came here with his grandfather,” Shipper said.
Ted Lehman came from the United States, wearing the cap he was wearing when he was
liberated 60 years ago.
“How does a 16-year-old boy explain,” he asked, “that in one moment I was all of a sudden
alone?”
Spira, Shipper and Lehman were among about 1,000 survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death
camp who returned Thursday for ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the camp’s
liberation, in what may be the last major ceremony to include significant nu mbers of survivors.
Close to 40 heads of state and foreign ministers attended, together with liberators of the camp
from the former Soviet Army. Some 7,000 people attended the memorial — about the same
number still imprisoned there when the Soviet army liberated the camp six decades ago.
Despite the presence of so many dignitaries, it was the survivors who took center stage
Thursday.
Israeli President Moshe Katsav praised the survivors “for returning to life, for daring again to
feel that you belong to the world, for finding the inner strength to again raise families, for again
believing in man.”
The ceremony ended with Cantor Joseph Malovany of New York singing the El Malei
Rachamim prayer.
Other speakers at Auschwitz included Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski; Russian
President Vladimir Putin; and survivors Wladyslaw Bartoszewski of Poland, a Righteous
Gentile; Simone Veil of France, president of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah; and
the Jewish-born Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of France, who read an address from Pope John
Paul II.
Romani Rose, chairman of the Central Council of Germany Sinti and Roma, spoke on behalf of
the 220,000 to 500,000 gypsies killed in the Holocaust.
Guests included U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney; French President Jacques Chirac, Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; Waldermar Dabrowski, Poland’s minister of culture; and
Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
From Wednesday afternoon on, Krakow was full of formal and informal conversations, press
conferences and receptions dedicated to the anniversary events. Education was a key theme at all
events connected with the memorial.
Before the Auschwitz ceremony, an educational program for teachers on the Holocaust’s lessons
was launched in nearby Krakow at the “Let My People Live!” forum organized by the Polish
Ministry of Culture, the European Jewish Congress and Yad Vashem, together with the
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
“The fact that so many leaders of the world are gathered here today demonstrates the continued
importance of keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and offers the promise of a better
tomorrow,” said Moshe Kantor, chief organizer of the forum and chairman of the EJC’s board of
governors.
The morning forum included speeches by Cheney, Nobel laureate and Auschwitz survivor Elie
Wiesel, Wor ld Jewish Congress governing board chairman Israel Singer and Israel’s Ashkenazi
chief rabbi, Yona Metzger.
The official ceremony at the camp began with the symbolic blast of a train’s horn.
“May today our common cry sound from this place,” Kwasniewski said, “the cry for a world
without hatred and contempt, without racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, for a world in which
the word ‘human’ will always ring with pride.”
Putin, remembering “the immortal heroic deed of the allied armies that broke the backbone of the
fascist beast,” turned to the memory of more than one million victims whose ashes were buried
or scattered at the site.
“We must ensure that everything that happened here will never repeat again,” he said.
By many accounts, Poland has undergone a major transformation in its view of its role in the
Holocaust since 1995, when survivors gathered for the 50th anniversary of Auschwitz’s
liberation. Today, Poles not only celebrate the heroism of citizens who risked their lives to
rescue Jews but have begun to accept that some Poles participated in the killing — and that most
Auschwitz victims were Jews.
Some 1.3 million people died in Auschwitz, about 1 million of them Jews. In 1995, however, the
Polish government was still so uncomfortable about stressing Jewish suffering at the camp that at
first it barred a group recitation of the Kaddish, Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international
affairs for the American Jewish Committee, recalled at a dinner Wednesday.
This year, the program was organized by Jewish groups and included prayers. Moreover, Baker
said, “Ten years ago, there was no Israeli president here.”
He also called Kwasniewski, the Polish president, “one of the most eloquent voices on PolishJewish relations.”
Kwasniewski publicly apologized for the events at Jedwabne, Poland, where Poles helped
Germans murder the local Jewish population. The story of Jedwabne was uncovered in 2001 and
threw Poland into turmoil.
“Jedwabne opened up a very bad wound in Polish society with regard to their share in the
murders,” Yad Vashem’s Shalev told JTA. “President Kwasniewski believes that coming to
terms with the truth is an essential part of building a democratic society.”
From the time they arrived in Krakow from points around the world, survivors were gripped with
a fever of remembering something that most had tried hard to forget.
Not all were liberated here. Some were sent on death marches to other camps, where they
worked as slaves until the end of the war. But all shared a profound need to return to Auschwitz
— and then to walk out again.
“How is it possible that such a maddening system like this worked so well?” asked Mel
Mermelstein, 78, who was sent on a death march from Auschwitz on Jan. 18, 1945. Standing in
front of the former crematorium, his son David at his side, Mermelstein said, “The civilized
world should come here and see what man can do to man.”
David Hermann, who had come from London with Shipper and Berek Obuchowski, 76, recalled
arriving at Auschwitz when he was 16.
“The train came to a standstill. It was silent,” he said. “Suddenly I heard soldiers marching and
dogs barking. They pulled the doors apart and it was pitch black. The cold air hit us. And then
the lights came on. I saw SS men lined up all along the platform with dogs, and guns pointing at
us. Everybody was frozen. Nobody wanted to move.”
A Jewish prisoner advised Hermann in Yiddish to lie about his age and to say he had a trade, so
Hermann told camp doctor Joseph Mengele that he was 18 and a carpenter.
Hermann and his four siblings all survived the death camp and found each other after the war.
Toward the end of the ceremony, a small elderly man stood alone, singing a mourning prayer
along with Malovany. With shaking hands he took a small prayer book from a zippered pouch.
“I am a Jew, and so I pray,” said Chaim Ziderer, 86, of Bytom, Poland, whose family died at
Auschwitz. He was spared their fate because he was in the Polish military.
Putting the prayer book back in the pouch, he said, “Today I am alone.”
Nazi Germany “gave prizes to scientists and engineers for finding a better way to kill people, and
faster,” Trudy Spira said. “It never happened before and we hope it will never happen again.”
People had asked her “how come I was willing to come to the place where my childhood was
robbed,” she said.
“I am coming of my own free will,” she said.
“I brought my son because before, no one had the chance to walk out of their own accord,” Spira
said. “And today we can.”
News
Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation Is Commemorated Around the
World
By Eric J. Greenberg
January 28, 2005
Sixty years after the liberation of Auschwitz by Russian soldiers, leaders of more than 100
nations joined this week for a string of tributes in America, Europe, and at the death camp itself
to honor victims and vow that the Nazi horrors never would be repeated.
Hanging over the events, though, was a palpable sense that in places like Rwanda and Sudan, the
lessons were unlearned.
The ceremonies opened Monday in New York with a rare special session of the United Nations
General Assembly, led by Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Elie Wiesel. They ended Thursday,
following state ceremonies in London, Paris and Berlin, with a gathering at Auschwitz attended
by the presidents of Israel, Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, along with dozens of other
dignitaries and hundreds of survivors and Red Army veterans.
The events were hailed worldwide as a diplomatic and moral triumph for Israel and the Jewish
community. The U.N. session, requested by Israel, ended with an unprecedented chanting of the
Hebrew prayer for martyrs, El Malei Rahamim, followed by Israel's national anthem. Afterward,
the U.N. opened an exhibition of art from the death camp, co-sponsored by Israel's Yad Vashem
Memorial. At Auschwitz, Yad Vashem and the European Jewish Congress unveiled an ambitious
new Holocaust education program aimed at young Europeans.
"The Jewish witness that I am speaks of my people's suffering as a warning," Wiesel told the
U.N. "He sounds the alarm to prevent these tragedies from being done to others."
Yet the dark mood was in-escapable. On the eve of the U.N. session, a report on global
antisemitism was released by the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency, showing a sharp
rise in anti-Jewish incidents in Europe last year, with the sharpest rise — nearly double the
previous year's figures — in Britain, Russia and Ukraine. In Germany, a group of far-right
lawmakers demonstratively walked out of a January 21 Holocaust tribute in the Saxony state
assembly in Dresden. In Britain, a government tribute was marred by an announcement from the
nation's largest Muslim organization that it would not participate unless the theme was
broadened to include "genocide" in Palestine.
And in Russia, some 500 prominent figures, including 19 lawmakers, signed a seven-page letter
calling on the government to ban "all ethnic and religious Jewish organizations," saying that
Jewish groups foment ethnic tension, maintain "monetary and political control" over "the entire
democratic world," and carry out anti-Jewish acts in order to win sympathy. Nationalist firebrand
Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party reportedly led the group.
The 19 lawmakers, most of them Zhirinovsky followers or Communists, withdrew their
signatures after the letter, dated January 13, was made public this week. The Foreign Ministry
said the letter had "nothing to do with the official position of the Russian leadership." Still, news
of the letter touched off international shockwaves and demands by Israel and others for a formal
investigation.
Even the historic session at the U.N. had an air of unfinished business, as one speaker after
another took the rostrum to note — before a half-empty assembly hall — that mass killings
continued in places like Rwanda and Sudan.
"The United Nations must never forget that it was created as a response to the evil of Nazism,"
Annan told the delegates. But he continued, "Since the Holocaust, the world has, to its shame,
failed more than once to prevent or halt genocide — for instance in Cambodia, in Rwanda and in
the former Yugoslavia." And, he said, "terrible things are happening today in Darfur, Sudan."
But, Annan said, "the tragedy of the Jewish people was unique.... An entire civilization, which
had contributed far beyond its numbers to the cultural and intellectual riches of Europe and the
world, was uprooted, destroyed, laid waste."
For that reason, he said, it was "fitting" that the "first state to speak today will be the State of
Israel, which rose, like the United Nations itself, from the ashes of the Holocaust."
Pointedly absent from the event were representatives of Arab states, whose seats were nearly all
empty. Several Arab countries were among the 150 nations that cosponsored the call for the
special session, according to Israeli diplomats. The U.N. did not release the sponsor list.
But only one Arab state, Jordan, was represented among the 35 nations that addressed the
session. The remarks of the Jordanian ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein, included
a thinly veiled swipe at Israel, asking "what sense" could be made "of this important
commemoration when we allow through our inaction, year after year, one people to dominate
another, to deny the latter many of its most basic rights."
The anomalies in the commemoration, and the continuing slaughter in Sudan and elsewhere,
prompted a host of barbed commentary around the world, from the Toronto Globe and Mail to
the Australian newspaper The Age, about the futility of the exercise. Andrea Peyser, a columnist
in the conservative New York Post, wrote mockingly of the Holocaust tribute by "our oily pals at
the United Nations" — "the anti-American, anti-Semitic rats infesting the banks of the East
River" — who "will forget the lessons of Auschwitz."
An Israeli commentator, Jerusalem Post Editorial Features Editor Elliot Jager, wrote before the
ceremonies that it was time for a "moratorium" on Holocaust education, since its goal — "to
ensure 'never again,'" has "been a dismal failure."
"It's time to stop peddling the Holocaust to the outside world — that's been to no avail," Jager
wrote. "It's also time to stop manipulating it within the Jewish world for politics or money. What
we need is a cooling-off period" to "do some soul-searching."
For most observers, however, the anniversary was an occasion for solemn remembrance and for
vows to keep the memory alive. "The Holocaust must never be allowed to happen again," South
Africa's Pretoria News declared in the headline of an editorial that was typical of world response.
"Our greatest challenge must be the education of future generations — teaching about the
Holocaust and promoting its lessons throughout the globe," the chairman of the European Jewish
Congress, Russian businessman Moshe Kantor, told the Forward. "This is a task that will never
be completed."
Kantor provided the seed money for the Holocaust education project unveiled this week at
Auschwitz by his organization and Yad Vashem. It is based on a pilot program run by Yad
Vashem in Austria, bringing Austrian schoolteachers to Jerusalem and sending Yad Vashem
educators to Austria. The governments of both Russian and Poland have endorsed it, and others
are expected to follow in the coming days.
The Israeli report on global antisemitism released this week related that Europe had seen 282
violent incidents in 2004, compared with 234 incidents in 2003, according to an account in
Ha'aretz. France led the way with 96 incidents in 2004, unchanged from 2003. It was followed
by Britain with 77, up from 55, and by Russia with 44, up from 15.
Arabs and Muslims carried out most of the attacks, and members of the extreme right carried out
only a small number, the report said. The report, by The Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism,
noted that most of the violence was directed last year at private Jewish targets and less at
community targets, mainly because of the greater security around Jewish schools and
synagogues.
Of the rise in Britain, which it called "alarming," the report said that a "central cause" was that
"years of hostile reporting and commentary about Israel in the British press now is spilling over
into the street."
Putin calls terrorism the new common enemy
By DAVID HOROVITZ
January 27, 2005
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he was ashamed that there was still antiSemitism in his country and vowed to confront such bigotry "by force and public opinion."
Putin was the only eastern European leader to use Thursday morning's gathering at Krakow
Theater to acknowledge ongoing anti-Semitism in his country. He was also the only speaker to
draw an explicit link from Nazism to modern terrorism.
Modern civilization "is confronting another threat in place of Nazism," he said. Today's terrorists
also neglect human life strive for manic purposes and are ready to murder anybody.
Modern civilization will be safeguarded he said, "only if we can unite against that new common
enemy." That was the task for politicians and statesmen for the 21st century, he said.
Israel Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger also drew a direct line from Nazism to modern terrorism –
specifically Palestinian terrorism.
"Our enemies continue to pursue us, even on the Holy Land of Israel," Metzger said, "and we
have seen survivors of the fire of Auschwitz slaughtered together with their families on Seder
nights in Netanya, children murdered on buses on their way to school, entire families murdered
in restaurants, in cars, and in the streets."
As with the victims of Nazism, the lives of these, 1,000-plus innocent victims of Palesitnian
terrorism were taken solely because they were Jews, Metzger said.
Metzger said that only a "strong sovereign Jewish state can guarantee that Auschwitz will not
happen again. The State of Israel is the true response to the evil of Auschwitz."
Metzger also announced the introduction of a new educational program, a joint initiative by the
European Jewish Congress and Yad Vashem, for teachers on the Holocaust and its lessons.
Business Scene
By Greer Fay Cashman
February 1, 2005
AFTER being cut off fr om their Jewish heritage for seven decades, new Jewish millionaires from
the former Soviet Union are making huge sums of money available to their own communities,
and for numerous projects in Israel.
The most prominent of these tycoons is Lev Leviev, who grew up in a Chabad environment,
came to Israel as an adolescent and made his for tune in diamonds, real estate, communications
and fashion. Leviev supports Jewish communities throughout the FSU, and especially that of his
native Bukhara. Others include commodities dealer Mikhail Chernoy, whose foundation helps
victims of terrorism and sponsors the prestigious Jerusalem Summit conference; Leonid Nevzlin,
former deputy CEO of Yukos (the major Russian oil company) and former president of the
Russian Jewish Congress has given generously to the Hebrew University; communications
magnate Vladimir Goussinsky, also a for mer president of the RJC, contributes to numerous
Israel causes; Kazakhstan industrialist and financier Alexander Mashkevich heads the EuroAsian Jewish Congress and helps fund its activities; and more recently there's Moshe Kantor,
president of the National Institute for Corporal Reform, a non-commercial organization that
brings together prominent politicians business people and economists to work out efficient
strategies for the reform of Russian corporate enterprises. Kantor, who is also chairman of the
European Jewish Congress, divides his time between Herzliya Pituah and Moscow. Though a
specialist in spacecraft automatic control systems, Kantor is founder and CEO of Acron, an
agrochemical company that is one of the 40 largest in Russia. Kantor bore much of the cost of
EJC's International Forum "Let My People Live" in Krakow last week, where world leaders
pledged to prevent another Holocaust. Kantor's father was among the Red Army liberators of the
concentration camps, but he also had relatives who were among the victims of the Nazis.
WHILE most of the FSU millionaires appear in the headlines at long intervals, Leviev, who has
the controlling interest in Africa Israel, keeps making headlines due to his manifold business
interests. Leviev, who this week bought into Tel-Ad via Africa Israel, is expanding the
company's overseas operations to include the Philippines, where it will be involved in the
construction of transport-related and residential projects in Manila. Africa Israel will be
represented in the Philippines by Yaacov Ben Moshe. Africa Israel has been engaged in largescale projects in the US, Canada, Africa, Taiwan, China, Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Poland, UK and elsewhere.
FOREIGN Minister Silvan Shalom will be the guest of honor at the annual gala dinner of the
Israel British Chamber of Commerce on February 2. Other VIP guests include British
Ambassador Simon McDonald and Lord David Young, who as a member of Margaret Thatcher's
government played a significant role in privatization. Chamber chairman Amnon Dotan will
present the prize for the most outstanding exporter to Gadot Biochemical Industries, which over
the past two years doubled its sales to Britain from $ 2.4 million in 2002 to $ 4.7 million in 2004.
The prize for the most outstanding investor will be awarded to Lipman Electronic Engineering,
which last year acquired a British company for $ 100 million.
FINANCE Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with his British counterpart Gordon Brown in
London last week and invited him to visit Israel. Netanyahu said he would be very pleased to see
Brown as the head of a British business delegation. Among the subjects discussed by the two
ministers was the need for western economies to create new employment opportunities because
so much industrial production is being transferred to Third World countries. The British forecast
is that within the next decade, 50% of the goods sold in Britain will be produced in Third World
countries, compared to 25% today.
While in England, Netanyahu also addressed a meeting of 200 representatives of institutional
investors, and familiarized them with investment opportunities in Israel.
TOURISM Minister Avraham Herschson is in favor of establishing a casino in Eilat, providing it
is part of a tourism complex that includes a fairground, amusement park and convention
facilities, as is the case in many other parts of the world, especially Las Vegas. Herschson wants
the casino to be part of a multi-purpose enterprise catering to a large variety of people with
diverse interests.
ONE would think that after acquiring El Al (the national carrier) and becoming chairman of its
board, Israel (Izzy) Borovich, 63, would have no ambitions other than keeping the company
profitable and expanding its routes and fleet. But Borovich has another burning ambition related
to Arkia, the airline he is now forced to sell. Without Arkia, it is doubtful that Eilat would have
become Israel's prime resort area. Borovich told the Israel Association of Travel agents at its
annual convention in Eilat that he cherishes a dream of becoming Eilat's mayor. It was on an
Arkia flight, he said, that he first met current mayor Yitzhak Halevy, long before the latter took
office. Borovich said that he envies him his job.
FORMER Labor MK Eli Goldschmidt, a past head of the Knesset Finance Committee, and more
recently a current affairs broadcaster on Channel Two, has reportedly joined the Israel
Corporation controlled by the Ofer family. Goldschmidt will be responsible for the company's
external and public relations, and will be engaged in planning strategies that will boost the
company's image, which has deteriorated somewhat over the past year. Channel Two's Fact
program exposed the appalling working conditions of employees at Israel Chemicals, an Israel
Corporation subsidiary, and there were other issues over which the company was severely
criticized.
ACCOUNTANT Uzi Mor, 42, has been appointed general manager of Meir Motors, where he
has been employed since 1990. He has worked as vice president business development and
played an integral role in the company's expansion. Meir Motors was established 1967, and has a
major interest in Phoenix, owns Hertz, Kesher, Rent-a-Car and Auto-Center, and is in
partnership with Volvo Sweden in the production of buses for public and private use. It imports
and markets Renault, Volvo, Mitsubishi, Honda and Jaguar cars, trucks, buses and heavy
equipment.
Dikla Fogel has been appointed marketing manager for the Sbarro chain of Italian eateries. Fogel
has an MBA from the Kiryat Ono Academic College. She was previously part of the Pelephone
marketing team. In her new position, she will be responsible for communications as well as
marketing, and will be in charge of all publicity related to the 26-branch chain.
Leaders mark the Auschwitz liberation; 60th anniversary is largest
gathering of camp survivors
By Judy Dempsey
January 28, 2005
Leaders from more than 40 countries gathered Thursday for an emotional ceremony to remember
the victims of the Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration
camp by Soviet troops.
