Poland commemorates 70th anniversary of Auschwitz concentration camp liberation

Hundreds of people gathered at the Polish town of Oswiecim on Tuesday to commemorate the liberation of former KL Auschwitz concentration camp.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, who joined Auschwitz survivors to commemorate the camp liberation anniversary and the International Holocaust Memorial Day, both of which fall on Jan. 27, placed flower wreaths under the Execution Wall.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," the Polish president said, quoting Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Primo Levy.

Oswiecim, a small town in southern Poland that has a history of more than 800 years, was chosen by the German Nazis to establish the biggest "Death Factory" during World War II.

Founded in 1940 on the basis of old barracks, Auschwitz concentration camp became a place of mass extermination, mostly of Jews. Before its liberated by the Red Army in 1945, about 1.1 million people died in the camp.

Komorowski said Auschwitz was a place, where human civilization fell and human dignity was systematically taken away.

He said it was a place, where "death industry" reduced man to a number, disposed man of his identity.

"Poland has been given the role of special depositary of the memory of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Holocaust," he said.

Witnesses of those days and Holocaust survivors also took the floor and shared their personal experiences.

Halina Birenbaum, who was taken to the camp as a child, lost her family during war. She said there were uncountable times when she was frozen with fear, pain, and the tensity of being selected for gas chambers.

The scenes of torments and death of other female prisoners, her neighbors and companions had remained indelible in her mind.

For Kazimierz Albin, another prisoner of the camp, a biological struggle for survival began on the very first day since he entered the camp.

His memories were about heroes, who did not give up hope and tried to fight in every possible way against the extremely hostile environment and conditions they were put into.

According to him, many of the prisoners took evidence of crimes in the camp and tried to run away, in an effort to make the outside world know about these atrocities.

Participants attending Tuesday's celebrations stood up and paid tribute to those who died trying to escape from the concentration camp.

Another Holocaust survivor, Roman Kent, said the most important thing to do today is to remember.

Kent said there is not a moment when he can forget about the nightmare he lived in.

"The horrors I witnessed by the entrance gate to Auschwitz are enough to make me unable to sleep peacefully at night."

He also recalled the scenes of separating from his families forever, being tortured and beaten with whips and the sight of "human skeletons" as a result of starvation.

He appealed to the whole world "to remember, to convey the remembrance and teach other to remember."

"Only by remembering one's past, we can be able to avoid such mistakes, erroneous doctrines, atrocities," he said.

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