Auschwitz Legacy and Remembrance

In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as an annual international day of commemoration to honor the victims of the Nazi era. This date marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp. “Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust, is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any State or people ” stated Ban-Ki Moon, United Nations Secretary General during the assembly.

I am native Polish and my father was a prisoner of Potulice Concentration Camp for children during World War II. From my first visit to Auschwitz as a 10 year old child I can only remember the barracks, gas chambers and the Execution Wall as well as overwhelming feeling of sadness for all of those innocent people who died; many of then Jews and Poles. During my second visit in 2007 I have purchased the English version of a book by Krystyna Zywulska “I survived Auschwitz” which gave me a very deep insight into the life of a Jewish woman (her real name was Sonia Landau) who survived the atrocities of the notorious Nazi extermination camp and managed to escape. Her memoirs were published in 1946 right after the war and it was one of the first books written by Auschwitz concentration camp survivor.

Through her eyes we can see the price of courage, terrible urge to live half-starved, suffering from lice, scabies, dysentery, moved down by typhus and pneumonia. She worked with other women in the fields of icy slush and mud but finally was given an opportunity to get out of that hell. This book deserves more worldwide publishing, since it is only available in Poland through the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, because most of her companions were murdered so that would not bear witness. I was looking at the place where thousands of bodies were burned and at the small plaques on the railroad tracks in Birkenau. One of them read: “To all the babies that were never born and to all the women that were never married, we remember”.

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We should never forget such pivotal moments in history of mankind. The legacy of Holocaust is one of the most important lessons in history. Our generation learns about it from books, such as Elie Wiesel’s “Night” or “Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, movies like “Schindler’s List” or “Sophie’s Choice”, history books or stories told by those are still among us, those who survived. Holocaust was and still is a diabolic journey of atrocity, horror, suffering and destruction through the ashes, the corpses, and the hell of inhumanity. It is amazing that some young people, just like us, maintained their dignity and good spirits in the eye of the storm 60 something years ago. Anne Frank was a Jewish teenage girl growing up in Amsterdam, forced to go into hiding during Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, so that she could avoid persecution with her family. After they were captured and transported to concentration camps, Anne left her diary behind in their flat in Amsterdam to be found by her father right after the war. Who would have known that a diary of teenager will become one of the most widely read books about Holocaust worldwide? Anne Frank wrote her diary during the most challenging times of her life, yet she still believed in people. “It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart”. (written July 15, 1944) This is the best advice we can find for young people today who want to stand up for humanity and make a difference. Anne Frank wrote her diary during the most challenging times of her life, yet she still believed in people. Anne’s life and death were her own individual fate, an individual fate that happened six million times over. As Eleanor Roosevelt said that Anne’s diary was: “one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever read”.