The ceremony here was held close to the railway sidings where tens of thousands of Jews,
Gypsies, Slavs and homosexuals had been transported to their deaths in one of the most
notorious of the Nazi concentration camps. The sides of the railways tracks were lined Thursday
by big, bright candles.
The survivors, many in their 80s, sat patiently Thursday in the open air despite the freezing
temperatures and a biting snow storm that persisted during the afternoon ceremonies.
It was the largest ever gathering of survivors for an Auschwitz anniversary and the ceremonies,
attended by Europe's leaders and royalty, underscored how this could be the last time an
anniversary will be attended by survivors. More than 1,000 had been invited. The ceremony
ended with the haunting sounds of train whistles, conveying the sense of wagons arriving and
inmates descending into the camp.
"President Bush has said of the Holocaust, 'there will come a time when the eyewitnesses are
gone,"' said Vice President Dick Cheney, who earlier had spoken at a ceremony in the Juliusz
Slowackiego theater in Krakow, some 60 kilometers, about 40 miles, west of Auschwitz.
"That is why we are bound by conscience to remember what happened and to whom it
happened," he said.
The survivors were covered in thick blankets, fur hats and woolen coats while Polish soldiers
served them hot drinks to keep them warm during the three-hour ceremony.
They had arrived -- along with the prime ministers, presidents, princes and princesses from
across Europe -- amid a massive security operation. More than 3,000 police officers were
mobilized to stand watch along the road that connects Krakow to Auschwitz.
The road, which wound its way along forests shrouded in snow, fields covered in white and
small villages, had been sealed off to public transportation and traffic from the early hours of the
morning. Villagers peered out from windows to see the cavalcade of police cars, buses and
official cars passing through this part of the Polish countryside.
Among those who addressed the gathering in Auschwitz were survivors of the camp that had
been set up in 1939 and which by 1942 had become the biggest center for the mass extermination
of European Jews. More than 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz.
When Soviet troops reached the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, there were only 7,000 survivors, many
barely alive. The Nazis had driven most of the prisoners who could still walk through the snow
on a "death march" toward camps farther west.
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a former Polish foreign minister who for decades had sought
reconciliation between Germans and Poles, spoke on behalf of Polish prisoners. Simone Weil,
the French lawmaker, represented Jews. Romani Rose from Germany's Council of Romas, made
a short speech on behalf of European Gypsies.
Rose specifically thanked the German president, Horst Kohler, for asking him to attend the
ceremony at Auschwitz. Kohler, representing the country that perpetrated the Holocaust, was not
invited to speak.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, representing the liberators of Auschwitz, used the
occasion to warn against compromising with terrorists.
Dressed in a thick black coat, Putin praised the "valor of the Soviet soldiers who lost 600,000
lives for the liberation of Poland. We will never forget that the Soviet Union paid an enormous
price of 27 million lives for that great victory."
However, Putin also warned about making any compromises with terrorism.
"We shall not only remember the past but also be aware of all the threats of the modern world,"
he said. "Terrorism is among them and it is no less dangerous and cunning than fascism. And it
is equally cruel: It has already claimed thousands of innocent lives."
With little emotion, Putin said the Holocaust showed just as "there were no 'good' and 'bad'
fascists, there cannot be 'good' and 'bad' terrorists. Any double standards here are absolutely
unacceptable and deadly dangerous for the civilization."
Toward the close of the ceremony and as darkness started to fall, the chief rabbi of Russia, Berel
Lazar, presented Putin and the Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, each with a special
medal. The rabbi praised Russia's role in liberating Auschwitz and liberating Europe from
fascism and praised Poland for improving its ties with its small Jewish community and in hosting
the ceremony.
Earlier at the Juliusz Slowackiego theater, Putin, who was one of the main speakers along with
Cheney, Kwasniewski and President Moshe Katzav of Israel, won long applause after he
acknowledged the persistence of anti-Semitism in Russia.
"Even in our country, in Russia, which did more than any to combat fascism, did most to save
the Jews, even in our country, we sometimes unfortunately see manifestations of this problem
and I, too, am ashamed of that," said Putin.
He was referring to a letter, recently signed by 500 Russians, including nationalist members of
the Duma, demanding that all Jewish organizations be outlawed and officials who supported
them be punished. The letter also accused Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and provoking antiSemitism.
"Anti-Semitism has returned to Russia," said Moshe Kantor, chairman of the board of
governors of the European Jewish Congress and one of the main organizers of the anniversary
ceremonies. Kantor, a Russian industrialist specializing in the aeronautics and space, said in an
interview there existed in Russia "a consortium of economic and political interests" behind the
letter. It was no coincidence the letter had been drawn up just before the Auschwitz anniversary,
he added.
The ceremonies Thursday began with a forum organized by the European Jewish Congress that
brought together young people from around the world, Auschwitz survivors and former Soviet
soldiers who freed the camp.
Anatoly Shapiro, who commanded the Russian unit that captured Auschwitz 60 years ago, won
loud applause when he said: "I would like to say to all the people of the earth: Unite, and do not
permit this evil that was committed."
Shapiro, 92, had made a recorded video since he was too ill to travel from his home in New
York.
Three other former Soviet soldiers, their suit jackets decorated with medals and ribbons, stood in
a theater box to take applause and then appeared on stage where Kwasniewski presented them
with medals.
Kwasniewski said the lessons learned from Auschwitz had to be constantly repeated and not only
during special ceremonies.
"The world has not always heeded the sad lesson of Nazi crimes," he said, vowing to "ensure that
future generations never forget."
Kwasniewski had earlier said on Polish radio: "When I see ethnic purges in the Balkans or what
is happening in some African countries, I have to note that, unfortunately, the message of
Auschwitz has not been heeded.
"We must constantly remind each other of the message, not only when there are ceremonies like
the one today."
In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament president, Josep Borrell, said it was important
never to forget what happened during World War II, when the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler
killed millions of Jews, homosexuals, Slavs, Gypsies and handicapped people.
"Everyone is surprised such a thing happened, but it did," Borrell said. "It's difficult to pay just
memory to it. It is a battle against the weakness of memory, something which should never
happen again. "If we forget history, we are condemned to repeat it."
Leaders cite lesson of Holocaust at services; At Auschwitz rites, they
warn of surge of anti-Semitism
By Craig S. Smith, New York Times Staff Writer
January 28, 2005
The presidents of Russia, Poland, Israel and Ukraine, as well as Vice President Dick Cheney and
other world leaders, joined about 500 invited guests in a theater here Thursday to commemorate
the freeing of thousands of people from the nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp 60
years ago.
Each of the leaders spoke in turn, at a forum sponsored by the European Jewish Congress and
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, about the need to keep awareness of the Holocaust
alive after the last of its aging survivors have died.
Several also warned against the resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe.
"We call upon the European Union not to allow Nazism to live in the imagination of the youth of
Europe like some kind of horror show," President Moshe Katsav of Israel said, adding the allies
"did not do enough" to prevent the killing of Jews in World War II.
As many as 1.5 million people, including 1 million Jews, met their death at the Auschwitz
complex, which included three main camps and 39 smaller camps 65 kilometers, or 40 miles,
southwest of Krakow. Most were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the second of the main camps,
that has come to symbolize the much broader Holocaust in which 6 million Jews died.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke proudly of the Soviet soldiers who gave themselves for
the liberation of Auschwitz.
"They switched off the ovens, they saved Krakow," he said. But he also said there was still much
to be ashamed of in the current situation.
"We unfortunately still see signs of anti-Semitism in our country," he said.
A group of Russian nationalist legislators recently called for a ban on Jewish groups in the
former communist state.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland presented medals to three surviving Red Army
soldiers who took part in the liberation of Auschwitz.
Survivors, several wearing the coarse blue and white caps from their prison uniforms, dotted the
crowd.
The commemoration, the largest ever, marks the liberation of the camp on Jan. 27, 1945.
The commemoration means different things to each nation: For Russia, it is a commemoration of
its often-overlooked role as liberator; for Poland and other Central European countries, it is both
part of a gradual recognition of their complicity in the killing and an opportunity to draw closer
to Europe. Poland and several other former Soviet bloc countries joined the European Union last
year, and the rest are waiting to join.
The ceremony this year has an air of urgency as Jewish organizations work to ensure that
awareness of the Holocaust persists after living memories of it die. This is likely to be the last
major anniversary to be attended by both camp survivors and their liberators, all of whom are
now in their 90s.
Leaders at the forum sought commitments from European leaders to institutionalize the teaching
of the Holocaust, drawing on educational programs and materials developed by Yad Vashem.
"The numbers of world leaders coming and the readiness of the media to follow the
commemoration is greater than before" with "a new anti-Semitism building in Europe," said the
head of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev, arguing that without a systematic approach to teaching
about the Holocaust, its meaning for future generations may fade. "We need a concrete
commitment out of this ceremony."
That commitment is all the more critical now because a growing number of Europe's young
Muslims are resisting, even rejecting, efforts to teach them about the Holocaust, arguing that
there is not enough attention paid to the killing of innocent Muslims by Israel or the United
States-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Teachers are reluctant to teach about the Holocaust in some schools, particularly in France,
Belgium and Denmark. Shalev said that most of his organization's educational exchanges with
France are now with the country's private Jewish institutions.
A recent string of anti-Semitic attacks across Europe and other unsettling events, such as the
widely publicized photograph of Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, wearing a Nazi
uniform at a costume party earlier this month and a walkout by far-right German legislators
during a minute's silence for Nazi victims on Friday, have raised concerns that the horrors of the Holocaust are
being forgotten.
Moshe Kantor, chairman of the European Jewish Congress, warned that the rise in anti-Semitic
incidents should not be ignored.
"From broken windows to death camps was the blink of an eye," Kantor said, referring to the
four years between the 1938 attacks on German Jews known as Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken
Glass, and the 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which German leaders discussed the "final solution
to the Jewish question in Europe."
At a dinner this week, Kantor talked of the need to pass on personal recollections of the
Holocaust, not just statistics or historical accounts. As an example, he told of meeting an elderly
woman during a visit to the Birkenau camp several years ago.
She remarked to him that the camp looked different when she was interned there because there
was no grass then; starving prisoners had eaten it all.
EDITORIAL
Auschwitz Day
January 27, 2005
Younger generations may wonder why such a huge international emphasis is being placed today
on marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Why, they may ask, should we bother to remember just one such aspect of a far larger war that
killed millions of people and affected virtually every nation on Earth.
Part of the answer to that question is that the crazy belief in the superiority of one race over
another - an idea that drove the Nazis to set up extermination camps - remains a threat today, in
various forms, in many parts of the world. Some of Africa's own atrocious wars have been and
are being driven by xenophobia, racial, tribal, religious or ethnic differences.
Another reason is that anti-Semitism continues to rear its ugly head in Europe, with recent
reports of vandalism committed on Jewish graves in western Europe and a walk-out of far-right
German legislators of an Auschwitz remembrance event.
Some liken this to what happened just before World War 2. European Jewish Congress
Chairman Moshe Kantor warned yesterday that such sentiment can turn into violence extremely
quickly.
"From broken windows we reached the death camps in the blink of an eye. Today, we are
standing on pieces of crystal in Europe again. We see the same things happening in France, in
Britain, in Russia, elsewhere," he warned.
Widespread ignorance of this history is evident - ranging from British Prince Harry's recent
flippancy to new far-right activism.
A recent survey in Poland, a country so closely affected by that war, recently indicated that only
about half of the population are aware that most of Auschwitz victims wer e Jewish - described as
a holdover mentality from the later brainwashing of the communist era.
Whether these current fears of persecution are being overstated or not, the world can never afford
to forget the brutal horrors of the Holocaust.
AUSCHWITZ LIBERATED 60 YEARS AGO
January 27, 2005
Events to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the World War Two Nazi death camp at
Auschwitz have begun with an ecumenical prayer service in a nearby Polish village.
In the snow and freezing cold, a group of 100 people gathered in Harmeze, five kilometres from
the main camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the site where ashes from the camp’s crematoria were
dumped.
Among the assembled were survivors of the infamous Nazi death factory where more than one
million people, mostly Jews, died.
The exact number of people killed will never be known as those victims who were selected for
immediate extermination by German SS officers were not registered at Auschwitz.
Estimates range from 1.1 million to 2 million.
World leaders, along with former Soviet soldiers present at the liberation of Auschwitz on
January 27, 1945, will shortly join survivors in a ceremony at a memorial located on the ruins of
the two camp’s gas chambers.
The former Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski – Auschwitz prisoner number
4427 – will give a speech on behalf of 150,000 Poles who died, aside from the hundreds of
thousands of Polish Jews.
Speaking for the Jewish victims will be the former French Health Minister Simone Veil –
Auschwitz prisoner number 78651.
Romani Rose, the president of Germany’s Central Council of Sinti and Roma, will give an
address on behalf of the 23,000 Roma who died in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Homage to the 14,500 Soviet soldiers sent to the concentration camp was paid by Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko.
As the son of one of only 95 Soviet soldiers to survive the camp in southern Poland, Mr
Yushchenko recalled with emotion a previous visit to the Auschwitz museum when he was given
receipts signed by his father.
Andrei Yushchenko was held at Auschwitz from February to July 1944 as prisoner 11367.
He was tattooed three times by the Nazis, and escaped from various camps seven times.
He died in 1992.
Sixty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, though, the world has again been alerted to the rise
of anti-Semitism in Europe.
“The situation in Europe is similar to what happened just before World War Two,” Moshe
Kantor, the head of the European Jewish Congress said.
“The speed with which the Kristallnacht of 1938 turned into the infamous Wannsee conference
of 1942 was just a historical second.”
The Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, was a nationwide pogram against Jews in Germany,
while the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 saw Nazi leaders discuss “the final solution to
the Jewish question in Europe.”
“Today we are standing on pieces of crystal in Europe again,” Mr Kantor said.
ITAR-TASS News Agency
January 27, 2005
Declaration condemning anti-Semitism adopted at forum in Krakow
All participants in the International Forum "Let my people live" who included Russian President
Vladimir Putin, received on Thursday symbolic badges "Hand of memory", made of Jerusalem
stone.
The forum organizing committee told Tass that Jerusalem stone was chosen as a symbol of a city
which is sacred to three religions, a city in whose power to unite mankind in intolerance to alien
grief. This badge symbolizes the most dreadful days not only of the Second World War, but also
of the entire history of mankind when millions of men, women and children were herded to
camps of death.
The forum adopted the World Student Declaration. It was penned by students from all over the
world who gathered in Oswiecim - "a place where disrespect and contempt for human rights led
to barbaric acts which trampled underfoot honour of mankind".
"We were frightened by the epidemic of anti-Semitism which attacked many societies today," the
document says. "We swear to fight racism and anti-Semitism, negation of Holocaust and call on
teachers of educational establishments to fight these manifestations," the declaration stresses.
In this connection, students called on governments "to regard studies of these dreadful events the
main aim and to appropriate necessary funds to continued studies", since "the study of the
memory of the past is the best way of meeting the future". They also called on young people of
the world to promote inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue.
Students took an oath of "fighting apathy, encouraging knowledge on injustice and striving for
peace where there will be no violence and conflicts, as well as of fighting for human rights,
social justice and democratic values".
Rounding off the forum work, chairman of the trusteeship council of the European Jewish
Congress and head of the forum organizing committee Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor expressed
gratitude to all states and non-government organizations for assistance and participation in the
forum.
"May be, this last chance of a direct dialogue of inmates and liberators with leaders and youth of
the world predetermined the outstanding historic initiative of the Presidents of the Jewish,
Russian and Polish States together with heads of other government delegations on establishing
the Regular Forum of memory of Holocaust lessons so as to maintain, with their prestige, the
Pan-European Programme of studies in each European country," Kantor noted.
JEWISH CONGRESS: MANKIND WILL BE ALWAYS
GRATEFUL TO SOVIET SOLDIERS FOR AUSCHWITZ'S
LIBERATION
January 27, 2005
KRAKOW (POLAND), January 27 (RIA Novosti's Leonid Sviridov) - Mankind will be always
grateful to the Soviet soldiers who liberated the death camp in Auschwitz, Vyacheslav Kantor,
chairman of the organizing committee of the Life To My People!, international forum and the
board of trustees of the European Jewish Congress, said at the forum's closing ceremony in
Krakow.
"Mankind was saved. Russian-speaking Jew from Zaporozhye Major Shapiro, a neighbor of my
father Vladimir Kantor, a warrior-liberator, Red Army soldier, Russian officers and soldiers
Martynushkin, Vinnichenko, Koptev-Gamolov, Cherkov and their comrads-in-arms put an end to
the Holocaust tragedy," Mr. Kantor said.
"As the earth will never cover the blood which is written at the entrance to the Krakow
synagogue, so our gratitude will live forever," he emphasized.
On Thursday Krakow and Auschwitz are hosting the memorial events to commemorate the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp by the Soviet Army.
Anti-Semitism declining in Russia - Jewish Congress official
January 24, 2005
MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax) - The scale of anti-Semitism in Russia has considerably reduced in
the past decade, European Jewish Congress Supervisory Council Chairman Vyacheslav Kantor
told a Monday press conference at Interfax.
"Russia has the longest history of state anti-Semitism. State anti- Semitism in Russia ended in
the early 1990s, and it has not resumed," he said.
"There is still domestic anti-Semitism in Russia, and probably it will live forever. But as long as
Russia has democratic institutions, it will not receive strong support that may trigger extreme
forms of anti- Semitism, such as pogroms or persecution for ethnic or religious reasons," he
said.
Poland to host anniversary ceremonies for death camp liberation
January 24, 2005
MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax) - An international forum "Let My People Live!" as well as official
ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp will be held in Poland on January 27.
"More than 25 heads of state are planning to attend the ceremonies," Viatcheslav Kantor, head of
the forum's organizing committee and president of the trusteeship board of the European
Jewish Congress, told reporters at Interfax's main office on Monday.
"The Holocaust is a Jewish question, but it is a universal lesson to the entire population of the
world," he said.
At least 1.1 million Jews, 150,000 Poles, 23,000 Gypsies, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and about
25,000 people of other nationalities were held at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp which was built
in April 1940. More than one million European Jews, nearly one-fifth of all Holocaust victims,
were killed there.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz camp.
Leaders, survivors gather for Auschwitz commemoration
January 27, 2005
AMSTERDAM — Sixty years to the day that Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz, world leaders
and survivors gathered in the former death camp in Poland to remember the Holocaust.
Six million Jews — more than 102,000 from the Netherlands — as well as gypsies, Poles,
Russians, homosexuals and others singled out by the Nazis were murdered in Auschwitz and a
host of other "extermination" and "work camps" during World War II.
It is estimated that 1.1 million European Jews were gassed or died due to neglect in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau camp near the Polish town of Oswiecim. Auschwitz was made up of three
main camps and 39 sub-camps.
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende are among the
leaders from 44 countries attending the ceremony, which is designed as both a commemoration
and a warning that such a crime must never be allowed to happen again.
About 2,000 Auschwitz survivors and 50 of the Russian Red Army soldiers who entered the
camp on 27 January 1945 were among the dignitaries at Thursday's ceremony.
It could mark "the last chance we have to gather this cross-section of people together in the same
room", the chairman of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, told news agency AFP.
In total, 10,000 people are expected to attend the ceremony and several events are planned
throughout the day.
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski will decorate several former soldiers of the Red Army
who liberated the camp and British Veterans Minister Ivor Caplin is to unveil a memorial at the
Monowice sub-camp of Auschwitz, in memory of the British prisoners-of-war who died there.
The main commemorative ceremony will start at 2.30pm at a memorial erected at Birkenau,
some 3km from the main camp, to the memory of those who perished at Auschwitz.
Dutch news agency ANP reported that the Polish authorities have laid on heavy security to guard
the leaders, including US Vice President Dick Cheney.
