Memory must not turn into a ritual or a “lesson to be checked off,” speakers stressed during the anniversary commemorations at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former German Nazi concentration camp. Survivor Bernard Offen appealed: “Let memory not be a burden. Let it become a light that will guide us in the darkness,” while Auschwitz Museum Director Piotr Cywiński spoke of memory and experience as “treasures” and “signposts” in a time when the global order is fracturing.
Although the main ceremony with Survivors, state officials, and the diplomatic corps took place on the afternoon of January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau was commemorated throughout the day on the grounds of the former camp. In the morning, around 20 former prisoners laid wreaths and candles at the Death Wall at the former Auschwitz I. This was the opening act of the observances marking the 81st anniversary of the camp’s liberation.
The main address during the ceremony, held in a former camp intake building, was delivered by Holocaust survivor Bernard Offen, born in Kraków in 1929. He recalled a childhood cut short by war, the murder of his mother and sister in Bełżec, and the moment he was separated from his father in Auschwitz. “My father was sent to the left, toward death. I was sent to the right. I remember that moment. Our eyes met, and there was the feeling that we were seeing each other for the last time,” he said.
He stressed that he survived thanks to others: “I survived because other people helped me. I call them my angels.” After decades of living in the United States, Offen decided to return to Poland. He spoke of Kraków as the place where he found a home and a sense of safety again. He appealed to those present: “I ask you today—let memory not be a burden. Let it become a light that will guide us in the darkness. We, the witnesses, will soon be gone, but I believe that this light will remain with you.”
By January 27, 1945—the day approximately 7,000 prisoners still in the camp were liberated by soldiers of the Red Army—German Nazis had murdered about 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, primarily Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and people of other nationalities. Today, Auschwitz stands as a global symbol of the Holocaust and the atrocities of World War II. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
