The international community marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 every year as the Soviet Army liberated the Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland on this day in 1945. The year 2025 marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the largest Nazi concentration camp, eight months before the end of the Second World War (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945). Incidentally, this day has no such significance in Asia! Although both Europe and Asia suffered a lot during the Second World War, Europe still remembers holocaust, death camps and genocide.

Jews, irrespective of their nationality, Roma, Sinti, homosexual and disabled people found their places in Nazi death camps in different parts of Europe. Nazis used to torture them in notorious concentration camps in Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nearly 1.1 million people were reportedly killed in Auschwitz alone! The world has never seen the killing of so many people in a single camp.

The Auschwitz concentration camp has been transformed into the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, which also includes a collection of archives. Thousands of people from different parts of the globe visit the memorial throughout the year. The sign above the main entrance of Auschwitz reads Arbeit Macht Frei, a German phrase translated as Work makes one free or more idiomatically Work sets you free or Work liberates. Perhaps, the Nazis wanted to say that prisoners should work hard to get released. Auschwitz guards, with a smiling face, used to show prisoners smoke coming out from chimneys! The prisoners rightly realised that they could enjoy absolute freedom only after death! Countless people entered through this gate during the Second World War, but only a handful were able to come out. This year, guests lit candles near the entrance and also placed flowers in front of the infamous Death Wall.

King Charles III of the UK, the monarchs of Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, French President Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Pierre James Trudeau and other world leaders were present at Auschwitz on January 27, 2025. The Auschwitz Memorial authorities requested them not to say anything, but to listen when the survivors of the camp would share their memories. The holocaust survivors are considered heroes as they have proven by their lives that survival is the greatest task of a man in this world.

Tova Friedman (b. September 7, 1938), the youngest survivor of Auschwitz, is 86, now. The Poland-born Jewish American therapist, social worker, author and academic recalled that she experienced the shadow of death eight decades ago! She still remembers that little girls were being led barefoot on the snow towards the gas chambers in harsh winter. Other holocaust survivors, including Marian Tarski, Janina Ivanska and Leon Weintraub, also shared their memories with the guests. The number of survivors decreases constantly. Many of them who are still alive have penned their experiences (or the Philosophy of Living) to share their memories with others. One can mention The Diary of Anne Frank, Lily’s Promise by Lily Ebert, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl or Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table. The 21st Century world needs to bow down before these books.

The greatest quality of a book is that it doesn’t let one forget. The biggest problem of modern human civilisation is oblivion: forgetting something or letting others forget something. The Auschwitz survivors have kept on saying that one should not forget what happened to innocent people eight decades ago, how the Nazis used to spread hatred and how people could invent new tricks to carry out genocide. It is also important to remember that a huge number of people had supported the perpetrators of the crime, while others remained silent.

Even today, one can find a shadow of Auschwitz around her/him in a similar narrative, but in a different form. Detention centres still exist in various countries mainly to accommodate others. In the presence of world leaders, the Auschwitz survivors recalled that Europe did not give much importance to fascism in the early 1930s, thinking that it was just a brandishing of a particular political ideology. However, everyone knows what happened next. The growing popularity of the neo-Nazis in 21st Century Europe shows that people have learnt nothing from Auschwitz.

Surprisingly, Israel and Russia did not attend ceremonies, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet forces in Oswiecim, Poland on January 27, 2025! Jews, once the victims of holocaust, have become the perpetrators of a heinous crime as they are carrying out genocide in Gaza. The global community shall also remember the Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian territories, along with Auschwitz. This memory shall certainly be painful, uncomfortable and unbearable, but it shall show the path of humanity. One should not forget the point of reference in human history.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das