The event is also a sensitive issue in Poland because many locals feel not enough attention is
given to the fact that 2 million non-Jewish Poles also perished during the war. Additionally,
Poland was invaded in 1939 by both the Germans and the Soviet Union.
Stalin's troops stopped in front of Warsaw in 1944 and allowed the Germans to put down a rising
there, resulting in the massacre of 250,000 civilians in a revenge action by German troops.
PAP News Wire
Kantor: Teaching about Holocaust is of key importance
January 27, 2005 Thursday
Cracow, Jan. 27 - Systematic and well-thought-out teaching about the Holocaust is of key
importance to remembrance and the preservation of the memory of this tragedy, Moshe Kantor,
the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the European Congress of Jews said in Cracow on
Wednesday.
"After 60 years many people perceive those events in another way than they had truly happen.
The historic memory is the weakest part of human memory. To preserve it a hard work has to be
done. That is why systematic approach to teaching about the Holocaust is so important," Kantor
told a news conference in Cracow on Thursday.
The conference was also attended by a handful of former inmates of the Nazi KL AuschwitzBirkenau. On Thursday the veterans, young people and leaders of many states will take part in
Forum "Let My People Live." The meeting will be inaugurated by a pan-European programme
on teaching about the Holocaust inspired by Moshe Kantor.
Quotes of the day
January 28, 2005
"One has to expect the level of violence will either stay where it is or go up or down modestly
during this period as they attempt to prevent from happening that which is going to happen"
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, assesses the rebel threat in the run-up to elections
in Iraq
"From broken windows to death camps was the blink of an eye" Moshe Kantor, chairman of the
European Jewish Congress, speaks on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz about
why the rise in anti-Semitic incidents should not be ignored
"This instrumentation appears slightly bizarre, as it gives us a covert window into people's
activity life that no one's ever had before" Dr James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo
Clinic, who has conducted research into the activity patterns of obese people by embedding
sensors in participants' underpants
"My wife and I were very shocked but we watched it until the end because we couldn't believe
what we were seeing." Alan Leigh-Browne, a Baptist from Wellington in Somerset, who was
stunned when a DVD of The Pajama Game he'd bought from a bargain bin in a supermarket
turned out to be an Italian sex film
Histoire-Auschwitz-libération-holocauste Iouchtchenko remplace
Poutine a un forum international sur Auschwitz
CRACOVIE (Pologne), 27 jan (AFP) - Le président ukrainien Viktor Iouchtchenko a pris la
parole jeudi a un forum international sur Auschwitz a Cracovie (sud) a la place du président
russe Vladimir Poutine, empeché par une tempete de neige d'arriver a temps en Pologne.
Dans un discours empreint d'émotion, M. Iouchtchenko, dont le pere avait été prisonnier
d'Auschwitz, s'est engagé en tant que nouveau chef de l'Etat ukrainien a faire en sorte qu'il "n'y
ait plus jamais d'antisémitisme en Ukraine".
Le forum "Let my people live" (Laisse vivre mon peuple), organisé par le Congres juif
européen, le mémorial de Yad Vachem a Jérusalem et le ministere polonais de la Culture, a
ouvert jeudi les manifestations du 60eme anniversaire de la libération d'Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Les dirigeants de nombreux pays, d'anciens détenus et leurs libérateurs de l'Armée rouge se sont
réunis dans ce forum pour s'engager a enseigner la leçon de l'holocauste aux générations a venir.
Le président Poutine était attendu a la cérémonie principale dans l'apres-midi, sur le site du camp
de Birkenau.
Holocaust survivors mark Auschwitz liberation
January 23, 2005
The last major gathering of Holocaust survivors will be held in Poland to mark the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Many of the survivors are in their 80s and few are expected to survive until the 70th anniversary
at Auschwitz where up to 8,000 prisoners were gassed every day and more than 1 million died,
reported the Independent Sunday.
Also attending Thursday with the 2,000 Holocaust survivors are: Israeli President Mosche
Katsav, Germany's President Horst Kohler, the French President Jacques Chirac and Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
The somber ceremony that includes ecumenical and Jewish memorial prayers was planned by the
European Jewish Congress, Jerusalem-based Holocaust Memorial Authority, Yad Vashem and
the Polish Ministry of Culture.
However, 60 years after the end of World War II, the University of Bielefeld in Germany found
that 62 percent of Germans were "sick of all the harping on about German crimes against the
Jews."
Nazi Camps: Survivors Of The Holocaust Return To
Auschwitz; Elderly Prisoners Who Lived To Tell Their Tale, Their
Liberators
By Ruth Elkins In Berlin and Andy Mcsmith
January 23, 2005
The last major gathering of Holocaust survivors is to be held in a bleak corner of southern
Poland this week as the world marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz
extermination camp.
The survivors are already making their way to nearby Krakow. Some are in wheelchairs, some
are blind; all bear traces of the physical and psychological trauma from the camp as well as signs
of their advanced age. Even the younger adults among the survivors liberated are now in their
eighties. Not many will see the 70th anniversary.
Britain's representatives at the Auschwitz ceremony hope that their presence will repair some of
the damage done to the country's reputation by the photograph, reproduced around the world, of
Prince Harry dressed in Nazi regalia. After that furore, it was announced that the Foreign
Secretary, Jack Straw, would lead the delegation on Thursday. The Foreign Office denies this is
a last-minute change of plan.
Denis MacShane, a junior foreign minister, will also be there. Mr MacShane's Polish father was
seriously injured fighting the invading German army in 1939. The Royal Family will be
represented by the Queen's youngest son, the Earl of Wessex, who will have lunch with former
prisoners of war. There will also be a small ceremony on Thursday morning, when the Armed
Forces minister Ivor Caplin will unveil a plaque honouring 38 British prisoners of war who died
in Auschwitz.
President Horst Kohler of Germany, the French President, Jacques Chirac, and Russian
President, Vladimir Putin, will be among some 30 other dignitaries joining 2,000 Holocaust
survivors and Red Army veterans at Auschwitz to remember the genocide at the largest of all the
Nazi death camps. Organisers say space will be limited, but the camp is vast, constructed for
mass murder on an industrial scale. At its peak SS guards at Auschwitz gassed up to 8,000
prisoners every day, most of them Jewish. At least 1,100,000 prisoners died there.
Ceremonies on Thursday afternoon will include ecumenical and Jewish memorial prayers,
speeches by, among others, the Israeli President, Mosche Katsav, and Mr Kohler, as well as an
address from the former Auschwitz prisoner and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Pope John Paul
II is due to send a message.
The sombre ceremony, planned by the European Jewish Congress, Jerusalem- based Holocaust
Memorial Authority, Yad Vashem, and the Polish Ministry of Culture, will doubtless do justice
to the events of over half a century ago. But, with few witnesses still alive, remembering the
Holocaust remains a task fraught with difficulty.
"There is no definitive relationship to Auschwitz," German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler said
last week. "Each new generation must find its own relationship, between the dangers of
trivialisation and displacement."
Sixty years after the end of the Second World War, Germany may already be facing such
dangers. The University of Bielefeld recently found that 62 per cent of Germans were "sick of all
the harping on about German crimes against the Jews", preferring their Nazi past to be firmly
consigned to history. Many appear to feel that in a country where wearing a Nazi uniform can
land you in jail, where most children will visit a concentration camp, and where one magazine
accused its countrymen of "memorial madness", enough has been done to confront Germany's
Nazi past: it is time to move on.
Officially, such sentiments are strictly taboo. Although he is not due in Poland this week, the
German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, will deliver the key address on Thursday at a special
televised event in Berlin attended by Israeli representatives. Several German broadcasters have
already cleared their schedules to make way for special Holocaust programming.
Later this year, Mr Schroder, who was the first German Chancellor to take part in D-Day
commemorations, is expected to visit Moscow to mark the Red Army's struggle against Nazi
troops.
In May, he will unveil Berlin's new memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, a huge,
undulating field of concrete slabs, by the Brandenburg Gate. The underground information centre
will include audio biographies of all Jews killed by Nazis.
In Poland, in 1945, Ukrainian infantryman Yakov Vinnichenko was one of the first Red Army
soldiers inside Auschwitz. "Some tried to kiss us, but you didn't want to get infected," Mr
Vinnichenko recalls of the 7,000 inmates he found there. At 79, that day remains, he says,
"impossible to describe".
Chancellor Schroder continues to search for a description. Last December, he invited more than
100 Berlin schoolchildren to a reading by Auschwitz survivor Sioma Zubicky. "Mr Zubicky has
come back to Germany," he said, "so that we can learn that we all carry the responsibility for one
thing: Never again'."
Anniversary-60 Years Since The Nightmare's End
January 30, 2005
Presidents, prime ministers, parliamentarians, kings and dukes from 44 countries will attend
ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp in Ooewiecim Jan. 27 .
The most prominent guests will include the presidents of: Russia-Vladimir Putin, France-Jacques
Chirac, Germany-Horst Koehler, Israel-Moshe Katzav, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney,
European Commission President Manuel Barroso, European Parliament President Josep Borrell,
Dutch Queen Beatrix, Belgian King Albert II and Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, representing the
Vatican.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, whose father was a camp prisoner, will also attend. Last
year Yushchenko supplied documents to the museum certifying that Andriy Yushchenko, a
Soviet prisoner of war, wore number 11,367 in Auschwitz.
Commemorations of the camp's liberation, under the patronage of Polish President Aleksander
Kwaoeniewski, will be attended by an estimated 10,000 people, including at least 1,000 former
prisoners. During the event former prisoners will sign the charter of an international center for
education on Auschwitz and the Holocaust-an appeal that the tragedy of the Holocaust is never
repeated. Official speakers during the ceremony will sign the charter first: former Polish Foreign
Minister W'adys'aw Bartoszewski, French intellectual Simone Weil and-on behalf of Romanies
exterminated in Auschwitz-Romani Rose. The charter will be conveyed to national leaders
worldwide.
The main ceremonies will start on the site of the former Birkenau camp. The sound of a train
driving onto a loading ramp will signal the commencement of the celebrations.
Official statements will be delivered by the presidents of Poland, Israel and Russia. Ecumenical
prayers will also be held. A special message from Pope John Paul II will be read. The ceremony
will end with the lighting of candles and a performance by cantor Josef Malowany and a choir
featuring a composition written by Krzysztof Knittel in honor of the occasion.
On the same day an international forum will take place in Cracow entitled "Let My People Live,"
organized by the Polish Ministry of Culture and the European Jewish Congress. During the
forum, President Kwaoeniewski will decorate five Red Army soldiers who participated in the
liberation of the camp.
"Every generation must be on its guard, to make sure that such a thing never happens again," UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote in a declaration before a special session of the UN General
Assembly Jan. 19 dedicated to the anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.
Annan warned that "the evil that destroyed 6 million Jews and others in those camps is one that
still threatens all of us today."
WORLD GATHERS IN WINTRY POLAND FOR AUSCHWITZ
LIBERATION ANNIVERSARY
January 27, 2005
AUSCHWITZ, Poland, Jan 27 (ONASA/AFP) - World leaders were Thursday to stand side-byside with some 1,000 survivors of the Auschwitz death camp for an emotional ceremony under a
blanket of snow to mark the camp's liberation 60 years ago. A train pulling along the tracks once
used to herd more than a million people in cattle trucks to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination
camp in southern Poland was to signal the start of the ceremony, set to issue a plea never to let
the horrors of the Holocaust happen again. Amid sub-zero temperatures, which have already
forced delays to the arrival of some participants, 10,000 people were expected to pay tribute to
the at least 1.1 million people who died at Auschwitz. Most of them were Jews exterminated in
the gas chambers of the most grimly efficient of the Nazi death camps. They were among the six
million people who perished during the Nazi's chilling "Final Solution". In a declaration
delivered to Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, US President George W. Bush on
Wednesday called on the world to unite in the fight anti-Semitism. The 60th anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz death camp is "a sobering reminder of the power of evil and the need
for people to oppose evil wherever it exists," he said. "For almost five years, Auschwitz was a
factory for murder where more than a million lives were taken," he said, urging the world "never
to forget the cruelty of the guilty and the courage of the victims at Auschwitz and other Nazi
concentration camps." US Vice President Dick Cheney was to be among world leaders at the
event, who will also be joined by Red Army soldiers who liberated the camp on January 27,
1945. The open-air ceremony, also being attended by members of European royalty, will be held
at a memorial erected at the camp's Birkenau complex, between the ruins of two of gas chambers
that were capable of claiming thousands of lives every day. Thursday's commemorations began
at 9:30 am (0830 GMT) with a forum organised by the European Jewish Congress bringing
young people from around the world face to face with survivors of Auschwitz and the former
Soviet soldiers who freed the camp, many of them in their 80s. The main ceremony was to begin
at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) at the memorial three kilometers from the main camp. Israeli President
Moshe Katsav and Ukraine's new leader Viktor Yushchenko, arrived in Krakow on Wednesday,
but Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrival was put back to Thursday morning because of the
snowstorm. Some 3,000 police have been mobilised and the road linking Krakow to Auschwitz,
60 kilometers to the west, was sealed off from the early hours of the morning.
ITAR-TASS News Agency
Putin to attend memorial ceremonies at Oswiecim Thursday
January 27, 2005
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday will attend memorial ceremonies marking the
60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in the
Polish town of Oswiecim by Soviet troops.
While in Poland, Putin intends to emphasise the Soviet Union's decisive contribution to the
victory over fascism, the victory that resulted in the creation of prerequisites for the free
development of modern civilisation. A high-level official of the Kremlin administration has told
Itar-Tass, "Against the background of attempts being made by certain circles to revise the results
of the Second World War and estimates related to it, this will serve as a reminder of the
invariability of the known historical facts".
The Kremlin official said Putin intends to emphasise the role of the Soviet servicemen-liberators
in delivering the states and peoples of Europe from Nazi enslavement and in saving millions of
people on the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality, from physical
extermination".
"Mentioning the Soviet Union's decisive contribution to the deliverance of the Jewish people
from the menace of an all-out Nazi genocide will be a separate aspect of the Russian President's
participation in the memorial ceremonies," the Kremlin official stressed.
"Without belittling the memory of the other victims of Oswiecim, many of whom were Soviet
citizens of various nationalities, this fact deserves a special mention at the place, the very name
of which became the symbol of the Holocaust," the Kremlin administration official said.
The memorial ceremonies at Oswiecim usher in the year of the 60th anniversary of the VEVictory, of which the forthcoming May 9 jubilee celebrations in Moscow with the participation
of the leaders of many countries will be the key event. "The principal idea of the jubilee
ceremonies in Moscow is that mankind must united in the face of the most dangerous
phenomena of global nature that threaten its very existence. Fascism was such a menace in the
middle of the 20th century. Terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other
new challenges are a similar menace nowadays," the Kremlin official recalled.
Putin was to arrive in Poland by air on Wednesday but the departure of his plane had been
delayed owing to utterly adverse weather conditions at Cracow airport. In view of that, the
Russian presidential administration official said, the President of the Russian Federation will not
be able to attend the planned "Life to My People" forum, which is to be held in Cracow by the
Polish government in conjunction with the European Jewish Congress. His message to the
participants in the forum will be read out.
Delegations of 41 countries and the European Union arrive in Poland these days. Nineteen
presidents, eight Heads of Government, and six members of royal families are expected to attend
the memorial ceremonies among guests. A number of delegations have introduced adjustments to
their stay in Poland due to adverse weather.
"Considering numerous addresses and the format of the ceremonies, Vladimir Putting is expected
to have brief contacts with a number of the leaders of delegations," the Russian presidential
administration official has told Iterates.
ITAR-TASS News Agency
Putin says Russia to oppost any manifestations of anti-Semitism
By Veronika Romanenkova
January 27, 2005
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has told an international forum entitled Let My People Live,
underway in Krakow that the Russian government will always oppose any manifestations of antiSemitism.
"We'll do this using the force of law and public opinion," he said.
As the forum is timed for the 60th anniversary of liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, Putin
said: "We must remember the bitter lessons of the past and must do everything in our power to
rule out a repetition of those experiences in the future".
"Auschwitz became a bloody reality of Nazi crimes, since the Nazis declared Jews a second-rate
nation," Putin said.
He indicated that the Holocaust was the tragedy for the Jewish people as well as for the whole
mankind.
He also said he felt ashamed by acts of anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Russia.
"We all of us must say together that no one can remain indifferent towards the acts of antiSemitism, xenophobia, and racial intolerance," he said at an international forum entitled Let My
People Live.
"Germany's Federal Chancellor said recently he felt ashamed by his country's past, but the past is
gone now anyway, while we must feel ashamed by what is happening today," Putin said.
"Even in Russia, the country that did the most to defeat Nazism and liberate the Jews we can
often see the manifestations of that disease [anti-Semitism]," Putin said.
"We are ashamed by them," he indicated.
Putin called for fighting together with terrorism.
"Our civilization is facing other and no less dangerous threats, but I'd like to warn the civilization
that we'll be able to weed the terrorists out only if double standards are dropped," he said.
As he reverted to the topic of Auschwitz, Putin said: "Soviet soldiers were the first ones to see
the horrors of that camp. They shut down the furnaces in this and other camps forever".
"They also liberated the city of Krakow," he said. "About 600,000 Soviet soldiers fell on the
frontlines in Poland. They paid their lives for freeing the Jewish people as well as other nations".
Ceremonies marking Auschwitz liberation start in Krakow
January 27, 2005
KRAKOW, Jan 27 (Hina) - Ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the
Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau started in Krakow on Thursday with a forum
called "Let My People Live" and a message that future generations will be informed about the
Holocaust so as to prevent it from happening again.
Young people from all over the world, former inmates and former Soviet soldiers, as well as
numerous world leaders, including Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, gathered at the forum
organised by the European Jewish Congress, the Yad Vashem memorial centre from Jerusalem
and the Polish Culture Ministry.
Addressing the present, Israeli President Moshe Katsav criticised the allies from World War II
for allowing the Holocaust to happen.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the participants to think about the horrible lesson of
the Holocaust and warned that the seeds of racism and xenophobia existed in the world today,
even in Russia, Ukrainian President Victor Juschenko said at the forum that antisemitism would
never again exist in his country.
The central ceremony of marking the Auschwitz liberation will be held later today in Auschwitz,
some 50 kilometres from Krakow.
More than 1.5 million children, women and men, mostly Jews were killed in the Nazi death
camp. Also killed were Poles, the Roma and prisoners of war.
Xinhua News Agency
Roundup: World leaders gather in Poland for Auschwitz
anniversary
January 27, 2005
World leaders and soldiers from the Soviet Red Army alongside some of the remaining survivors
of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp gather Thursday in the southern Polish village of Auschwitz
for events marking the camp's liberation 60 years ago, said reports.
A series of events will last for a day and to kick off the memorial activities. The European
Jewish Congress designed a forum entitled "Let My People Live", in which young people from
around the world would have a chance to talk face-to-face with survivors and have an in-depth
understanding of the dreadful years.
To honor British prisoners of war who died in the death camp along with the 1.1 million men,
women and children, most of them European Jews, British Veterans Minister Ivor Caplin will
unveil a memorial at the Monowice subcamp of Auschwitz.
French President Jacques Chirac will inaugurate an exhibit in a renovated prisoner block at
Auschwitz's main camp in honor of 80, 000 French nationals who were once deported here and
other camps in Nazi-occupied Europe.
After that, the main commemorative ceremony will start in the afternoon at a memorial devoted
to all those died at the camp.
Some 40 world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Vice President Dick
Cheney and Ukraine's new leader Viktor Yuschenko are expected to take part in the memorial
activities.
US President George W. Bush on Wednesday called on Americans to observe the event in
Washington, calling it an opportunity to " pass on the stories and lessons of the Holocaust to
future generations."
"The history of the Holocaust demonstrates that evil is real, but hope endures," Bush said in a
proclamation.
"In places like Auschwitz, evidence of the horror of the Holocaust has been preserved to help the
world remember the past. We must never forget the cruelty of the guilty and the courage of the
victims at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps," he said.
