Holocaust Memorial Day latest: Holocaust survivors recount Auschwitz horrors at ceremony 80 years after liberation
16:02:26
Holocaust survivor addresses crowds
Holocaust survivor Janina Iwanska says when the camp was liberated, it was only 5-10% who were liberated.
She says 100,00 inmates were taken out of here and forced out to other camps.
Iwanska goes on to say in 1950 a Polish writer wrote about the war.
She says: "He wrote the following - 'if Europe ravaged by these follies is to avoid destruction, it's people must learn to anticipate better the consequences of their actions.
"They must not disregard those who possess such foresight.
"For the older the older generation this may be of lesser concern. My thoughts are with the young, those who have their whole lives ahead of them.
"War and chaos can erupt anywhere, leaving no place or reason to flea."
15:46:22
'It is difficult to calculate all the people killed here'
Now speaking is Holocaust survivor Janina Iwanska.
She says Auschwitz-Birkenau was originally a camp for political prisoners - those who were not happy with German occupation.
Then in March 1942, the camp was commissioned and changed.
"The operators of the camp started building gas chambers and the crematorium," she says.
"It was no longer a POW camp, a Soviet camp - this is when the killing machine started its operation.
"It is difficult to calculate all the people killed here."
In August 1943, there were as many as 4,00 Romani people living there.
"There was this night where they were all taken to the gas chambers. The next day not a single Roma was living there," she says.
15:40:01
In pictures: World leaders listen in as survivors speak at ceremony
Pictures from the ceremony in Oswiecim, Poland, show leaders and royals among those in attendance.
15:29:23
Hate speech used to arm conflict 'always ends in bloodshed'
Holocaust survivor Marian Turski says today "he sentences tomorrow's heroes".
"Let us not be afraid to convince ourselves that we cannot solve problems between neighbours" he says.
He says for centuries people have had homes side by side but hate speech used to arm conflict "always ends in bloodshed".
Turski, who was 14 when he was sent to the camp, says: "Luckily there are the positive experiences as well when both sides reach a conclusion."
15:08:34
Auschwitz survivor giving welcome address
A welcome address is being given by Holocaust survivor Marian Turski.
He says he must first and foremost welcome his fellow inmates "who have shared this misery" with him.
The Holocaust survivors also says our thoughts should go to those "millions of victims who will never tell us what they experienced or felt".
14:55:01
Survivors, royals and world leaders attend commemoration ceremony
A ceremony to commemorate 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp will start in five minutes.
Royals, survivors and world leaders have all gathered at the camp for the service.
We'll hear from several Holocaust survivors who lived through their experiences at Auschwitz, some prayers and music, before a final tribute at the end.
It's taking place in a specially made tent around the infamous "work will set you free" sign.
Stay with us for updates and watch live above.
14:45:02
Level of horror at Auschwitz hard to understand
It is "hard to understand the level of horror" that people at Auschwitz saw and survived, Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins, who is at the camp, reports.
Robbins says the camp was "designed for extermination".
"The Nazis practiced a method of killing at its most efficient," she says.
Describing her surroundings, she says: "You can see the remains of the barracks and the guard towers, which would have watched the people there as they were forced around to work. Many of them starving and exhausted.
"In the distance I can see the crumbled wreckage of the crematoriums where they sent people - sometimes on arrival.
"Many of them would have been women and babies - those who they couldn't get to work."
She adds: "It's so hard to understand the level of horror that people who were here saw and survived."
14:33:01
In pictures: King meets Jewish community in Krakow
These images show the King meeting with members of the Jewish community in Krakow, Poland.
He gave a short speech about the importance of remembering those murdered in the Holocaust, before speaking with some survivors and local leaders.
14:15:01
Survivor describes horror of watching Nazi death squad kill her mother
Hannah Lewis was seven when she watched a Nazi death squad execute her mother.
Her family was rounded up by Hitler's troops and forced to march to a labour camp in the Polish village of Adampol in 1943.
Hannah's father, Adam, escaped from the camp to join the partisans, a Jewish resistance movement during the Second World War, and returned to warn of an imminent Nazi raid, the night before his wife's death.
Hannah's mother, Haya, refused to flee, fearing her daughter, who had fallen ill with a high temperature and suspected typhoid, would not survive.
"For as long as I live, I will always wonder how she got through that night," Hannah told Sky's Sophy Ridge.
"How she made the decision she made? Was it right?"
The next morning, Hannah heard "yelling" and "screaming" after the arrival of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis' mobile killing unit responsible for the mass shooting of Jews.
