Auschwitz survivors marking 80 years since Nazi death camp’s liberation
Inside the Auschwitz, Soviet soldiers liberated roughly 7,000 prisoners who had been brutalized by a Nazi regime hell-bent on exterminating the Jewish people.
OŚWIĘCIM, Poland — The Soviet Red Army troops who arrived here on Jan. 27, 1945, helped uncover one of the greatest atrocities ever committed by — and against — humankind.
Inside the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the soldiers liberated roughly 7,000 prisoners who had been brutalized by a Nazi regime hell-bent on exterminating the Jewish people. The horrors there defied comprehension.
Eighty years later, some former prisoners returned to mark the 80th anniversary of their deliverance — a date that is known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In the eyes of so many around the world, the survivors’ very existence is a resounding act of defiance against the world-historic cruelty and vast injustice of Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror. Their stories of survival are also implicit pleas to the world: Never forget humanity’s capacity to commit unthinkable crimes.
A group of child survivors at Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945, the day the Red Army liberated the camp.Galerie Bilderwelt / Getty ImagesHitler’s regime systematically murdered 6 million Jews during World War II, including roughly 1 million people at Auschwitz. The Nazis also persecuted other peoples, including Poles, the Romani, Soviet prisoners, gay men and mentally and physically disabled people.
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