Auschwitz: Putin fails to mention Jews
By HERB KEINON and DAVID HOROVITZ
January 28, 2005
Israeli officials were miffed that Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his speech at
Auschwitz, never mentioned the Jews who were murdered there.
"It's incredible," said one official, voicing his dismay that Putin mentioned the 600,000 Russian
soldiers who died liberating Poland, and the 27 million Soviets killed during the war, but not the
1.3 million Jews killed at Auschwitz.
One senior official in Jerusalem, who was unaware that Putin didn't mention Jews during his
speech at Auschwitz, advised against looking for too much meaning in this omission. "He has
proven more determined in his policy against anti-Semitism than any other Russian leader," the
official said. "We should judge him by what he does, rather than by what he says."
Earlier in the day, at a speech he delivered at an international forum in Krakow, Putin said he
was shamed by manifestations of anti-Semitism in Russia and vowed to confront such bigotry
"by force and public opinion."
"We all of us must say together that no one can remain indifferent towards the acts of antiSemitism, xenophobia and racial intolerance," he said. "Even in Russia, the country that did the
most to defeat Nazism and liberate the Jews, we can often see the manifestations of that disease.
We are ashamed by them," he said.
Putin was the only eastern European leader to use Thursday morning's gathering at Krakow
Theater to acknowledge ongoing anti-Semitism in his country. He was also the only speaker to
draw an explicit link from Nazism to modern terrorism. Modern civilization "is confronting
another threat in place of Nazism," he said. Today's terrorists also neglect human life, strive for
manic purposes and are ready to murder anybody. Modern civilization will be safeguarded, he
said, "only if we can unite against that new common enemy."
That was the task for politicians and statesmen for the 21st century, he said.
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger also drew a direct line from Nazism to modern terrorism –
specifically Palestinian terrorism.
"Our enemies continue to pursue us, even in the Holy Land of Israel," Metzger said, "and we
have seen survivors of the fire of Auschwitz slaughtered together with their families on Seder
nights in Netanya, children murdered on buses on their way to school, entire families murdered
in restaurants, in cars, and in the streets."
As with the victims of Nazism, the lives of these, 1,000-plus innocent victims of Palestinian
terrorism were taken solely because they were Jews, Metzger said. He said that only a "strong
sovereign Jewish state can guarantee that Auschwitz will not happen again. The State of Israel is
the true response to the evil of Auschwitz."
Metzger also announced the introduction of a new educational program, a joint initiative by the
European Jewish Congress and Yad Vashem, for teachers on the Holocaust and its lessons.
PAP News Wire
President Kwasniewski addresses "Let My People Live" Forum
January 28, 2005
The day of January 27, 1945 finally put an end to the existence of the Nazi camp AuschwitzBirkenau, where one of the greatest crimes against the humankind was committed,
President Aleksander Kwasniewski said during the International Forum "Let My People Live"
on Thursday.
The president stressed that "the place was born out of hatred, cruelty and contempt for a human".
"This was the place where, in the name of insane ideology, people sentenced others to the most
horrible fate. This was the place where the Jewish and Roma nations were to be finally
exterminated, where Poles and prisoners from all over Europe were murdered", the Polish
president said.
"A stop to the criminal activity of the Nazis was the victory of international forces united against
the Hitlerite evil that wanted to rule the world", President Kwasniewski stressed.
"Today we want to jointly testify to the fact that the memory about the reasons and
circumstances of establishing Auschwitz-Birkenau still lives and is present in the awareness of
our nations.
And it continues to be a painful lesson to us, the president said.
"I am convinced that here in the Cracow-based theatre named after great Polish poet Juliusz
S?owacki, on behalf of almost entire humanity, we express the desire that the evil of the past
would never again triumph in the world on such a scale", President Kwasniewski said.
Next the Polish president welcomed Moshe Katzav, the President of the State of Israel, the state
"which was built by the Jewish nation that survived the extermination".
We hope that Mr Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, will join us in a moment and are
greeting him remembering the role of the Red Army that liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau
camp, that liberated and saved Cracow, the president said.
And we are glad that we have the opportunity to commemorate this anniversary with President of
Ukraine, Mr Viktor Yushchenko, whose father was a prisoner in this camp, the Polish president
said.
The Polish president stressed that "we wish well all people, we want peace, justice and security.
And we know that such tragic events will never again repeat only in the world that
remembers and draws proper conclusions from its history".
"A future free of hatred, racism and xenophobia, friendly to all of us and giving each and
everyone a chance for development and cooperation can only be built in the world united by
respect to a human being and concern for the well-being of every individual", the president
added.
"We will not forget and we do not let future generations to forget. The incomprehensible act of a
man, the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau will for ever remain the symbol of human
suffering, but we also hope that it will become the symbol of the strength of
human spirit", the Polish president said.
Being aware of our responsibility for the just today and prosperous future of the world nations
we are starting to work. And we vow to do everything in our power to adjust the world to the
biblical plight of Queen Ester "Let my people live," that became the motto of today's meeting,
the president stressed.
Next the Polish president turned to young people and said: "Looking at your faces and seeing
how overwhelmed you are with the anniversary, how deeply you understand the scope of the
tragedy that happened 60 years ago I am convinced that we will manage to build a better world
in which you and your children, and my grandchildren, will be safe and will be able to focus on
good deeds".
"Such world will be the best way of paying tribute and the most excellent monument we may
offer to all those who suffered and perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau", the Polish president
concluded.
INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION
Conmemoran 60 aniversario de liberación de Auschwitz
January 27, 2005
Antiguos prisioneros del campo de exterminio
nazi en Auschwitz-Birkenau, encienden velas
en el Monumento a las Víctimas del Fascismo.
1,5 millones de personas, en su mayoría judías,
fueron asesinadas por los nazis en ese lugar.
Foto: AFP
CRACOVIA/AFP/DPA
Redacción Internacionales
En medio de un intenso invierno, las ceremonias que conmemoran el 60 aniversario de la
liberación del campo de exterminio nazi en Auschwitz-Birkenau -que se produjo también en
condiciones climáticas similares- comenzaron solemnemente hoy con un compromiso renovado
de enseñar la lección del Holocausto a las futuras generaciones.
Más de un millón de hombres, mujeres y niños, casi todos judíos deportados de diversos países
de la Europa ocupada por la Alemania nazi, murieron en ese campo de concentración, trabajos
forzados y exterminio.
Imágenes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial mostraron primero la liberación de varios campos de la
muerte por el ejército soviético en 1945, con sus prisioneros esquéticos de mirada perdida en el
vacío.
Anatoly Shapiro, de 92 años, el comandante ruso que condujo a sus soldados a Auschwitz el 27
de enero de 1945, hizo uso de la palabra en un mensaje video, ya que estaba demasiado débil
para viajar de Estados Unidos, donde vive, a Polonia. “No hay que permitir que esto vuelva a
suceder jamás, en ninguna parte”, insistió Shapiro.
Ex deportados, ex soldados soviéticos y numerosos dirigentes extranjeros se reunieron primero
en Cracovia, a unos 60 kilómetros de Auschwitz, en el sur de Polonia, en el Foro “Let my people
live” (Dejad vivir a mi pueblo).
Este foro fue organizado por el Congreso Judío Europeo (CJE), el memorial de Yad Vachem en
Jerusalén y el ministerio polaco de Cultura.
Dicho foro marca el inicio de los esfuerzos educativos sobre el Holocausto en toda Europa, tal
como lo deseaba el presidente del CJE, Moshe Kantor.
Denuncias y admisiones
En el foro, el presidente israelí, Moshe Katzav, criticó el silencio del mundo frente al
Holocausto. El mandatario lamentó que los aliados no bombardearan Auschwitz o las vías que
conducían al mayor campo de exterminio alemán, aunque así podría haberse interrumpido el
genocidio nacionalsocialista.
“Auschwitz debe tener un lugar en el corazón de la memoria histórica colectiva de la nueva
Europa”, exigió Katzav. “El Holocausto cambió desde la base el orden mundial”, destacó.
Sesenta años después de la liberación, el mandatario israelí señaló que el Holocausto no fue
únicamente una tragedia del pueblo judío, sino también un fracaso de la humanidad. “Las
lecciones del Holocausto deben inclinar también los caminos de la humanidad”, dijo.
El presidente polaco, Aleksander Kwasniewski, calificó Auschwitz como uno de los capítulos
más terribles de la historia y consideró la magnitud de los crímenes nazis como aplastante. “Pero
tenemos que hablar, recordar, gritar: aquí fue el infierno en la Tierra”, consideró.
Kwasniewski, dijo que la mejor manera de honrar a las víctimas de Auschwitz es la construcción
de un mundo más pacífico y seguro.
Su homólogo ruso, Vladimir Putin, hizo autocrítica. “También en nuestro país hay este tipo de
manifestaciones (de antisemitismo), pese a que nosotros luchamos contra el fascismo (...) Me
avergüenzo de ello”, sostuvo.
El presidente alemán, Horst Koehler, llamó a mantener vivo el recuerdo de los crímenes en
Auschwitz, “donde se cometió el mayor crimen contra la humanidad”, afirmó. “Tenemos que
trabajar para que algo así no se repita jamás”, dijo el jefe de Estado alemán tras realizar una
visita por el recinto del campo de concentración.
El papa Juan Pablo II, aunque no estuvo presente, envió un comunicado que fue leído por un
nuncio papal. En éste, el Sumo Pontífice condenó el asesinato de judíos por los nazis como un
crimen que manchó por siempre la historia de la humanidad.
“Ese intento de destruir planificadamente todo un pueblo cubre como una sombra a Europa y a
todo el mundo”, afirmó el jefe de la Iglesia católica. “Nadie puede pasar de largo ante la tragedia
de la Shoah”, recalcó.
El vicepresidente de Estados Unidos (que asistió como representante de su país), Dick Cheney,
señaló que ante los pocos testigos que todavía continúan con vida, Auschwitz debe quedar como
testimonio para el futuro.
Exigen estar alertas
Por su parte, antiguos presos de Auschwitz-Birkenau llamaron hoy al mundo a permanecer alerta
ante el antisemitismo y el racismo.
“Nuestro deseo, el deseo de todos, de que esto nunca se repitiera, no se ha cumplido”, dijo
Simone Veil, ex presidenta del Parlamento Europeo y antigua prisionera de Auschwitz número
78651. “Desde Auschwitz se han producido nuevos genocidios”, denunció.
Veil, de 77 años y que fue deportada al campo de concentración con 17 años, recordó hoy
además a los entre 1,1 y 1,5 millones de personas asesinadas en Auschwitz.
“¿Qué habría sido de ellos, de los millones de niños judíos que fueron asesinados en su infancia
o adolescencia, aquí o en los guetos o en otros campos de exterminio?”, se preguntó Veil. “Sólo
sé que lloro siempre que pienso en ellos y que nunca los olvidaré”, agregó.
Por su parte, el ex ministro del Exterior polaco y también ex preso de Auschwitz, Wladyslaw
Bartoszewski, lamentó que el mundo libre no reaccionara en aquel entonces a los informes que
enviaba el movimiento clandestino polaco sobre los sucesos en el campo de exterminio nazi.
“Cuando en septiembre de 1940 estaba en Auschwitz, como preso número 4427, nunca se me
habría ocurrido imaginar que sobreviviría a Hitler o a la Segunda Guerra Mundial”, dijo.
A su juicio, los últimos ex presos que aún viven tienen derecho a creer que su sufrimiento no fue
en vano y que preparó el camino para un mejor futuro de todos los pueblos en Europa.
“Queremos creer que el inimaginable sufrimiento de las víctimas de este lugar obliga a las
futuras generaciones a vivir en respeto ante la dignidad de todas las personas”, afirmó.
El premio nobel de la paz Elie Wiesel, que estuvo prisionero en Auschwitz, apeló a sacar
enseñanzas de lo que sucedió allí. “El odio es un cáncer que se extiende de vida en vida, de
persona a persona”, dijo. Para los jóvenes y políticos advirtió: “Si tras este día vuelven y siguen
siendo lo mismo, hemos perdido”.
Emotivo homenaje a las víctimas de Auschwitz
January 27, 2005
CRACOVIA, Polonia.- Un silbido y el ruido de un tren frenando bruscamente, recuerdo de la
llegada de cientos de miles de prisioneros a Auschwitz, inauguraron las ceremonias del 60º
aniversario de la liberación del campo de exterminio nazi en el sur de Polonia.
La conmemoración reunió bajo la nieve a decenas de jefes de Estado y de gobierno de todo el
mundo, a sobrevivientes del Holocausto y a veteranos de la Armada Roja que, hace 60 años,
descubrieron el horror y liberaron a quienes aún estaban vivos en ese capo de concentración.
Los presidentes de Ucrania, Israel, Rusia y Polonia, además del vicepresidente estadounidense,
Dick Cheney, condenaron hoy todas las formas de antisemitismo, intolerancia y xenofobia en un
diálogo con jóvenes, previo a los actos oficiales.
El presidente polaco, Aleksander Kwasniewski, dijo durante el acto, que se celebró el teatro
"Juliusz Slowacki", que Auschwitz fue "una criatura generada por el odio, la crueldad y el
desprecio por el hombre".
El presidente israelí, Moisés Katsav, precisó que "los aliados no hicieron nada para evitar la
masacre de Auschwitz. Hubiese bastado con bombardear las vías ferroviarias que unían a
Auschwitz con Birkenbau para contener la matanza".
"Nos es muy difícil entender por qué en el siglo XX, el mundo guardó silencio ante la tragedia de
los judíos, por qué Palestina se mantuvo cerrada a los judíos que querían huir de Europa", dijo.
Exhortó a la juventud del mundo entero a oponerse con fuerza a todas las manifestaciones de
racismo, antisemitismo o xenofobia.
"Tememos el antisemitismo, la negación del Holocausto, la visión desvirtuada del pasado",
explicó.
El presidente de Ucrania, Victor Yushchenko, cuyo padre fue asesinado en Auschwitz, aseguró
que en su país no habrá sitio para el antisemitismo, la xenofobia y los conflictos raciales.
"Los ucranianos saben cuán peligrosa son la intolerancia y la agresión. Por eso se lanzaron a la
Plaza de la Independencia en Kiev en defensa de los valores de la civilización, el respeto por el
hombre, la libertad y la ley", afirmó.
El presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin, que llegó al acto con retraso a causa de las nevadas que
dificultan el tráfico aéreo en Cracovia, dijo que el Holocausto fue una catástrofe para toda la
Humanidad.
Por su parte, el vicepresidente de Estados Unidos, Dick Cheney, indicó que en los campos de
concentración que existieron en Europa el hombre cometió uno de los crímenes más
abominables.
"Auschwitz, aunque sin tumbas, es el mayor cementerio del mundo. Los muertos están allí, en
todas partes", señaló Cheney.
Parafraseó al presidente George W. Bush al afirmar que "llegará el día en que habrán
desaparecido los testigos de aquella tragedia, pero la conciencia nos obliga a mantener vivo el
recuerdo de aquella tragedia y de los sufrimientos que causó".
Particularmente conmovedoras fueron las palabras de Anatoli Shapiro, el jefe de las unidades del
Ejército Rojo que liberaron Auschwitz el 27 de enero de 1945: "no permitáis que se repita la
tragedia, que vuelvan a funcionar campos de exterminio como los de Auschwitz, Majdanek y
Treblinka"
Actos en la Argentina
Sobrevivientes, funcionarios, embajadores europeos y dirigentes de la comunidad judía
participaron de un acto en el Museo del Holocausto; la DAIA advirtió sobre el “resurgimiento
del antisemitismo”; la AMIA realizará un acto en su sede a las 18.
El Parlamento Europeo condenó el Holocausto.
Aprobó una resolución que condena el antisemitismo, en medio de una polémica entre diputados
polacos y alemanes.
En Davos. El Foro Económico Mundial de Davos recordó hoy el 60 aniversario de la liberación
de Auschwitz, con una ceremonia de la que participaron personalidades religiosas judías,
cristianas e islámicas.
Elie Wiesel, Premio Nobel de la Paz y sobreviviente del Holocausto, lanzó un mensaje a los
presentes donde subrayó la importancia del diálogo constante para evitar nuevos genocidios.
"Al recuerdo debemos agregarle el deseo de vivir juntos como seres humanos y de crear
esperanza. Los líderes del mundo tienen la responsabilidad de garantizar que un genocidio no se
repita más", afirmó Klaus Schwab, fundador y presidente del World Economic Forum.
Ultimos días
El 18 de enero de 1945, a causa del avance de las fuerzas Aliadas, los nazis decidieron la
evacuación de Auschwitz. Los presos que todavía eran capaces de desplazarse por sus propios
medios fueron enviados a "la marcha de la muerte" hacia el oeste.
Más de 66.000 personas salieron de Auschwitz en el nevado anochecer del 18 de enero. Antes de
abandonar la tierra polaca, 15.000 de ellos ya habían muerto. El resto siguió marchando hacia los
campos de concentración de Alemania o perdiendo la vida en la nefasta travesía.
La liberación definitiva ocurrió el 27 de enero de 1945 en manos de las tropas soviéticas, que
encontraron alrededor de 5000 presos en el lugar.
De Moscou à Tel-Aviv, ils tirent les leçons de l'holocauste
Pierre Bocev (Berlin), Patrick Saint-Paul (Jérusalem), Irina de Chikoff ( Moscou), Hervé Yannou
(Le Vatican)
Auschwitz, résume l'hebdomadaire Der Spiegel, est «le mot le plus terrible du passé allemand et
du présent allemand». La commémoration du 60e anniversaire de la libération du camp est
l'occasion pour la classe politique de réaffirmer son rejet solennel du nazisme et sa responsabilité
historique pour ses crimes.
Gerhard Schröder a dit mardi sa «honte» et proclamé que le souvenir de la guerre et du génocide
«appartient à notre identité». Il reprendra ce matin la parole, tandis que Horst Köhler, le
président de la République, représentera l'Allemagne à Auschwitz. Lundi, le ministre des
Affaires étrangères Joschka Fischer avait évoqué devant l'ONU à New York l'«abomination
morale absolue» qu'étaient les camps d'extermination. Chacun de ces discours traduit une vision
partagée par l'ensemble des Allemands, exception faite des néonazis qui relèvent la tête.
Il n'en a pas toujours été ainsi. Au lendemain de la guerre, malgré les révélations irréfutables du
procès de Nuremberg, la plupart des Allemands avaient conclu ce que l'écrivain Ralph Giordano
a appelé «leur grande paix avec les coupables». Le «miracle économique» aidant, il était plus
facile de diaboliser Hitler, de regarder de l'avant et d'occulter le passé. En 1969 encore, le leader
bavarois Franz Josef Strauss pouvait affirmer qu'un peuple ayant «accompli de tels exploits
économiques» pouvait revendiquer le droit de «ne plus vouloir entendre parler d'Auschwitz».
Il y avait pourtant eu une césure, le «procès d'Auschwitz» qui s'est tenu du 20 décembre 1963 au
19 août 1965 à Francfort, grâce à l'opiniâtreté d'un homme, le procureur Fritz Bauer. Au moment
d'une des interruptions de séance, le personnel de surveillance s'est même une fois mis au garde à
vous lorsque les accusés ont quitté la salle. N'empêche: outre trois acquittements, il y a eu six
condamnations à perpétuité et onze autres à des peines allant jusqu'à 14 ans de prison, toutes
pour «complicité». Comme si, pour chacun des 15 209 meurtres jugés, c'est Adolf Hitler luimême qui avait tiré la balle mortelle ou actionné le four crématoire.
Les questions posées par la «génération de 68» ont fait progresser le débat, tout comme la série
télévisée sur l'Holocauste, quatre émissions diffusées en janvier 1979 qui ont personnalisé
l'horreur et ébranlé tout un peuple. Hollywood au service de l'Histoire.
