Auschwitz Liberated (1945)

Sat Jan 27, 1945

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Image: Prisoners being led out of the Auschwitz gates, possibly a re-enactment taken a few weeks after January 27th. The motto “Arbeit macht frei” (English: “Work sets you free”) can be seen above the gate. [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, the largest such complex during the Holocaust. In 2005, the United Nations named today as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

As Soviet forces approached the camp, Nazis attempted to evacuate prisoners from the camp and to destroy evidence of their atrocities. Approximately 56,000 inmates were forced on a “death march” west away from the camp through the Polish winter.

Around 15,000 prisoners (about 1 in 4) perished during their forced march, and, by the time the Soviets had arrived, only 9,000 remained on-site, monitored by a handful of remaining SS guards and staff.

The buildings themselves were left largely intact, along with large amounts of clothing, seized items, and human hair, alongside the dying prisoners left behind.

One Red Army general, Vasily Petrenko, is quoted as saying, “I who saw people dying every day was shocked by the Nazis’ indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons. I read about the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in various leaflets, but there was nothing about the Nazis’ treatment of women, children, and old men”.

Efforts were made to document the atrocities, and to hospitalize the remaining inmates. Auschwitz remained in use as an ad hoc facility for German POWs until the end of the war in Europe later that year.

Since 2005, the day has been marked annually by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating all those targeted and killed by the Third Reich, including around six million Jews and five million others.

  • Blue@lemmy.world
    17·
    3 days ago

    80 years ago, a single human lifetime ago but still not that long in the grand scheme and yet it looks like some are willing to forget and repeat.