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
We are Nobel laureates, scientists, writers and artists. The threat of fascism is back
On 1 May 1925, with Benito Mussolini already in power, a group of Italian intellectuals publicly denounced his fascist regime in an open letter. The signatories – scientists, philosophers, writers and artists – took a stand in support of the essential tenets of a free society: the rule of law, personal liberty and independent thinking, culture, art and science. Their open defiance against the brutal imposition of the fascist ideology – at great personal risk – proved that opposition was not only possible, but necessary. Today, 100 years later, the threat of fascism is back – and so we must summon that courage and defy it again. Fascism emerged in Italy a century ago, marking the advent of modern dictatorship. Within a few years, it spread across Europe and the world, taking different names but maintaining similar forms. Wherever it seized power, it undermined the separation of powers in the service of autocracy, silenced opposition through violence, took control of the press, halted the advancement of women's rights and crushed workers' struggles for economic justice. Inevitably, it permeated and distorted all institutions devoted to scientific, academic and cultural activities. Its cult of death exalted imperial aggression and genocidal racism, triggering the second world war, the Holocaust, the death of tens of millions of people and crimes against humanity. At the same time, the resistance to fascism and the many other fascist ideologies became a fertile ground for imagining alternative ways of organising societies and international relations. The world that emerged from the second world war – with the charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the theoretical foundations of the EU and the legal arguments against colonialism – remained marked by deep inequalities. Yet, it represented a decisive attempt to establish an international legal order: an aspiration toward global democracy and peace, grounded in the protection of universal human rights, including not only civil and political, but also economic, social and cultural rights. Fascism never vanished, but for a time it was held at bay. However, in the past two decades, we have witnessed a renewed wave of far-right movements, often bearing unmistakably fascist traits: attacks on democratic norms and institutions, a reinvigorated nationalism laced with racist rhetoric, authoritarian impulses and systematic assaults on the rights of those who do not fit a manufactured traditional authority, rooted in religious, sexual and gender normativity. These movements have re-emerged across the globe, including in long-standing democracies, where widespread dissatisfaction with political failure to address mounting inequalities and social exclusion has once again been exploited by new authoritarian figures. True to the old fascist script, under the guise of an unlimited popular mandate, these figures undermine national and international rule of law, targeting the independence of the judiciary, the press, institutions of culture, higher education and science, even attempting to destroy essential data and scientific information. They fabricate 'alternative facts' and invent 'enemies within'; they weaponise security concerns to entrench their authority and that of the ultra-wealthy 1%, offering privileges in exchange for loyalty. This process is now accelerating, as dissent is increasingly suppressed through arbitrary detentions, threats of violence, deportations and an unrelenting campaign of disinformation and propaganda, operated with the support of traditional and social media barons – some merely complacent, others openly techno-fascist enthusiasts. Democracies are not flawless: they are vulnerable to misinformation and they are not yet sufficiently inclusive. However, democracies by their nature provide fertile ground for intellectual and cultural progress and therefore always have the potential to improve. In democratic societies, human rights and freedoms can expand, the arts flourish, scientific discoveries thrive and knowledge grow. They grant the freedom to challenge ideas and question power structures, propose new theories even when culturally uncomfortable, which is essential to human advancement. 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Let this message be a renewed declaration of defiance. Nobel laureates: Eric Maskin, Roger B Myerson, Alvin E Roth, Lars Peter Hansen, Oliver Hart, Daron Acemoglu, Wolfgang Ketterle, John C Mather, Brian P Schmidt, Michel Mayor, Takaaki Kajita, Giorgio Parisi, Pierre Agostini, Joachim Frank, Richard J Roberts, Leland Hartwell, Paul Nurse, Jack W Szostak, Edvard I Moser, May-Britt Moser, Harvey James Alter, Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun, Barry James Marshall, Craig Mello, Charles Rice Leading scholars on fascism and democracy: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley, Claudia Koonz, Mia Fuller, Giovanni De Luna and Andrea Mammone The full list of signatories can be found here
Reuters
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- Reuters
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The Herald Scotland
8 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Grand Coalition between SNP and Labour may become inevitable