Recroquevillée derrière son écran «antifasciste», la RDA communiste avait toujours refusé le
travail de mémoire. Il a fallu attendre la chute du Mur pour que son premier Parlement librement
élu décrète en signe de résipiscence l'accès entièrement libre pour tous les Juifs d'URSS.
La RFA, entre-temps, poursuivait son douloureux examen de conscience. Le 8 mai 1985, le
président Richard von Weizsäcker déclarait que «celui qui ferme les yeux devant le passé devient
aveugle pour l'avenir» et assimilait pour la première fois la capitulation non plus à une défaite,
mais à la libération du Mal. La «querelle des historiens» sur les horreurs respectives du nazisme
et du stalinisme grave dans le marbre le rejet de toute relativisation.
Il y a bien, çà et là, des signes de lassitude. Lorsque l'écrivain Martin Walser s'élève en 1988
contre les habitudes de toujours invoquer dans le débat la «massue morale» d'Auschwitz. Il y a
bien de temps à autre des dérapages. Mais le consensus est solide, tel que l'exprime l'écrivain
Arnulf Baring: «Tous les Allemands répondent des crimes nazis. Leur souvenir adhérera à nous
aussi longtemps qu'il y aura des Allemands dans le monde.»
Israël dénonce la permanence de l'antisémitisme
Soixante ans après la libération du camp de la mort d'Auschwitz, Israël se sent toujours
abandonné par le monde. Le gouvernement d'Ariel Sharon s'inquiète chaque jour de la
résurgence de l'antisémitisme, notamment en Europe: une nouvelle forme de haine des Juifs, qui
s'abrite derrière l'antisionisme et les critiques envers Israël. Les autorités israéliennes appellent
régulièrement les Juifs du monde entier, dont les Français, à fuir l'antisémitisme en s'installant en
Israël. La Shoah sert toujours de justification au sionisme, né pourtant bien avant le génocide
perpétré par les nazis.
«L'État d'Israël a appris la leçon d'Auschwitz. Il a appris à se défendre, à défendre ses habitants
contre ses ennemis et constitue un abri pour les Juifs. La leçon, c'est que nous ne pouvons
compter que sur nous-mêmes», a ainsi déclaré, hier, Ariel Sharon. Le premier ministre israélien a
qualifié de «décisions de légitime défense», celles prises par son gouvernement «pour lutter
contre les terroristes palestiniens». Celles-ci sont pourtant «considérées par nos ennemis comme
agressives et comparables à ce que nous ont fait les nazis», a-t-il ajouté.
Ariel Sharon a aussi critiqué l'attitude des Alliés pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale «qui
savaient que les Juifs étaient en voie d'extermination et n'ont rien fait». Dans l'entourage du
premier ministre, on constate avec une certaine ironie teintée d'amertume qu'aujourd'hui les
«Européens se précipitent pour célébrer les Juifs parce qu'ils sont des victimes. Mais demain les
attaques anti-israéliennes reprendront de plus belle», confie un haut responsable.
Le gouvernement israélien s'inquiète de la montée de l'antisémitisme dans le monde. Cet été,
Ariel Sharon avait dénoncé «l'antisémitisme sauvage» dont souffrent, selon lui, les Juifs de
France, les invitant à venir se réfugier en Israël. Aujourd'hui, c'est la Grande-Bretagne – où le
nombre d'incidents a doublé en un an, selon des statistiques publiées par la presse israélienne –
qui inquiète. Et la Russie, où l'antisémitisme est de plus en plus «virulent». Le gouvernement
israélien retrouve dans les attaques contre Israël le même processus de «délégitimisation et de
déshumanisation» à l'égard des Juifs que durant la période précédant l'Holocauste.
Mais cet amalgame est critiqué en Israël, notamment par l'historien israélien Tom Segev. «Il y a
là une utilisation de la Shoah à des fins politiques, ce qui n'est d'ailleurs pas propre à Israël,
puisque les adversaires de l'occupation israélienne des territoires palestiniens n'hésitent pas
parfois à la comparer, tout aussi abusivement à celle des nazis», relève-t-il. Les colons de la
bande de Gaza, dont Ariel Sharon a prévu l'évacuation avant la fin de l'année, avaient aussi
provoqué un véritable tollé en arborant une étoile orange, pour sous-entendre qu'ils sont les
victimes d'un «nouvel holocauste». Ils n'ont pas hésité, non plus, à comparer Ariel Sharon à
Adolf Hitler.
«Cela dit, le sentiment que les Juifs ont été abandonnés par les Alliés est parfaitement
authentique et explique a posteriori des décisions cruciales prises par Israël, comme celle de se
doter de l'option nucléaire», souligne Tom Segev. Selon lui, la Shoah n'est devenue un élément
central de l'identité israélienne qu'après le procès du criminel de guerre nazi Adolf Eichmann,
enlevé en 1960 en Argentine, jugé et exécuté en Israël en 1961. A partir du procès, les Israéliens
qui préféraient s'identifier à des héros et des pionniers de la construction d'Israël, auraient
commencé à s'identifier aux victimes juives. Aujourd'hui, les jeunes Israéliens veulent un Etat
fort, capable de contenir ses voisins arabes, voués, selon eux, à sa destruction.
Désintérêt russe
«Holo... quoi?» Vika, 35 ans, ne comprend pas ce que veut dire sa sœur qui lui téléphone pour
commenter un article paru dans la presse sur l'holocauste. Vika est diplômée de l'université.
Lorsqu'on rapporte le fait au président de la Fondation Holocauste, Ilia Altman ne s'en étonne
pas. «Ce mot, dit-il, n'est apparu dans les manuels scolaires que depuis peu. Au début des
années 90, lorsque nous avons créé notre centre à Moscou, beaucoup de gens l'ignoraient. Il faut
de toute façon prendre conscience que ce thème n'intéresse que médiocrement les Russes.»
Auschwitz n'est pas non plus un nom familier aux oreilles russes. Le camp de concentration est
généralement désigné par son appellation polonaise, Oswiecim. Lioudmila Pavlovna
Martchenko, 81 ans, y fut internée au mois d'avril 1943. Elle avait 18 ans. Après avoir suivi les
cours d'une école d'espionnage à Moscou, Lioudmila avait été parachutée en zone occupée par
les Allemands, non loin de Smolensk. Dénoncée, elle est emprisonnée en Allemagne avant d'être
déportée à Oswiecim. «Un groupe clandestin de résistance s'était constitué dans le camp. Je l'ai
rejoint.» Lioudmila Pavlovna est une vieille dame aux cheveux gris. Très digne. Sa mémoire est
intacte. Son patriotisme également. «Nous avons survécu parce que nous avions foi dans la
victoire. C'est notre armée qui a libéré Oswiecim. On ne le dit pas assez.»
Invitée à assister au 60e anniversaire, Lioudmila Martchenko n'a pas voulu faire le voyage. Maria
Simionovna Chinkarenko, 77 ans, non plus. Pour ne pas rouvrir les plaies mal cicatrisées. Maria
n'avait que 15 ans lorsqu'elle fut envoyée en Allemagne dans le cadre du STO. Avec une amie,
Nadia, elle a pris la fuite. Les deux jeunes filles furent vite rattrapées et déportées à Auschwitz
au mois de janvier 1943. Maria porte le numéro 75 490. Parfois, en été, dans le tram, des jeunes
gens l'interrogent. «Je réponds volontiers, mais très vite, la curiosité s'émousse. Notre jeunesse
ne se sent pas concernée.»
Il y a quelques jours, une vingtaine de députés ont adressé une requête au procureur général de
Russie exigeant l'interdiction de toutes les organisations juives qu'ils accusent «d'extrémisme».
Selon le Parquet, l'affaire ne sera pas «examinée». Elle suscite cependant nombre de
protestations, notamment de la part de l'ambassade d'Israël à Moscou. Les pamphlets antisémites
sont monnaie courante en Russie. On les vend dans les kiosques, à l'étal des échoppes, dans les
souterrains pour piétons. Les agressions à l'encontre de religieux juifs sont également fréquentes.
Mais selon Vyatcheslav Kantor, président du Congrès juif européen, «l'antisémitisme d'Etat, qui
a longtemps existé en Russie et en URSS, a disparu dans les années 90 et depuis il n'a jamais
resurgi».
Vladimir Poutine participera aux manifestations du 60e anniversaire. Quelque 240 soldats et
officiers soviétiques ont découvert le camp par hasard. Ils n'y sont restés que quelques jours ou
quelques heures car les combats se poursuivaient. Ilia Altman déplore qu'on n'ait jamais dressé
une liste exhaustive des libérateurs. Il se bat aussi depuis des années pour la création d'un musée
de l'holocauste à Moscou. «Il y a bien peu d'empressement de la part des fonctionnaires, dit-il, et
pas grand monde pour nous aider.»
Ilia n'est pas amer. Simplement, il ne nourrit aucune illusion. «La Russie célèbre sans ardeur la
libération d'Oswiecim. Bien sûr, il y aura des reportages, des émissions à la télévision. Mais le
lendemain, on aura oublié. Je ne voudrais pas donner l'impression qu'en Russie le jubilé est
occulté ou minimisé. Il s'agit de tout autre chose. Dans un pays qui a perdu 27 millions de
personnes pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, l'holocauste se heurte à une profonde
indifférence.»
Il y a 60 ans, le camp d'Auschwitz était libéré par l'Armée rouge
January 27, 2005
Les dirigeants de 44 pays étaient attendus, jeudi 27 janvier, pour commémorer le 60e
anniversaire de la découverte par l'Armée rouge du camp d'extermination d'Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Dix mille personnes doivent assister à la cérémonie principale, qui doit se dérouler pendant
l'après-midi.
Plusieurs cérémonies marquent, jeudi 27 janvier en Pologne, le 60e anniversaire jour pour jour
de la libération par l'Ar mée rouge du plus grand camp d'extermination nazi, à AuschwitzBirkenau, en présence des dirigeants de 44 pays, d'anciens détenus et de leurs libérateurs.
Les présidents français, Jacques Chirac, israélien, Moshé Katzav, allemand, Horst Köhler, et
russe, Vladimir Poutine, le vice-président américain, Dick Cheney, le chancelier allemand,
Gerhard Schröder, et d'autres dirigeants européens doivent assister à ces cérémonies en présence
d'une dizaine de milliers de personnes.
Cet anniversaire a été accompagné d'appels au devoir de mémoire, alors que plusieurs pays
européens sont confrontés à des actes antisémites.
"Le point le plus difficile du programme est la météo", a reconnu, mercredi soir, le chef du
comité national de la mémoire, Andrzej Przewoznik, alors que d'importantes chutes de neige se
sont abattues sur le sud du pays où se trouve Auschwitz, et que les températures atteignaient - 6
°C.
Des avions ont ainsi été déviés sur Varsovie et l'arrivée du président russe, Vladimir Poutine, a
été reportée à jeudi, alors qu'il était attendu mercredi soir à Cracovie, à une soixantaine de
kilomètres d'Auschwitz.
"CONSTRUIRE UN MONDE OÙ CECI N'EST PLUS POSSIBLE"
Les cérémonies débutent à 9 h 30 par un forum international intitulé "Let my people live"
(Laissez vivre mon peuple), au théâtre Slowacki de Cracovie.
Organisé par le Congrès juif européen (CJE), ce forum réunissant des jeunes avec d'anciens
détenus et leurs libérateurs devrait constituer "le départ d'efforts d'éducation sur l'Holocauste à
travers toute l'Europe", selon le souhait du président du CJE, Moshé Kantor.
A 10 h 30, le secrétaire britannique aux anciens combattants, Ivor Caplin, doit inaugurer dans le
camp de travail de Monowitz, ou Auschwitz III, une plaque dédiée aux prisonniers de guerre
britanniques morts sur ces lieux.
Le président français, Jacques Chirac, doit inaugurer à 11 h 30 une exposition rénovée au
pavillon numéro 20 dans le musée d'Auschwitz I, à la mémoire de 80 000 déportés de France,
dont 76 000 juifs.
Comme lors de l'inauguration du Mémorial de la Shoah, mardi 25 janvier, à Paris, Jacques
Chirac devrait appeler à la mobilisation contre la dissipation de cette mémoire pour qu'il n'y ait
ni oubli ni banalisation.
"L'Europe doit se construire notamment autour du rejet absolu de ce qu'a représenté la Shoah",
dit l'entourage du président français, qui souligne la nécessité de "construire une société et un
monde où ceci ne sera plus possible". "Se souvenir, c'est être à Auschwitz mais c'est aussi agir."
Telle devrait être la teneur du discours que le président prononcera au pavillon français
d'Auschwitz, bâtiment inauguré en 1979 et récemment rénové.
"USINE DE LA MORT"
La cérémonie principale réunissant quelque 10 000 personnes doit commencer à 14 h 30, autour
du mémorial international de Birkenau, l'"usine de la mort" installée à 3 km d'Auschwitz I.
Plus d'un million d'hommes, de femmes et d'enfants, presque tous des juifs et transportés de
différents pays de l'Europe occupée par l'Allemagne nazie dans ce camp, y ont péri.
Pour les rares survivants de ce camp de la mort, il est évident que le monde tend à oublier les
horreurs du régime nazi.
"Il est bien plus facile de ne pas y penser, de ne pas reconnaître ce que certains personnes ont fait
à d'autres personnes il n'y a pas si longtemps, regrette Abraham Mor-Morgentaler, un juif
polonais ayant passé deux ans à Auschwitz. Mais si nous oublions, le génocide pourrait
recommencer." Outre des juifs, de nombreux Polonais, Russes, Tsiganes et homosexuels ont péri
à Auschwitz, où les soldats soviétiques ont découvert 7 000 survivants à leur arrivée, le 27
janvier 1945.
"J'espère et je crois que le monde entier, et en particulier le monde libre, va effectivement tirer
les leçons de ces événements, des événements de la seconde guerre mondiale", a déclaré à
Reuters le président israélien, Moshé Katzav, à la veille des commémorations.
Outre une série de messages adressés tant par des déportés que par des dirigeants politiques, des
prières œcuméniques et des bougies doivent être allumées sur le site par une bonne partie des
participants.
Près de 3 500 policiers ont été mobilisés pour veiller à la sécurité des participants, à Cracovie et
Auschwitz.
Avec AFP et Reuters
Das Leiden, das Grauen
60 Jahre nach der Befreiung des Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz gedenken Menschen aus
aller Welt des Holocaust. Überlebende, Staatschefs - unter ihnen Bundespräsident Horst
Köhler
Heftiger Wind und immer wieder Schneegestöber. Der Himmel hat vor dem gemeinsamen
Erinnern an Auschwitz Hindernisse aufgebaut. Flugzeuge verspäten sich. Der russische Präsident
Putin, der schon am Mittwoch eintreffen sollte, landete in Polen erst gestern. Schnee- und
Sicherheitschaos. Aber irgendwie kommt dann doch alles hin. Delegationen aus mehr als 40
Staaten, 33 Staats- oder Regierungschefs. Die Welt gedenkt, mit vierzig Minuten Verspätung,
der Befreiung des Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz.
Die ganze Welt? Der Gastgeber, Polens Präsident Aleksander Kwasniewski, hatte zu Beginn der
Feiern am Vormittag eine kleine Dosis Skepsis beigesteuert. Mit Putin und dem amerikanischen
Vizepräsidenten Dick Cheney hatte er, zusammen mit ehemaligen NS-Häftlingen und
Jugendlichen aus vielen Ländern, im Krakauer Slowacki-Theater an dem Forum "Let my people
live!" teilgenommen. Das kaisergelbe Prunkgebäude ist eine Stein gewordene Erinnerung an das
friedliche Zusammenleben der Völker in der Donaumonarchie, ein rechter Kontrapunkt zum
grauen Beton im ehemaligen Lager. Kwasniewski sagte auf der Bühne: "Hier in diesem Theater
drücken wir den Wunsch fast der ganzen Weltgemeinschaft aus, daß nie wieder auf der Welt das
Böse in diesem Maßstab Triumphe feiern möge."
Der Wunsch fast der ganzen Weltgemeinschaft. Etwas Verunsicherung klingt mit in diesem Satz:
das Bewußtsein, nach dem 11. September 2001 zu sprechen, und die traurige Gewißheit, daß sich
Haß, Gewalt und Leid nach 1945 an vielen Orten auf der Welt eben doch wiederholt haben. Zorn
und Ratlosigkeit angesichts dieser Tatsache zogen sich durch viele der Reden, die gestern
gehalten wurden, erst im Theater, später dann im einstigen Lager Auschwitz-Birkenau. Doch
neben diesem Zorn auch der Verweis auf die Leistungen, das Leiden, die Trauerarbeit der jeweils
eigenen Nation. Die Rote Armee hat Auschwitz erobert und befreit; die Einheit unter Major
Anatolij Schapiro, welche das Lagertor aufstieß, wußte zunächst nicht recht, was für ein Gebilde
sie da vor sich sah. Präsident Putin erinnerte an den Blutzoll, den die Völker der Sowjetunion im
Krieg gezahlt haben: sie hätten "am meisten getan", um das nationalsozialistische Regime zu
zertrümmern. Doch auch in Rußland gebe es Erscheinungen bestimmter "Krankheiten" , Haß und
Xenophobie, "und ich schäme mich dafür". Rußland wolle dagegen kämpfen.
Als die Zeremonie im verschneiten Auschwitz-Birkenau begann, waren die Präsidenten ein
wenig im Hintergrund. Als erste hatten Vertreter der Häftlinge das Wort: der Pole Wladyslaw
Bartoszewski, die französische Jüdin Simone Veil und als Nachgeborener und Repräsentant der
deutschen Sinti und Roma Romani Rose.
Während Bundespräsident Horst Köhler kaum zu sehen war, sprach Rose, immer wieder eine
Parallele ziehend zwischen der Vernichtung der Juden und jener der "Zigeuner", sich dafür aus,
diese Parallelität auch schriftlich festzuhalten - auf dem geplanten Denkmal für die ermordeten
Sinti und Roma zwischen dem Berliner Reichstag und dem Brandenburger Tor. Als drittes
Staatsoberhaupt sprach schließlich Israels Präsident Moshe Katzaw. Noch einmal das Entsetzen
darüber, daß trotz einer so bitteren Lektion der Geschichte der Rassismus in vielen Köpfen
weiterlebt. Aber auch die Genugtuung, mit Israel einen Staat geschaffen zu haben, der seinen
Bürgern mehr als zuvor Sicherheit bietet. Eine in Polen geborene Frau aus Israel stand neben
ihrem Präsidenten, und als dieser geendet hatte, trat sie, offenbar ungeplant, ans Mikrophon.
"Warum haben sie mein Volk verbrannt, mein jüdisches Volk?" schrie sie in die Menge. "Ich
habe ein Land, eine Armee. Das (Auschwitz) wird sich nie wiederholen."
"Wir sind nicht mehr verdächtig"
Stab des Bundespräsidenten wertet es nicht negativ, dass Köhler in Auschwitz nicht sprechen
darf Bundespräsident Horst Köhler nimmt am morgigen Donnerstag an der Gedenkfeier zur
Befreiung des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz teil. Wie Roman Herzog vor zehn Jahren wird er
das Volk der Täter schweigend vertreten.
VON KNUT PRIES UND THOMAS ROSER
Berlin/Warschau · 25. Januar · Für den Bundespräsidenten ist die Teilnahme an den
Feierlichkeiten zum Jahrestag der Befreiung des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz-Birkenau vor
60 Jahren die bislang heikelste Mission - auch und gerade weil er nicht gebeten ist, bei dieser
Gelegenheit offiziell das Wort zu ergreifen. Der Auschwitz-Überlebende Wladyslaw
Bartoszewski, der für die polnischen Opfer sprechen wird, sagt: "Niemand hat in Polen etwas
gegen Horst Köhler. Doch wir mussten die Anzahl der Redner einschränken und darum eine
scharfe Entscheidung treffen."
