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Auschwitz - 70 years


Len Cnut

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Auschwitz 70th anniversary: Survivors warn of new crimes

Auschwitz survivors have urged the world not to allow a repeat of the crimes of the Holocaust as they mark 70 years since the camp's liberation.

"We survivors do not want our past to be our children's future," Roman Kent, born in 1929, told a memorial gathering at the death camp's site in Poland.

Some 300 Auschwitz survivors returned for the ceremony under a giant tent.

Some 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed there between 1940 and 1945, when Soviet troops liberated it.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin was among world leaders not attending the ceremony amid a row with Poland over the commemoration and linked to Russia's recent intervention in Ukraine.

Instead, the Russian leader attended a commemoration at Moscow's Jewish Museum along with Russia's Chief Rabbi, Berel Lazar.

The Kremlin accused Poland of engaging in anti-Russian "hysteria" after Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna credited Ukrainian soldiers, rather than the Soviet army, with liberating Auschwitz.

"The Russian people carried the lion's share of the fight with fascism on their shoulders - 70% of all the Red Army fighters and officers were Russians," Mr Putin said at the museum.

He also paid tribute to more than half a million Jews who had fought in the Red Army and made a "huge contribution to the victory against the enemy".

In his speech at Auschwitz, Poland's President Komorowski drew a parallel between Nazi Germany and the USSR, recalling the massacre of Polish elites by Soviet forces.

Before leaving Paris for Poland, French President Francois Hollande condemned the "unbearable" problem of contemporary anti-Semitism, telling Jews at a Holocaust memorial, "France is your homeland."

Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was a "disgrace" that Jews faced insults, threats and violence.

Edited by Len B'stard
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unfortunately, crimes like this are still committed each and every day in different countries around the world.

I knew a man who had the number on his arm, but he never talked about it. He was a boy during WWII.

This was a terrible time in history, but like I said, people are still suffering each day and no one seems to care about it.

I still have a hard time believing that the US and it's allies had no idea that millions of Jews, Christians and other innocent people were being put in camps and killed each day. The Nazis filmed every damn horrible act they did, yet no one knew about it? I find that hard to believe.

There have always been millions of Jewish people living in the US, especially the New York area and I know they must have been missing their relatives and wondering what was going on?

The whole world needs to remember this time and continue to learn about it, but the world is still not a better place

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The survivors get fewer and fewer every year. Now I am well versed in the subject but I do believe people need to be reminded of what happened because when the survivors are all gone so will their memories. Every story needs to be heard.

Edited by Georgy Zhukov
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Auschwitz was liberated by the soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front, but that’s not the point.

Russia just has no right to be offended and cry about “historical revisionism” because they have to ask themselves how did Auschwitz became possible. Maybe someone helped Hitler to dismember Poland in 1939?

Auschwitz was built in 1940 with tacit approval of Stalin.

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My lord, no one sane is suggesting concentration camps for anybody! Muslims are people, and many of them are good, hard working citizens of the respected countries they are in. Just like there are wonderful and terrible Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Hindu, Bahai, etc people out there.

We're all PEOPLE first and foremost. Our cultures, race, and religions aren't what define us, it is the person we are that does

As for the holocaust and other atrocities- it is really important to remember the past. These things are happening today, and it is sad so many turn a blind eye. The past should be remembered so it is not the present or future

Edited by ZoSoRose
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Maybe I'm wrong...

But people are so quick to condemn Auschwitz, yet jump on the anti Islam wagon saying it's this that, out dated and unwelcome in the West...

Cause criticizing religion and genocide are basically the same thing?

Daisy, Holocaust jokes aren't funny Anne Frankly I won't stand for them.

Edited by Angelica
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The survivors get fewer and fewer every year. Now I am well versed in the subject but I do believe people need to be reminded of what happened because when the survivors are all gone so will their memories. Every story needs to be heard.

One of the highlights of my undergrad was interviewing a survivor (Sarah Ginaite-Rubinson). What have you found to be the best books on the subject?

Gitta Sereny's Into the Darkness, Helene Berr's diary and Ronald Headland's Messages of Murder were the best one's I've encountered, aside from Noakes and Pridham's Nazism.

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