Barbara Erling and Kuba Stezycki
OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) – Auschwitz survivors will be joined by world leaders on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops, in what is likely to be one of the last such gatherings of those who lived through its horrors.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Antonio Costa and a number of other leaders will attend the anniversaries on the site of the camp that Nazi Germany built in occupied Poland during World War II.
Israel will be represented by Education Minister Yoav Kisch.
Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum and memorial, said there would be no speeches by politicians and that leaders would instead listen to the voices of survivors.
“It is clear to all of us that this is the last milestone where we can have a group of survivors that will be visible and that can be present at the site,” he said.
“In ten years, this will not happen, and as long as we can, we need to listen to the voices of the survivors, their testimonies, their personal stories. This is something that is of great importance when we talk about how the memory of Auschwitz is shaped.”
The main commemoration will begin at 15:00 GMT in a tent built above the gates of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. One of the symbols of the anniversary will be a freight train wagon that will be placed in front of the gate.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in the gas chambers or from hunger, cold and disease at Auschwitz.
The Nazis killed more than 3 million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jews, roughly half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews throughout German-occupied Europe.