So wird es für den Bundespräsidenten bei einer überwiegend stummen Rolle bleiben, ähnlich der
Herzogs, der 1995 als erstes deutsches Staatsoberhaupt zum Auschwitz-Gedenktag geladen war.
Zunächst nimmt Köhler im Slowacki-Theater in Krakau an einem Internationalen Forum teil, das
der Europäische Jüdische Kongress unter dem Titel "Let my people live" (Lasst mein Volk
leben) veranstaltet. Am frühen Nachmittag folgt die offizielle Gedenkstunde im Lager
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dazwischen will der Bundespräsident mit dem Generalsekretär des
Jüdischen Weltkongresses, Israel Singer, das Stammlager aufsuchen und in der Internationalen
Jugendbegegnungsstätte mit Jugendlichen und Überlebenden zusammentreffen - auch das ein
Punkt, den schon Herzog im Programm hatte.
"Wenn man von deutscher Seite mit Auschwitz umgehen kann, dann da", heißt es im Berliner
Präsidialamt zu dem Termin in der Begegnungsstätte, die wesentlich von der Aktion
Sühnezeichen mitgetragen wird. Dass Köhler ansonsten als Redner nicht gefragt ist, wertet man
in seinem Stab nicht als Zurücksetzung. Daraus spreche auch Vertrauen, dass es den Deutschen
ernst sei mit dem Bekenntnis zur fortdauernden Verantwortung für die NS-Verbrechen. "Wir
sind nicht mehr verdächtig." Herzog hatte seinerzeit seine Hauptbotschaft in einen Eintrag im
KZ-Gedenkbuch gefasst: "Hier öffnen die Toten den Lebenden die Augen" - eine Inschrift an der
alten Bibliothek im spanischen Murcia.
Neben dem deutschen Präsidenten haben sich die Staats- und Regierungschefs weiterer 43
Länder angesagt. Als Hauptredner sind neben den Repräsentanten der Opferorganisationen die
Präsidenten Polens, Israels und Russlands, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Mosche Katzav und
Wladimir Putin, vorgesehen. Den Bundespräsidenten begleiten unter anderem Außenminister
Joschka Fischer (Grüne), der Grünen-Parteichef Reinhard Bütikofer, DGB-Chef Michael
Sommer, Vertreter des Auschwitz-Komitees, des Jüdischen Weltkongresses, des Zentralrats der
Juden in Deutschland, der Sinti und Roma sowie KZ-Überlebende.
Gazeta Krakowska
Przygotowania do wielkiej tajemnicy
January 12, 2005
Zbliza sie swiatowy zjazd przywódców w Oswiecimiu i Krakowie Przygotowania w wielkiej
tajemnicy stycznia w Os wiecimiu spodziewany jest przyjazd okolo 10 tys. gosci na obchody 60.
rocznicy wyzwolenia KL Auschwitz-Birkenau. Ws ród nich beda królowie, prezydenci, szefowie
rzadów i parlamentów z okolo 40 krajów. Na lotniskach w podkrakowskich Balicach i w Pyrzowicach kolo Katowic bedzie wielki ruch, tak samo jak na ulicach i drogach dojazdowych do
Krakowa. Wszystkie hotele w mies cie od dawna sa zarezerwowane. Zwiad agentów specjalnych
Wczoraj w Krakowie rekonesans przeprowadzali specjalisci z Izraela. Wczesniej odwiedzili
Kraków przedstawiciele sluzb bezpieczenstwa innych krajów, w tym Rosji. Wiadomo, ze w
przypadku przywódców mocarstw swiatowych za ich bezpieczenstwo odpowiadaja nie tylko
sluzby kraju goszczacego, ale równiez ich wlasne agencje ochrony. Podczas pobytu prezydenta
USA Georga Busha w maju 2003 roku w Polsce jego bezpieczenstwa strzegli amerykanscy
agenci. Prezydent mial do dyspozycji dwa samoloty, nad Krakowem w czasie wawelskiego
spotkania krazyly dwa specjalne amerykanskie smiglowce. Sheraton dla PutinaP Podobnie
bedzie w przypadku obecnej wizyty prezydenta Rosji, który przyleci specjalnym samolotem,
bedzie poru- szal sie wlasna limuzyna, ochraniany przez rosyjskie sluzby. Prezydent Putin bedzie
nocowal w Krakowie a towdrzy-szaca mu swita bedzie jedna, z bajwiekszych. Z pewnoscia
zajmie caly wielki hotel o naj wyzszym standardzie. W rachube wchodzi kilka obiektów, na razie
nikt nie chce jednak zdradzic jaki to bedzie hotel. Wiele wskazuje na Sheraton. Natomiast
prezydent Francji Jacaues Chirac przyleci tylko na jeden dzien, po konferencji w Teatrze
Slowackie- DWA TYSIACE OS MIUSET POLICJANTÓW O stanie przygotowan do przyjecia
tak duzej liczby gos ci rozmawiali wczoraj w Krakowie czlonkowie Wojewódzkiego Zespolu
Reagowania Kryzysowego. Nad bezpieczenstwem obchodów 60. rocznicy wyzwolenia KL
Auschwitz-Birkenau czuwac bedzie 2800 policjantów. Jak nam powiedzial Andrzej Przewoznik,
sekretarz Rady Ochrony Pomników Walki i Meczenstwa, wciaz mozna sie spodziewac zgloszen
nowych delegacji. (LAN) go pojedzie do Oswiecimia i odleci do Francji. Spóznialscy do
Warszawy Malo na razie mówi sie o wspólnym obiedzie przywódców. Najprawdopodobniej
przygotowane zostana posilki w formie tzw. szwedzkiego stolu. Restauratorzy i hotelarze nie
udzielaja zadnych informacji. Wiadomo tylko, ze np. w Cracovii przebywac bedzie 350-osobowa
grupa Wlochów, w tym sporo weteranów wojny oraz pracownicy Kancelarii Prezydenta RP i
Biura Ochrony Rzadu. Wlosi zarezerwowali miejsca juz przed rokiem. Wielu przedstawicieli
Sejmu i Senatu RP bedzie musialo wracac po uroczystosciach do Warszawy, gdyz nie zdolali na
czas zarezerwowac miejsc w krakowskich hotelach. Nieoficjalnie mówi sie, ze w Elektorze
mieszkac beda przywódcy jednego z nowych krajów czlonkowskich UE. (MAS)
Gazeta Wyborcza Kraków
Jerzy Bielecki nr 243
January 28, 2005
Prezydenci na forum w krakowskim Teatrze im. Slowackiego. Mosze Kacaw oskarza aliantów o
bezczynnosc, Wladimir Putin jednak przyleciat Wiedzieli, ale nic nie zrobili lianci nie zrobili
niczego, zeby zahamo-twac zaglade Zydów, a bombardowania obozu w Auschwitz i linii
kolejowych do niego prowadzacych mogly powstrzymac kontynuacje mordu - powiedzial
prezydent Izraela Mosze Kacaw w wystapieniu podczas krakowskiego Forum Pozwólcie zyc
narodowi mojemu". - Apelujemy do Unii Europejskiej: nie dajcie nazizmowi, zeby zalegnal siew
swiadomosci mlodziezy europejskiej - dodal. W forum uczestniczylo kilkaset osób, w tym
przywódcy wielu panstw s wiata, byli wiezniowie obozów (m. in. pisarz, laureat pokojowej
Nagrody Nobla Elie Wiesel), weterani Armii Czerwonej, którzy wyzwalali Auschwitz oraz
uczeni, intelektualisci, artysci i mlodziez. -Wyrazamy tu, wkrakowsMm teatrze imienia
wielkiego polskiego poety, Juliusza Slowackiego, pragnienie niemal calej ziemskiej
spolecznosci, aby juz nigdy na swiecie nie triumfowalo zlo, aby nie moglo dzialac na taka skale,
aby nigdy i ni- Prezydent Wladimir Putin, naczelny rabin Rosji Berel Lazar i prezydent Izraela
Mosze Kacaw podczas lunchu w Krakowie PAP/ JACEK TURCZYK gdzie nie powtórzylo sie
nawet najmniejsze Auschwitz - mówil prezydent Aleksander Kwasniewski. Do ostatniej chwili
nie bylo wiadomo, czy w forum wezmie udzial prezydent Rosji Wladimir Putin. Jego przylot w
srode zostal odwolany oficjalnie z powodu zlych warunków atmosferycznych w Krakowie.
Komentatorzy doszukuja sie w tym jednak symptomów ochlodzenia w stosunkach polsko-rosyjskiqh z powodu zaangazowania sie prezydenta Kwas niewskiego na Ukrainie. Putin wyladowal w
Balicach wczoraj o godz. 10.20 i przybyl do teatru, gdzie takze zabral glos. Przemawial takze
prezydent Ukrainy Wiktor Juszczenko, którego ojciec Andrij, wziety do niewoli zolnierz Armii
Czerwonej, trafil do Auschwitz (nr obozowy 11367) i przezyl pobyt w obozie. - Gwarantuje, iz
na Ukrainie nie bedzie miejsca dla antysemityzmu, ksenofobii badz wasni narodowosciowych mówil. Juz w srode zapewnil, ze bedzie dazyl do porozumienia z Polakami w sprawie Cmentarza
Orlat Lwowskich. PAP, JS
Dziennik Zachodni
Nigdy wiecej
January 28, 2005
NIGDY WIECEJ Wczoraj przed pohidniem w Teatrze im. Slowackie-Efo w Krakowie odbylo
sie uroczyste forum Pozwólcie zyc narodowi memu" z udzialem bylych wiezniów,
wyzwolicieli (zostali odznaczeni), gosci specjalnych oraz mlodziezy z calego swiata. Dzien 27
stycznia 1945 roku polozyl ostateczny kres istnieniu hitlerowskiego obozu Auschwitz-Birkenau,
w którym dokonala sie jedna z najwiekszych zbrodni ludzkosci - powiedzial prezydent
Aleksander Kwasniewski podczas forum. Podkreslil, ze obóz ten zrodzila nienawisc,
okrucienstwo i pogarda dla czlowieka. - To tu, w Auschwitz-Birkenau, w imie oblakanej
ideologii, ludzie ludziom zgotowali najstraszliwszy los. To tu zamierzano ostatecznie unicestwic
naród zydowski, Ro-mów, mordowano Polaków i wiezniów niemal z calej Europy - zaznaczyl
prezydent. Alianci nie zrobili niczego, zeby zahamowac zaglade Zydów, a bombardowania
obozu w Auschwitz i linii kolejowych do niego prowadzacych mogly powstrzymac kontynuacje
mordu - powiedzial prezydent Izraela Mo-sze Kacaw. - Trudno nam zrozumiec, ze w XX wieku
swiat milczal wobec likwidacji narodu zydowskiego - powiedzial Kacaw. Dzisiaj, po 60 latach,
odbieramy holokaust nie tylko jako tragedie narodowa narodu zydowskiego, ale jako
ogólnoludzka katastrofe - powiedzial prezydent Rosji Wla-dimirPutin. - Polska byla wybrana
przez nazistów na miejsce pelnej, masowej zaglady lu dzi. przede wszystkim narodowosci
zydowskiej. Jak zaznaczyl. 60(1 tys. radzieckich zolnierzy oddalo swoje zycie. - Za taka cene
wyzwolili przed totalnym zniszczeniem nic tylko naród.zydowski, lecz i wiele innych powiedzial.*
Gazeta Krakowska
Tu bylo pieklo na ziemi
January 28, 2005
60. rocznica oswobodzenia KL Auschwitz-Birkenau Tu bylo pieklo na Ziemi RAFAL LOREK
Stracilem prawie cala rodzine - mówi ze lzami Jakub Schne-ider, stojac w poblizu zburzonego
krematorium. Takich, jak on -.oplakujacych kilkadziesiat lat po piekle Au-schwitz swych
bliskich - byly podczas wczorajszych uroczystos ci settó, tysiace. Na terenie obozu zaglady
Birkenau zgromadzilo sie okolo pieciu tysiecy osób. Przenikliwe zimno i sliskie drogi sprawily,
ze czesc osób sie spóznila. Niektórzy, zziebnieci przed czasem opuszczali dawne miejsce kazni.
Do konca wytrwal Józef Stos, numer obozowy 752, wiezien pierwszego transportu do
Auschwitz. Za drutami spedzil blisko piec lat. Nie podobaja mu sie próby manipulowania
historia obozu. - Dlaczego na s wiecie nie mówi sie glosno, ze w Auschwitz poza Zydami gineli
tez przedstawiciele innych narodów. Przeciez w obozie zgladzono okolo 75 tysiecy Polaków,
kilkanascie tysiecy jenców sowieckich, ponad 20 tysiecy Cyganów - wylicza. - Dlaczego w
zachodniej prasie pisze sie o polskich obozach koncentracyjnych"? W podobnym tonie
wypowiedzial sie podczas uroczystos ci prezydent Rosji Wladi-mir Putin. Podkreslil, ze próby
rewidowania historii, stawiania w jednym szeregu ofiar i katów, wyzwolicieli i oku- Józef Stos.
numer obozowy 752 99 Dlaczego na swiecie nie mówi sie glos no, ze w Auschwitz gineli tez
Polacy? FOT. RAFAL LOREK pantów, sa amoralne i nie do przyjecia. Kazimierz Tafii, dzis 85let-ni mezczyzna, trafil do Birkenau 21 czerwca 1942 r. wtrans-porcie z Lublina. Wciaz nocami
wracaja don upiorne wizje. -Patrzac nieraz z baraku na widoczne przy dobrej pogodzie góry,
marzylem, ze uciekne z tego piekla i tam, na stokach odnajde spokój - opowiada. Przemawiajac
pod Miedzynarodowym Pomnikiem Ofiar Faszyzmu w Brzezince prezydent Aleksander
Kwasniewski podkreslil, ze zadne slowa nie sa w stanie oddac przerazajacej prawdy o
niegodziwosciach, które tu popelniono. - Ale my musimy mówic, pamietac, krzyczec: tu bylo
pieklo na Ziemi. Tutaj ponizenie, strach, ból, cierpienie, smierc byly codziennos cia. Potwornosc
tej zbrodni przygniata -dodal. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski powiedzial, ze dla niego, bylego wieznia
Auschwitz, jest przejmujacym przezyciem mozliwosc zabrania glosu na najwiekszym w historii
Europy cmentarzu bez grobów. Przypomnial, ze w pierwszych 15 miesiacach istnienia obozu
polscy wiezniowie byli sami. - Wolny swiat nie interesowal sie naszymi cierpieniami i nasza
smiercia, mimo wysilków tajnej organizacji oporu w obozie dla przekazywania wiadomosci na
zewnatrz - wyznal z nuta goryczy. - Póznym latem 1941 r. przywieziono kilkanascie tysiecy
jenców rosyjskich. Na nich i na polskich wiezniach wypróbowano po raz pierwszy trujacy
cyklon B. W trakcie blisko dwugodzinnych uroczystosci reprezentanci wiezniów podpisali Karte
Miedzynarodowego Centrum Nauczania o Auschwitz i Holokauscie, odbyla sie tez ekumeniczna
modlitwa. Na zakonczenie przedstawiciele ponad 40 panstw oraz wiezniów zlozyli kwiaty pod
pomnikiem, za którym zapalilo sie 12 swietlnych slupów. Przy dzwiekach pies ni Bez slów" i
Fale" Krzysztofa Knit-tla oraz Kunst der Fuge" Jana Sebastiana Bacha uczestnicy obchodów w
ciszy opuszczali teren obozu. Francuzi i Brytyjczycy Prezydent Francji Jacaues Ghirac otworzy
w pawilonie francuskim (blok nr 20) stala wystawe poswiecona francuskim obywatelom,
ofiarom Auschwitz. Z kraju nad Sekwana deportowano prawie 76 tys. Zydów. 4 Na cmentarzu
parafialnym w Oswiecimiu brytyjski minister ds. weteranów lvor Caplin odslonil tablice z
nazwiskami 27 brytyjskich jenców wojennych wiezionych w stalagu w Monowicach. 20 sierpnia
1944 r. wskutek nalotu bombowców amerykanskich trafiony zostal m.in. schron, w którym
usilowala sie ukryc grupa jenców. Prezydenci Jacques Chfrac, Wladimir Putln i Aleksander
Kwasniewski w Brzezince PAP/GRZEGORZ MOMOT
Gazeta Krakowska
Wiedzieli, ale nic nie zrobili
January 28, 2005
Prezydenci na forum w krakowskim Teatrze im. Slowackiego. Mosze Kacaw oskarza aliantów o
bezczynnosc, Wladimir Putin jednak przyleciat Wiedzieli, ale nic nie zrobili lianci nie zrobili
niczego, zeby zahamo-twac zaglade Zydów, a bombardowania obozu w Auschwitz i linii
kolejowych do niego prowadzacych mogly powstrzymac kontynuacje mordu - powiedzial
prezydent Izraela Mosze Kacaw w wystapieniu podczas krakowskiego Forum Pozwólcie zyc
narodowi mojemu". - Apelujemy do Unii Europejskiej: nie dajcie nazizmowi, zeby zalegnal siew
swiadomosci mlodziezy europejskiej - dodal. W forum uczestniczylo kilkaset osób, w tym
przywódcy wielu panstw s wiata, byli wiezniowie obozów (m. in. pisarz, laureat pokojowej
Nagrody Nobla Elie Wiesel), weterani Armii Czerwonej, którzy wyzwalali Auschwitz oraz
uczeni, intelektualisci, artysci i mlodziez. -Wyrazamy tu, wkrakowsMm teatrze imienia
wielkiego polskiego poety, Juliusza Slowackiego, pragnienie niemal calej ziemskiej
spolecznosci, aby juz nigdy na swiecie nie triumfowalo zlo, aby nie moglo dzialac na taka skale,
aby nigdy i ni- Prezydent Wladimir Putin, naczelny rabin Rosji Berel Lazar i prezydent Izraela
Mosze Kacaw podczas lunchu w Krakowie PAP/ JACEK TURCZYK gdzie nie powtórzylo sie
nawet najmniejsze Auschwitz - mówil prezydent Aleksander Kwasniewski. Do ostatniej chwili
nie bylo wiadomo, czy w forum wezmie udzial prezydent Rosji Wladimir Putin. Jego przylot w
srode zostal odwolany oficjalnie z powodu zlych warunków atmosferycznych w Krakowie.