'Brandmauer' though, I can tell you, is German for 'firewall', and in political terms it is shorthand for the Grand Coalition between the centre-left SPD and the centre-right CDU/CSU. We have seen this Grand Coalition between Germany's main parties three times now – twice under Angela Merkel, and now again under new Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The purpose of the Brandmauer is to lock out a force considered by the mainstream parties to be so undesirable that the political nuclear button must be pressed. In 2005, under Ms Merkel, the imperative was to neuter the PDS – the successor to the Communist rulers of East Germany. Now, two decades on, the Brandmauer protects against Alice Weidel's AFD. The Grand Coalition under Angela Merkel continued under new Chancellor Friedrich Merz The Grand Coalition is now so normal in Germany that it has its own portmanteau – the Groko (Große Koalition). Before it happened, though, it would generally have been considered unthinkable. Not worth writing about, talking about or thinking about. Closer to home, we have seen a similar situation in Ireland. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael may be ideologically similar, but as the parties on opposite sides of the Irish Civil War, the antipathy from that island's troubled history runs deep. The very notion of a Grand Coalition was ridiculous until a force so ostensibly menacing, in the form of Sinn Féin, became so strong that a momentous response was required. The 2020 and 2024 general elections, both three horse races, resulted in an Irish firewall to lock out Sinn Féin. This is the new normal in Ireland. Here in Scotland, don't bother asking a politician from our two established mainstream parties – the SNP and Labour – about a Grand Coalition. At least, not in public, where you'll be laughed out of court. But discuss it with some of them in private, as I have on several occasions over the last six-or-so months, and they will offer a much more open and thoughtful retort. They can read opinion polls just like anyone else. For much of the time since Labour's Westminster election victory, as its support has plummeted, the party looked so weak, and the SNP looked so comparatively strong, that the latter would not require the former, finding an adequate partner instead in the Liberal Democrats or its ex-spouse, the Greens. Read more from Andy Maciver Last week's Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, though, has shone a different light on the range of possible outcomes after May 2026's election. Labour, after its victory, is understandably buoyant. Much as Labour types will tell you that they knew they would win and it was the result of a master strategy unbeknownst to anyone, the reality is that this was a wafer-thin win in a genuine three-way fight. We should not underplay it; Labour significantly outperformed its national poll rating and clearly ran an impressive ground campaign. However, nor should we overplay it, since the party lost two per cent of its vote share from the previous election, in 2021. This point was made by our national polling guru, Sir John Curtice, as he simultaneously dampened Labour's spirits and rubbed salt in the SNP's wounds (the nationalists shipped a whopping 17 per cent of its 2021 vote share, and underperformed its already diminished national polling share). In Sir John's view, clearly, Labour won the battle but Reform may justifiably feel it is winning the war. Illustrating the point, Sir John crunched some numbers based on what pollsters term 'uniform swing' – in other words, if all the parties had risen and fallen across the country by the same proportion as they did in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, what would the outcome be? The answer? A composition of seats in the Scottish Parliament which would constitute the most explosive and chaotic result in the history of Holyrood. The SNP would win the election handsomely, but only after the loss of a quarter of its MSPs, returning 48. Reform would come a clear second, with 32 seats. In third would be Labour, down from its current 24 to 18, based on the loss of vote share despite its by-election triumph. The Tories would be next on 16, with the Greens on 10 and the Liberal Democrats on five. In order to function in an orderly way with a Parliamentary majority, a government needs at least 65 seats – 17 seats more than the SNP would have. Many might consider the Greens to be First Minister John Swinney's most natural ally, but with 10 seats they would remain well short. Even adding five from the Lib Dems, another party with whom Mr Swinney has a productive and comfortable relationship, would be insufficient. On the other side of the Parliamentary chamber sit two parties with whom the SNP would not, under any circumstances, be prepared to enter an agreement, formal or informal. With 48 seats between them, the Conservatives and Reform UK would be considered 'uncoalitionable'. Read more from Andy Maciver: That leaves Labour. With its 18 seats, together with the SNP's 48, a 66-seat government carries a majority of one in the Holyrood chamber. There is much water to flow under the bridge, and too many caveats to mention. This was a by-election, and therefore a poor predictor of behaviour at a general election. We are still nearly a year from the election, and much can, and probably will, change during that time. Moreover, the Scottish territory is, if anything, more complex than those which existed in Germany and Ireland, because of the lingering independence debate, on either side of which sit the SNP and the Labour Party. However, the most important similarity is the one which may be present; the perceived need to place a firewall around a political party considered to be beyond the pale. In a parliament composed similarly to the one we have today, a grand coalition is unthinkable. In one which includes a relatively small number of Reform MSPs it is improbable. But in a parliament of the sort extrapolated by Sir John last week, a grand coalition is neither unthinkable nor improbable. It is inevitable. Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast.
