Today, Monday, January 27, 2025 marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz; and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland was closed both yesterday and today to commemorate the anniversary.
80 Years Since the Liberation of Auschwitz.
“Until the liberation of some 7 thousand prisoners remaining at the site of the camp by soldiers of the Red Army, the German Nazis murdered approx. 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, mostly Jews, but also Poles, the Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and people of other nationalities”, according to the official Internet web site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. “For the world today, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Holocaust and the atrocities of World War II. In 2005 the United Nations declared 27 January as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”
This train car has stood since 2009 in the middle of the unloading ramp at the former Birkenau camp — at the site where “SS doctors” conducted selections of deported Jewish people — directing most of them to their deaths in the gas chambers. It originated from Germany. Between 1919 and 1925, greater than 120,000 wagons of this type were manufactured. Many of them were used to deport people to Auschwitz, as confirmed by documents and archival photographs.
You can watch the ceremonies via this video.
Final Boarding Call
This section is appropriately named for this article, as on Saturday, January 27, 1945 — which would have been Shabbos, or the day of rest on the seventh day of the week in Judaism — the prisoners of Auschwitz were happy to be on the final boarding call to freedom.
My visit to Auschwitz was a very somber and sobering experience which I needed but by no means was easy, as not everyone has the stomach to be at a place where countless unimaginable atrocities occurred. You can read about my experience at Auschwitz — as well as some news about which I reported over the years — via the following articles here at The Gate With Brian Cohen:
- Gas Chamber I and Incinerator Room at Auschwitz
- “Your Mother Went Up in the Smoke”: A Sad Short Story From Auschwitz
- “My Newborn Babys…Came Out Deformed”: Auschwitz Comment Posted on TripAdvisor
- Video of Auschwitz as a Political Gaffe: A Positive Effect
- Prison Time For Saying Polish Death Camps?
- The World Remembers Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel
Never forget.
All photographs ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