Komentatorzy doszukuja sie w tym jednak symptomów ochlodzenia w stosunkach polsko-rosyjskiqh z powodu zaangazowania sie prezydenta Kwas niewskiego na Ukrainie. Putin wyladowal w
Balicach wczoraj o godz. 10.20 i przybyl do teatru, gdzie takze zabral glos. Przemawial takze
prezydent Ukrainy Wiktor Juszczenko, którego ojciec Andrij, wziety do niewoli zolnierz Armii
Czerwonej, trafil do Auschwitz (nr obozowy 11367) i przezyl pobyt w obozie. - Gwarantuje, iz
na Ukrainie nie bedzie miejsca dla antysemityzmu, ksenofobii badz wasni narodowosciowych mówil. Juz w srode zapewnil, ze bedzie dazyl do porozumienia z Polakami w sprawie Cmentarza
Orlat Lwowskich. PAP, JS
Dziennik Lódzki
Auschwitz-swiat pamieta
January 28, 2005
Auschwitz. Swiat pamieta 2-3 28-01-2005. Dzienni k Lódzki Z tego miejsca moze sie To
Niemcy stworzyfy Auschwitz... Minuta ciszy uczcili wczoraj pamiec ofiar holokaustu
deputowani Parlamentu Europejskiego w 60. rocznice wyzwolenia hitlerowskiego obozu
koncentracyjnego Auschwitz. Parlament Europejski przyjal wczoraj rezolucje w sprawie pamieci
ofiar holokaustu. W jej tekscie wskazano na nazistowskie panstwo niemieckie jako zalozyciela
obozu Auschwitz-Birkenau. Za przyjeciem Rezolucji w sprawie pamieci ofiar holokaustu,
antysemityzmu i rasizmu" glosowalo 617 eurodeputowanych, nikt nie byl przeciw. 10 poslów
wstrzymalo sie. Wsród nich nie bylo Polaków. Niemiec zglasza poprawke Poprawke, by
okreslenie, iz Auschwitz zalozyli nazisci Hitlera", zamienic na Niemcy nazistowskie", zglosil
wczoraj ustnie lider socjalistów, Niemiec Martin Schulz. Zgodnie z umowa poparcia udzielil mu
Hans-Gert Poet-tering- równiez Niemiec, szef najwiekszej, chadecko-kortserwa-tywnej grupy w
PE. - Trzeba wazyc kazde slowo i przypominac winy oprawców i niewinnosc ofiar - powiedzial
Schulz, zglaszajac poprawke. Sformulowanie, które zaproponowal, kladzie nacisk na
odpowiedzialnosc Niemiec jako panstwa. - Odetchnalem z ulga! Wyrazam uznanie, ze
najwieksze grupy polityczne, którym przewodnicza N iemcy, wyszly z ta propozycja - ocenil Jan
Kulakowski (UW) z grupy demokratów i liberalów. Zadowolenie wyrazil tez Michal Kaminski
(PiSj z grupy Unii na rzecz Europy Narodów: - Po raz kolejny zagrala polska solidarnosc i dzieki
wspólnej akcji osiagnelis my cos dobrego dla Polski. Przypomnial, ze jego grupa pierwsza
zglosila podobna poprawke, ale nie zostala poddana pod glosowanie. Poprawka PiS róznila sie
tym od poprawki Schulza, ze mówila o obozie zalozonym przez niemieckich nazistów.
Sformulowanie, które zaproponowal Schulz, kladzie nacisk na odpowiedzialnosc Niemiec jako
panstwa. W przyjetej rezolucji eurodeputo-wani proponuja tez, by 27 stycznia stal sie
ogólnoeuropejskim dniem pamieci holokaustu. W jezyku katów Bundestag uczcil wczoraj z
okazji 60. rocznicy wyzwolenia hitlerowskiego obozu koncentracyjnego Auschwitz-Birkenau
pamiec ofiar nazistowskiego rezimu. Podczas uroczystego posiedzenia w Berlinie glos zabrali
przewodniczacy Bundestagu Wolfgang Thierse oraz wiezien obozów koncentracyjnych,
zydowski historyk Arno Lustiger. Niemiecki piosenkarz i kompozytor Wolf Biermann, którego
ojciec, zydowski komunista, zginal w Auschwitz, wykonal utwór wedlug poematu Icchaka
Kacenelsona Piesn 0 zamordowanym zydowskim narodzie". - Zebralismy sie, aby w naszym
jezyku, który byl kiedys jezykiem katów - zbrodniarzy i morderców, uczcic pamiec ofiar
nazistowskiej dyktatury - powiedzial przewodniczacy Bundestagu Wolfgang Thierse. Lustiger
zaapelowal o zachowanie pamieci o ofiarach hitlerowskiego rezimu. - Dopóki zyja wspomnienia,
tak dlugo powinnismy zachowac wszystkich w naszej pamieci - powiedzial. Wspomnial o
pomocy, udzielanej ukrywajacym sie Zydom przez tysiace Niemców", takze wojskowych. Niestety, Niemcy pomagajacy Zydom nie mieli i nie maja swego lobby - zauwazyl.
Zaproponowal, aby posadzic w Jerozolimie trzy symboliczne drzewka w holdzie dla Niemców
pomagajacych Zydom w czasie wojny. Mlodziez nadzieja Po posiedz*eniu Thierse, Lustiger 1
Biermann spotkali sie z polska, niemiecka i francuska mlodzieza. - Nie jestescie odpowiedzialni
za zbrodnie, lecz jestes cie odpowiedzialni za wszystko, co dzieje sie w kraju - mówil Biermann
do niemieckich uczestników spotkania. Jestescie spadkobiercami niemieckich pisarzy i
filozofów, ale równiez Hitlera i Eichmanna, poniewaz spadek mozna jedynie przyjac w calos ci
albo odrzucic go". (PAP) Auschwitz w 60 lat po wyzwoleniu... Nasza wdziecznosc bedzie
wieczna Wolf Biermann czyta w Bundestagu wiersz Icchaka Kacenelsona,, Piesn o
zamordowanym zydowskim narodzie" -oi.iw.-irAiiw Nie mozna zapomniec o jednej z
najwiekszych zbrodni w historii ludzkosci, jaka dokonala sie w hitlerowskim obozie
koncentracyjnym Auschwitz-Birkenau, nie mozna dopuscic, by takie zlo kiedykolwiek sie
powtórzylo - apelowali uczestnicy wczorajszego Forum Pozwólcie zyc narodowi mojemu" w
Krakowie. Haslem spotkania bylo blaganie biblijnej królowej Estery, która uratowala Zydów
przed pogromem. W krakowskim Teatrze im. Slowackiego zebralo sie kilkuset gosci, w tym byli
wiezniowie Auschwitz --Birkenau, byli zolnierze Armii Czerwonej, którzy wyzwolili obóz,
przywódcy panstw swiata, mlodziez, uczeni, intelektualisci i artysci. Nigdy wiecej Ponad 90letni dzis byly major Armii Czerwonej Anatolij Szapiro, dowodzacy w styczniu 1945 r.
wyzwoleniem obozu, nie mógl przybyc osobiscie do Krakowa, ale w wyemitowanym
wystapieniu zwrócil sie do wszystkich ludzi, by nie dopuscili nigdy do powtórzenia takiego zla,
jakie mialo miejsce w hitlerowskich obozach koncentracyjnych. -Tak, jak z powierzchni ziemi
nigdy nie znikna slady krwi, tak i nasza wdziecznosc bedzie wieczna - tymi slowami Mosze
Kantor, przewodniczacy Rady Dyrektorów Europejskiego Kongresu Zydów, dziekowal za
wyzwolenie obozu. Obóz Aiischwitz-Birkenau /rodzila nienawisc, okrucienstwo i po- garda
dla czlowieka" - powiedzial prezydent Polski Aleksander Kwa-sniewski. Przypomnial, ze to w
tym obozie w imie oblakanej ideologii zamierzano unicestwic naród zydowski, Romów,
mordowano Polaków i wiezniów niemal z calej Europy". Zachowac w pamieci O koniecznosci
chronienia pamieci o holokauscie mówil takze prezydent Izraela Mosze Kacaw. Jesli w kazdym
pokoleniu ta pamiec nie bedzie chroniona - przestrzegal -holokaust moze sie powtórzyc.
Prezydent Izraela powiedzial, ze choc na zawsze, przetrwa pamiec o walce aliantów przeciw
hitlerowskim Niemcom, to alianci niczego nie zrobili, zeby zahamowac zaglade" Zydów.
Wedlug niego, gdyby alianci zbombardowali obóz Auschwitz-Birkenau i linie kolejowe do niego
prowadzace, moglo to powstrzymac kontynuacje mordu. Prezydent Izraela podkreslil, ze z tego
przekletego miejsca Auschwitz-Birkenau moze zrodzic sie lepsza przyszlosc". Obozy
koncentracyjne byly miejscem, w którym czlowiek popelnil jedna z najstraszliwszych zbrodni,
jakie mozna sobie wyobrazic, ale byly równiez miejscem ogromnego czlowieczenstwa i
heroizmu" wiezniów - podkreslil wiceprezydent USADickCheney. Cheney podkres lil, ze
tragedia obozów koncentracyjnych przypomina, w. antysemityzm zaczyna sie na slowach, ale
na slowach sie nie konczy". - Gwarantuje, ze na Ukrainie nie bedzie miejsca dla antysemityzmu,
ksenofobii badz wasni narodowosciowych - oswiadczyl prezydent Wiktor Juszczenko. który
podkreslil, ze obóz Auschwitz-Birkenau jest dla niego i jego rodziny miejscem szczególnym,
swietym, gdyz do tego miejsca trafil jego ojciec, któremu przydzielono numer 11367. Wielkie
ostrzezenie Tragedia Auschwitz jest wielkim ostrzezeniem dla ludzkosci - mówil prezydent
Rosji Wladimir Putin, który dopiero wczoraj przylecial do Krakowa i dolar! do Teatru im.
Slowackiego juz w trakcie uroczystosci. Putin podkreslil role zolnierzy Armii Czerwonej, którzy
wyzwolili obóz i na zawsze wygasili piece Oswiecimia i Birkonau, Majdanka i Treblinki,
wyzwolili Kraków". Trzej zolnierze, którzy wyzwalali Auschwitz-Birkenau: Jaków Winniczenko, Mikolaj Czertkow oraz Gienri Koptiew-Gomolow, zostali odznaczeni przez prezydenta
Kwa-sniewskiego. Odznaczenia przyznano Lez dwóm nieobecnym na uroczystosci: Anatolijowi
Szapiro i Iwanowi Martinuszkinowi. Zolnierzy tych odznaczyl rosyjskim jubileuszowym
medalem z okazji 60-lecia zwyciestwa w Wielkiej Wojnie Ojczyznianej prezydent, Putin, O
przechowanie pamieci i zwalczanie nienawisci zaapelowal do przywódców panstw oraz do nilodzie/.y prof. Elic Wesel, byly wiezien Auschwitz, laureat Pokojowej Nagrody Nobla. (1>AI>)
zrodzic lepsza przyszlosc" Wezwania, by pamietac o tym, co wydarzylo sie w Auschwitz i apele
o walke z rasizmem, nietolerancja, ksenofobia i antysemityzmem przewijaly sie w wystapieniach
uczestników wczorajszej uroczystosci upamietniajacej 60. rocznice wyzwolenia obozu zaglady
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Na terenie obozu, wokól Miedzynarodowego Pomnika Ofiar Obozu,
zgromadzili sie byli wiezniowie obozu, ich rodziny, zolnierze Armii Czerwonej, którzy brali
udzial w wyzwoleniu Auschwitz-Birkenau, przywódcy wielu panstw s wiata przybyli na
rocznicowa uroczystosc. Rozpoczela sie ona od sygnalu nadjezdzajacego pociagu,
symbolizujacego sposób, w jaki wiezniów dowozono do obozu. Glos wiezniów W imieniu
wiezniów Auschwitz-Birkenau glos zabrali prof. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (wiezien nr 4427),
francuska Zydówka Simone Veil (wiezniarka nr 78651) oraz w imieniu spolecznos ci romskiej
przewodniczacy Centralnej Rady Niemieckich Sinti i Romów - Romani Rose. Bartoszewski i
Veil podkreslali, jak wielkim przezyciem jest przemawianie w miejscu, które stalo sie
najwiekszym w historii Europy cmentarzem i gdzie rozgrywal sie tez ich osobisty dramat. Bioracy w tej uroczystosci udzial wiezniowie Auschwitz-Birkenau - powiedzial Bartoszewski nie beda juz zapewne mogli uczcic pamieci ofiar w nastepnych latach. - Maja jednak prawo
wierzyc, ze ich cierpienie i s mierc ich bliskich mialy znaczacy sens dla lepszej przyszlosci
wszystkich ludzi w Europie, a nawet w swiecie - bez wzgledu na ich pochodzenie etniczne czy
wyznanie religijne - podkreslil. Simone Veil, wspominajac cierpienia i smierc wiezniów obozu,
powiedziala, ze nie spelnilo sie pragnienie ich wszystkich, aby nigdy wiecej sie to nie
powtórzylo. Od tamtego czasu doszlo bowiem do innych przypadków ludobójstwa przypomniala. Zaapelowala, by 60 lat po wyzwoleniu Auschwitz podjac nowe zobowiazania, by
ludzie zjednoczyli sie w walce z nienawis cia wobec innych, z antysemityzmem, z rasizmem, z
nietolerancja. Równiez Romani Rose podkres lil, ze Auschwitz jest nie tylko miejscem pamieci,
ale jednoczesnie miejscem napomnienia i przestrogi w obliczu dzisiejszych zbrodni przeciwko
ludzkosci. Testamentem odchodzacych juz wiezniów obozu nazwal prof. Bartoszewski decyzje o
utworzeniu Miedzynarodowego Centrum Edukacji o Auschwitz i Holokauscie. Akt zalozycielski
Centrum, które ma zostac otwarte na przelomie 2006 i 2007 r., podpisali byli wiezniowie obozu,
jako pierwsi - Bartoszewski i Veil. ,,Na miejscu tej zbrodni zaduma musi przeobrazac sie w
odpowiedzialnosc. Ziemia bowiem nie skryje krwi ofiar, a krzyk ich nie ustanie. Dzis edukacja o
Auschwitz i Holokauscie rozniesie go wobec wszystkich pokolen. Niech to zadanie, które nowe
pokolenia biora na swe sumienia, stanie sie zródlem nadziei dla Was i dla Waszych dzieci" napisano w akcie. Papiez: nie wolno przejsc obojetnie wobec szoah Prawda o Auschwitz napisal natomiast papiez Jan Pawel II w swym przeslaniu do uczestników uroczystosci -jest
wezwaniem dla wspólczesnego pokolenia do odpowiedzialnosci za ksztalt naszej historii". W
odczytanym przez nuncjusza apostolskiego abp. Józefo Kowalczy-ka przeslaniu Ojciec S wiety
zaapelowal, by Auschwitz byl dzis i w przyszlosci przestroga. Nie mozna ulegac ideologiom,
które usprawiedliwiaja mozliwosc deptania godnosci czlowieka odmiennoscia jego rasy, koloru
skóry, jezyka czy religii. Kieruje ten apel do wszystkich, a zwlaszcza do tych, którzy w imie
religii uciekaja sie do przemocy i terroru" - napisal papiez. Jan Pawel II podkreslil, ze nikomu
nie wolno przejsc obojetnie wobec tragedii szoah. Ta próba planowego wyniszczenia calego
narodu kladzie sie cieniem na Europie i ca- Byfy wiezien obozu Auschwitz-Birkenau podczas
obchodów 60. rocznicy wyzwolenia obozu i Ol PAP/GR7tT,OR/ MOMOI lym s wiecie; jest
zbrodnia, która na zawsze splamila historie ludzkos ci" -glosi przeslanie papieskie. Tu wzieli
moje imie... ...i dali numer. Dlaczego? Dlaczego spalili mój naród, zydowski naród? Dlaczego od
nas wzieli wolnosc? Dlaczego dali nam late, zólta late, zeby poznali, ze jestesmy Zydzi? - wolala
jedna z uczestniczek uroczystosci, byla wiezniarka Auschwitz. - W tym obozie, dziewczynka szesnascie lat. Stoje tu. Naga - powiedziala na zakonczenie. S wiat wiedzial o zagladzie i milczal
- mówil z kolei prezydent Izraela Mosze Kacaw. Jak podkreslil, sprzeciw i wahanie sie
aliantów, czy bombardowac obozy smierci, tory kolejowe, którymi przewozono Zydów do
obozów - to wahanie zabralo dodatkowe ofiary i jest plama na historii ludzkosci". Kacaw
podziekowal zarazem wojskom aliantów, bojownikom ruchów oporu w okupowanej Europie i
póltora miliona bojowników zydowskich, Wladimir Putin, Aleksander Kwasniewski z malzonka
oraz Vaclav Klaus, prezydent Czech, i Mosze Kacaw podczas uroczystos ci w AuschwitzBirkenau ror PAPJACLK BFDNARC/YK którzy walczyli z hitlerowcami, wyrazil szacunek
dla wyjatkowych synów narodu polskiego i innych . Sprawiedliwych wsród Narodów S wiata",
którzy czuli ból przesladowanych i zapewnili im schronienie z narazeniem zycia". Prezydent
Izraela przestrzegl, ze 60 lat po szoah stoimy w obliczu odrodzenia antysemityzmu". - Czy to
mozliwe, ze odstraszajaca moc szoah oslabla? Odpowiedz na to znajduje sie w rekach
przywódców europejskich, w rekach wychowawców, w rekach historyków - w naszych rekach zaznaczyl. - Musimy mówic, pamietac i krzyczec: tu bylo pieklo na ziemi! Tutaj ponizenie,
strach, ból, cierpienie i smierc byly codziennoscia - wzywal prezydent Aleksander Kwas niewski.
Zaapelowal, aby uczynic wszystko, by potwornosc, której symbolem jest Auschwitz-Birkenau,
juz nigdy wiecej nie mogla sie zdarzyc w dziejach swiata. Równiez prezydent Rosji Wladimir
Putin. zwracajac sie do zgromadzonych na uroczystosci swiatowych przywódców, powiedzial,
ze wobec tych, którzy na zawsze pozostali tu, w Oswiecimiu, jestes my odpowiedzialni, zeby
to, co tu sie stalo, nigdy sie nie powtórzylo". Nigdy, nigdzie i wobec nikogo" - podkreslil. Po
oficjalnych wystapieniach zabrzmial glos szofaru, baraniego rogu ceremonialnego w religii
zydowskiej, a nastepnie duchowni katoliccy, prawoslawni, ewangeliccy i zydowscy wspólnie
modlili sie za dusze zamordowanych w Auschwitz-Birkenau. Znicze wiezniów i gos ci Na
zakonczenie uroczystos ci dziesiatki zniczy zaplonelo przed Miedzynarodowym Pomnikiem
Ofiar Obozu. Pomnik stoi w poblizu rampy, gdzie podczas II wojny s wiatowej bieg konczyly
transporty z Zydami skazanymi przez niemieckich nazi-stów na zaglade. Nieopodal znajduja sie
ruiny krematoriów i komór gazowych, w których odebrano zycie setkom tysiecy ludzi. Znicze
zapalili byli wiezniowie, delegacja wyzwalajacych obóz w 1945 r. bylych zolnierzy Armii
Czerwonej, a takze przywódcy ponad 40 zagranicznych delegacji. Wsród zagranicznych gosci,
oprócz prezydentów Izraela i Rosji, byli tez m.in. prezydenci Francji Jacques Chirac, Niemiec
Horst Kóhler, Ukrainy Wiktor Juszezenko, wiceprezydent USA Dick Cheney (PAP) Muzeum
Auschwitz-Birkenau odwiedzil prezydent Niemiec HorStKÓhler POI P/li'lA(;iKmi)NAKC/YK
Gazeta Krakowska
Kto o tym bedzie pamietal ?
January 27, 2005
Spotkanie ostatnich swiadków tragedii Kto o tym bedzie pamietal? lak to sie dzieje, ze Europa
w 60 lat po wyzwoleniu obozu w Os wiecimiu i po ujawnieniu prawdy o holokauscie, ciagle
jeszcze nie w pelni uwierzyla w straszna prawde? Dlaczego wielu ludzi w Niemczech, we
Francji czy w Anglii moze lekcewazyc hitlerowska machine smierci, przebierac sie dla zabawy
w mundury zbrodniarzy? Dlaczego ludzie ciagle zabijaja sie, z nacjonalistycznych i
ksenofobicznych pobudek w Rwandzie, w Bos ni, na Bliskim Wschodzie? Takie pytania padaly
wczoraj na konferencji prasowej gosci Forum Let my People Li-ve", bylych wiezniów obozu
Auschwitz, którzy unikneli zaglady. W spotkaniu, prowadzonym przez przewodniczacego Rady
Dyrektorów Europejskiego Kongresu Zydów, rosyjskiego przedsiebiorce Mosze Kantora,
uczestniczyl tez Max Pri-vler dzis obywatel Izraela, który jako czternastoletni zwiadowca
uczestniczyl w zimowej ofensywie Armii Czerwonej. Ten autor kilku ksiazek o holokaus cie,
glosno upominal sie o pamiec dla prostych zolnierzy. Byly zolnierz Armii Czerwonej Max
Privler (od lewej) oraz byli wiezniowie obozu Auschwitz-Birkenau Bolek Brodecki, Zofia
Piekarska-Brodecka i Ted Lehman podczas konferencji prasowej w Krakowie PAP/GRZEGORZ
MOMOT rzy, którzy brali udzial w uwalnianiu od hitlerowców polowy Europy... - A jak to sie
dzieje, ze ludzie nie pamietaja? Nie chca pamietac - odpowiadal Berek Obu-chowski z
Iwanofrankiwska na Ukrainie. - Napisalem ksiazke o zagladzie Zydów na ukrainskim
Podkarpaciu. Widzialem niechec, gdy pytalem o te sprawy, spotkalem sie nawet z grozbami.
