Marian Turski, head of International Auschwitz Committee, dead at 98
The 98-year-old president of the International Auschwitz Committee, Marian Turski, is dead.
The Holocaust survivor died on Tuesday in Warsaw, the committee - an association of Auschwitz survivors and their organizations from 19 countries - announced in a statement. Turski was elected president of the organization in 2021.
"Auschwitz survivors in many countries are saying goodbye with great pain and infinite gratitude to their friend, brother and fellow sufferer Marian Turski, who was heard all over the world as a powerful representative of their memories and as the voice of their murdered relatives," said the committee's executive vice president, Christoph Heubner.
Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, wrote on X: "We will ensure that the story of Holocaust survivor Marian Turski lives on."
She added: "Today the world lost a man who lived through the horror and the evil of concentration camps."
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, writing on X, remarked that Turski labelled "you should not be indifferent" as the "11th commandment."
"Not to be indifferent is a task for the state - and a civic duty that we carry forward. It is our obligation," Scholz said.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, also on X, wrote that Turski's "legacy is now our mission to all of us to carry forward his message of remembrance of the Shoah and reconciliation in Europe."
Until the last days of his life, Turski followed political developments with increasing concern as a journalist and eyewitness.
Heubner said Turski was dismayed by the Europe-wide resurgence of anti-Semitic and far-right extremist ideologies.
Heubner said Turski's words at the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 23 are especially important.
"Our days, the days of the survivors, are numbered. But we will not fall silent if you, all of you, do not remain silent."
Turski and his family had been imprisoned in the Lodz ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland since 1942, before being sent to the concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz in 1944. After his liberation, Turski worked as a journalist in Warsaw. He was a co-founder of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
The International Auschwitz Committee is based in Berlin. The name Auschwitz has become a synonym for the Holocaust and the epitome of evil worldwide.
The Nazis killed more than a million people there alone, mostly Jews. Throughout Europe, they murdered about six million Jews during the Shoah.
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