Ale, jak sie dowiaduje, zona prezydenta Jusz-czenki obiecala objac upowszechnianie pamieci o
holokauscie swoim patronatem. To wazna deklaracja. -Wielu, nawet tych co znaja prawde o
hitlerowskich obozach - dodala Zanna Berina (dzis mieszka w USA) - nie wie, ze hitlerowcy
mordowali bezwzglednie Zydów takze na terenach bylego ZSRR. Nie tylko w kijowskim Babim
Jarze, ale tez w okolicach Odessy, gdzie zginelo 200 tys . osób. Mój brat - dodala nie kryjac lez wyzwolony przez Armie Czerwona z obozu na Bialorusi, natychmiast wstapil w jej szeregi i 19
stycznia 1945 zginal przy forsowaniu Wisly. Lezy w Warszawie. - Przed wojna mieszkalem w
Zawierciu - zauwazyl Ted Lehman z USA. - Bylem tam. Odnalazlem znane ulice i domy
dzielnicy zydowskiej. Tylko Zydów juz tam nie ma. - Do dzis trudno mi zrozumiec powiedziala byla wiez-niareka Auschwitz, Trudi Spi-ra, dzis zyjaca w Wenezueli -ze Zydzi
amerykanscy nie wierzyli, iz tak liczny naród w Europie, który poslugiwal sie jezykiem jidisz,
mógl ulec niemal calkowitej eksterminacji. Pamiec historyczna jest zawodna, szczególnie, ze
wielu pamietac nie chce. Pamietajcie wiec panstwo. My jestes my ostatnimi ludzimi pokolenia,
które porzezylo ten koszmar a wy, zgromadzeni tu dzis dziennikarze, ostatnimi ludzmi, którzy
osobiscie znali swiadków tej tragedii! (RTK)
Gazeta Wyborcza Kraków
Trzeba mówic o tej tragedii
January 27, 2005
SPOTKANIE W ROTUNDZIE. Nie zapomnijmy o Holocauscie Trzeba mówic o tej tragedii
Nigdy dosc mówienia o Holocauscie - apelowali wczoraj ocaleni z obozów zaglady.
Przewodniczacy rady dyrektorów Europejskiego Kongresu Zydów Mosze Kantor zu-znaczyl, ze
tylko poprzez edukacje mozna ocalic pamiec historyczna o Shoah Kantor to inicjator
paneuropejskiego forum ,Let My People Live" - pozwólcie zyc mojemu narodowi", które w
czwartek w Teatrze im. Slowackiego w Krakowie zgromadzi przywódców swiatowych
mocarstw, zyjacych swiadków Holocaustu, intelektualistów i mlodziez. - Chcialbym, by forum
odbywalo sie cyklicznie, na przyklad raz na piec lat. Byc moze w róznych miejscach swiata powiedzial Gazecie" Kantor podczas wczorajszego spotkania w Rotundzie. Jak podkreslil,
najistotniejszym celem tych spotkan ma byc zjednoczenie wysilków i dokonan wszystkich
instytucji na s wiecie, które gromadza s wiadectwa Holocaustu i przekazuja je innym. Forum
mialoby dbac o jak najwyzsza jakosc edukacji o zagladzie. - Trzeba stworzyc odpowiednie
podejscie do przekazywania lekcji o Holocauscie, tak by ta lekcja dotarla do kazdego narodu i
kazdego panstwa. Jest to szczególnie wazne dzisiaj, gdy po 60 latach wielu ludzi widzi tamte
wydarzenia inaczej, niz bylo naprawde. Pamiec historyczna to najslabsza czesc ludzkiej pamieci.
Zeby ja zachowac, trzeba bardzo ciezko pracowac - podkreslil Kantor. O tym, ze nie mozna
przestac mówic o tragedii obozów koncentracyjnych, przekonywali tez wczoraj ci, którzy
ocaleli. - 27 stycznia 1945 roku, w dniu wyzwolenia obozu Auschwitz, urodzilam sie na nowo.
Dzisiaj obchodze wiec swoje urodziny. Jestesmy ostatnim pokoleniem, które moze opowiedziec
o tej tragedii. Jestesmy ostatnimi aktorami tej okrutnej sztuki. Jestesmy zywym swiadectwem
barbarzynstwa - mówila Trudy Spira (dzis mieszka w Wenezueli). - Dlatego biore udzial w
spotkaniach w szkolach i na uniwersytetach. Mówie mlodym ludziom, ze nie wolno im
powtórzyc bledów przeszlosci i pozwolic na to, by znów jakis szalony lider czy fanatyk
uruchomil machine zbrodni. Zofia Piekarska-Brodecka (jako dziecko mieszkala w Sosnowcu, po
wojnie wyjechala do USA): - Moja mamusia miala 33 lata, byla piekna, l mialam jeszcze brata,
mial 9 lat, nazywal sie Lolek. Mama nie chcial zostawic brata, poszla z nim do Os wiecimia. A
mnie powiedziala: ty, Zosia, jedz, co mozesz, smiej sie, tancz, spiewaj. Ty przezyjesz. I ja w
niemieckich obozach spiewalam i tanczylam dla niej. Wszyscy mys leli, ze powariowalam. A ja
dzieki temu ocalalam. Wyszlam z piekla do nieba. Kocham zycie i widze_w ludziach dobro.
Mam nadzieje, ze to, co sie stalo z nami, nie stanie sie juz z nikim. Dlatego trzeba mówic o tej
tragedii. MAGDALENA KULA
Gazeta Wyborcza
Ludzie - numery
January 28, 2005
LUDZIE NUMERY - Tu wzieli moje imie, dali numer, bylam nikim - dlaczego? Dlaczego
spalili mój naród? krzyczala po polsku do mikrofonu byla wiezniarka Auschwitz Merka
Szewach, która niespodziewanie wdarla sie na mównice Merka Szewach miala 17 lat, gdy trafila
do Auschwitz. Gdy do mównicy ztalizal sie prezydent Izraela Mosze Kacaw, stanela za jego
plecami, zaskoczona ochrona bala sie zareagowac. Gdy prezydent zszedl z mównicy,
wykrzyczala swoje wspomnienie o Auschwitz. Sluchaja jej m.in. trzej prezydenci, w pierwszym
rzedzie od prawej: Aleksander Kwas niewski, Wladimir Pirtin, Jacques Chirac oraz brytyjski
ksiaze Edward Jak do tego moglo dojsc? - pytali wczoraj w rocznice wyzwolenia Auschwitz
uczestnicy obchodów 60. rocznicy wyzwolenia obozu. Na najwiekszym cmentarzu Europy
(cmentarzu bez grobów", jak powiedzial Wladyslaw Bar-toszewski), gdzie zginelo l ,3 min ludzi,
spotkalo sie 44 przywódców panstw, przeszlo tysiac bylych wiezniów i weteranów Armii
Radzieckiej. Przyjechali z calego swiata, niektórzy po raz pierwszy od wojny. Ci, których wtedy
wyzwolono, podkreslali, ze pogoda byla taka sama: s nieg i mróz. I jeszcze jedno wspomnienie:
rozpoczynajacy uroczystosc odglos pociagu wtaczajacego sie na tory w Brzezince. Przemawiali:
przedstawiciel polskich wiezniów Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (nr 4427) i francuska Zydówka
Simone Veil (78 651), pierwsza przewodniczaca Parlamentu Europejskiego. W imieniu
spolecznosci romskiej mówil Romani Rose. Byli wiezniowie powtarzali, ze zapewne po raz
ostatni uczestnicza w okraglej rocznicy wyzwolenia obozu. Auschwitz byl nazywany fabryka
smierci", bo hitlerowskie Niemcy mordowaly w nim w sposób zorganizowany i
technologiczny". - Aktu zaglady dokonal naród, który wydal najwspanialszych naukowców,
muzyków. Wielu wiedzialo o morderstwie, lecz pozostalo obojetnych - oskarzal prezydent
Izraela Mosze Kacaw. Ostro zabrzmialy tez jego slowa o bezczynnos ci aliantów wobec Szoah: Sprzeciw i wahanie aliantów, czy bombardowac obozy smierci, tory kolejowe, którymi
przewozono Zydów do obozów... To wahanie zabralo dodatkowe ofiary i jest plama na historii
ludzkosci - wolal Kacaw. Bartoszewski przypominal, ze o tragedii Zydów informowal Zachód
polski ruch oporu - poczawszy od Jana Kar-skiego, ale Zachód nie wierzyl. Kacaw zaznaczyl, ze
wie, iz Europa byla podbita przez rezim nazistowski, ale panujacy w tych panstwach straszny
antysemityzm pozbawial Zydów nadziei i pozostawial w sytuacji bez wyjscia. Równoczes nie
wyrazil szacunek dla Polaków, którzy ratowali Zydów. Rano podczas forum Pozwól zyc
mojemu ludowi" Putin niespodziewanie powiedzial, ze zdaje sobie sprawe, ze w Rosji zdarzaja
sie przejawy antysemityzmu i jest mu wstyd. Obiecal, ze Rosja bedzie z nimi walczyc wszelkimi
sposobami. Przed odrodzeniem antysemityzmu ma chronic utworzone w Auschwitz Centrum
Edukacji o Auschwitz i Holocaus cie. Akt jego zalozenia podpisali Veil i Bartoszewski.
MICHAL OLSZEWSKI PAWEL WRONSKI
Rzeczpospolita
Pozwólcie zyc narodowi mojemu
January 28, 2005
Miedzynarodowe forum z udzialem prezydentów, mlodziezy, wiezniów i weteranów wojny " Vi
Pozwólcie zyc narodowi mojemu Jak uczyc o Holokauscie, ma wyjasnic nauczycielom nowy
europejski program edukacyjny, ogloszony wczoraj w Krakowie podczas forum
miedzynarodowego „Pozwólcie zyc narodowi mojemu". - Jesli przyjmiemy ten program, moze
bedziemy mogli spojrzec w oczy tym, których juz nie ma. Powiedziec: popelnilismy bledy, ale
nauczylismy sie i... nigdy wiecej - powiedzial naczelny rabin Izraela Yona Met-zger. Wspólnie z
przewodniczacym Rady Dyrektorów Instytutu Yad Vashem w Jerozolimie Aynerem Shale-vem i
ministrem kultury Waldemarem Dabrowskim oglosil inauguracje programu szkolenia o
Holokauscie, który jest przeznaczony dla nauczycieli ze wszystkich panstw. Na poranne
spotkanie do krakowskiego Teatru im. Slowackiego przybyli prezydenci m.in. Izraela, Polski,
Rosji i Ukrainy, wiceprezydent USA, byli wiezniowie, weterani wojny, nauczyciele i mlodziez. Widze, ze gleboko rozumiecie wymiar tragedii sprzed 60 lat. Wierze, ze razem z wami uda nam
sie zbudowac lepszy swiat. Swiat pokoju bedzie najpiekniejszym holdem, jaki mozemy
ofiarowac tym, którzy cierpieli i zgineli w Auschwitz-Birkenau - mówil prezydent Aleksander
Kwa-sniewski, zwracajac sie do mlodziezy. : Do mlodych z calego swiata zaapelowal tez
prezydent Izraela Mosze Kacaw. Mówil, by protestowali przeciwko kazdemu przejawowi
rasizmu, antysemityzmu i ksenofobii. - Apelujemy do Unii Europejskiej: nie pozwólcie, zeby
nazizm zalagl sie w swiadomosci europejskiej - wolal. t Prezydent Ukrainy Wiktor Juszczenko,
którego ojciec byl wiezniem Auschwitz, gwarantowal, ze na Ukrainie nie bedzie miejsca dla
antysemityzmu, ksenofobii badz wasni narodowosciowych". Przypomnial, ze na Ukrainie w
ubieglym stuleciu równiez mialy miejsce ogromne tragedie, m.in. glód, który pochlonal 15 min
obywateli. " Na forum przybyl tez,prezydent Wladimir Putiri. Podkreslal, ze nikt nie moze byc
obojetny na przejawy antysemityzmu, ksenofobii rasowej i nietolerancji religijnej. - Nawet w
naszym kraju, w Rosji, która wiecaf niz inni zrobila dla walki z faszyzmem, dla wyzwolenia
narodu zydowskiego, czesto widzimy przejSwy tych chorób. I jest mi za to wstyd-mówil. W
imieniu mlodziezy, przybylej z calego swiata, przewodniczacy Europejskiego Forum Mlodziezy
Re-naldas Yaisbrodas i szefowa Swiatowej Unii Studentów Zydowskich Yictoria Dolbrud
przekazali na rece Elie Wiesela, wieznia Auschwitz i laureata Pokojowej Nagrody Nobla,
deklaracje, w której 'napisali m.in.: pierzymy w prawa czlowieka i zobowiazujemy sie o nie
walczyc, a takze promowac sprawiedliwosc i wartos ci demokratyczne". Jerzy Sadecki, E.CZ.
Rzeczpospolita
Przeciez Bóg dal nam taki piekny swiat
January 27, 2005
Ci, co przezyli Holokaust Przeciez Bóg dal nam taki piekny swiat - 27 stycznia 1945 roku bylam
w An-schwitz. Przezylam wyzwolenie. Wtedy narodzilam sie na nowo - mówi Trudy Splra
mieszkajaca dziswWene-zueli. Wraz z grupa ocalalych z Holokaustu opowiadala na konferencji
prasowej wKrakowieoswoich przezyciach czasu wojny i o tym, jak bardzo potrzeba
nauczaniaohistorii Zaglady. - Jestesmy ostatnimi zywymi s wiadkami Holokaustu, którzy moga
powiedziec, do jakiego barbarzynstwa zdolni sa ludzie. Ostrzegac i uczyc tej tragicznej historii,
aby sie nie powtórzyla. Przeciez Bóg dal nam taki piekny s wiat Mozemy wiec wszyscy zyc w
pokoju, nie ma potrzeby prowadzenia wojen i zabijania -tlumaczyla Trudy Spira. Jest jednak
realistka i wie, ze konfliktów nie da sie uniknac, bo taka jest natura czlowieka. Ale nie mozna
dopuscic, zeby jakis fanatyk w imie swych oblakanych idei mógl znów stworzyc przemysl
smierci", jak to uczynil Hitler. - Zadna religia nie nawoluje do zabijania. Bóg mówi, by czynic
dobrze. Czemu ludzie nie chca tego sluchac? -pytal Max Prwler z Izraela, który Holokaust
przezyl w Stanislawowa. Q, którzy ocaleli z Holocaustu, nie chca zachowac swych tragicznych
wspomnien dla siebie. Pisza ksiazki, spotykaja sie z mlodzieza, edukuja. Dzis rano w Krakowie
wezma udzial w miedzynarodowym forum Let My People Iive!" (Niech mój naród zyje!").
Podczas tego spotkania, zorganizowanego przez Europejski Kongres Zydów, polskie
Ministerstwo Kultury i inne instytucje, zainaugurowany zostanie miedzynarodowy program
edukacyjny o Holokauscie i naukach z niego plynacych. Jak podkreslali uczestnicy wczorajszej
konferencji, wiedza o tych strasznych czasach jest nadal w swiecie niewystarczajaca, zwlaszcza
mlodych pokolen. - Trzeba pokazywac Holokaust poprzez losy ludzi, mówic o uczuciach tych,
co zgineli, i tych, którym udalo sie przetrwac -podkreslal Mosze Kantor, przewodniczacy Rady
Dyrektorów Europejskiego Kongresu Zydów Bardzo wazne jest tez tworzenie demokratycznych
instytucji, które potrafia zapanowac nad strowania przez ludzi sily i absolutyzmu. -Inaczej
spoleczenstwa swiata nie beda zdrowe - mówil Mosze Kantor__ Jerzy Sadecki
Gazeta Wyborcza
60. rocznica wyzwolenia KL Auschwitz - Birkenal
January 26, 2005
10 tys. ludzi przyjezdza na obchody, w tym 50 delegacji rzadowych. Watykan reprezentuje
kardynal Jean-Marie Lustiger 60. rocznica wyzwolenia obozu Auschwitz-Birkenau Oficjalna
czesc obchodów rozpocznie sie jutro w Brzezince: o 14.30 zabrzmi sygnal lokomotywy
symbolizujacy transporty smierci do Birkenau Udzial zapowiedzialo 50 delegacji rzadowych przyjada m.in.: wiceprezydent USA Dick Cheney, prezydent Rosji Wladimir Putin, prezydenci
Izraela. Francji, Ukrainy, przewodniczacy Komisji Europejskiej Manuel Barroso, premier Wloch
Silvio Berlusconi. Do Krakowa juz wczoraj przyjechali weterani Armii Czerwonej, którzy 60 lat
temu wyzwalali obóz. Podczas jutrzejszego forum Let My People Live" organizowanego przez
Europejski Kongres Zydów polski rzad oraz instytut Yad Vashem w Teatrze im. Slowackiego
beda rozmawiac z mlodzieza z róznych krajów swiata i bylymi wiezniami. - Powinnismy
walczyc o prawde historyczna. To byly nazistowskie obozy, tworzone w róznych miejscach,
takze na terytorium Polski, która byla okupowana przez III Rzesze. Okres lenie polskie obozy
koncentracyjne" jest falszywe z kazdego punktu widzenia- powiedzial PAP prezydent
Aleksander Kwasniewski. Dzisiaj wieczorem przewidywana jest kolacja na Wawelu wydana
przez prezydenta. W czwartek minister ds. kombatantów Wielkiej Brytanii odsloni tablice
upamietniajacajenców brytyjskich z filii KL Auschwitz w Monowicach, a prezydent Francji
Jacques Chirac wezmie udzial w otwarciu pawilonu francuskiego (Blok nr 20). Obchodom
towarzyszy olbrzymie zainteresowanie dziennikarzy z calego swiata. Akredytowalo sie ok. 1600
reporterów. MICHAL OLSZEWSKI Czwartkowe uroczystosci transmitowac bedzie TYP.
Forum Let My People Live " mozna obejrzec w Dwójce", a oficjalne obchody w Jedynce"
Sondaz TNS OBOP o Konzentrationslager Auschwitz Polowa Polaków wie, ze wiekszosc ofiar
Auschwitz to Zydzi. Wedlug obliczen Muzeum w Oswiecimiu w Auschwitz-Birkenau
hitlerowscy Niemcy zamordowali ponad milion Zydów z Polski i calej Europy, 75 tys. Polaków,
20 tys. Cyganów, 15 ty s. jenców radzieckich. Tyle historycy. A co o obozie wiedza Polacy? 51
proc. z nich wie, ze wiekszosc ofiar to Zydzi, 18 proc. ankietowanych uwaza, ze to nie Zydzi,
lecz Polacy przewazali wsród ofiar obozu - wynika z sondazu OBOP. Reszta nie wie lub sadzi,
ze ofiar bylo po równo. - Znaczna czesc Polaków nie wie tego, co wie o Os wiecimiu swiat.
Kiedy jednak przyjdzie im odpowiedziec na pytanie, czym dla nich jest Oswiecim, tylko mala
czesc mysli o nim jako miejscu polskiego meczenstwa. Polacy nie mysla tez o nim jako miejscu
zaglady Zydów. Nawet ci, co wiedza, ze wiekszosc ofiar obozu byla Zydami - pisze prof. Antoni
Sulek, konsultant TNS OBOP. Az 66 proc. badanych nazwalo Auschwitz miejscem meczenstwa
wielu narodów", a 14 proc. (...)