Holocaust commemoration marred by political posturing

Published time: January 27, 2015 09:45
Edited time: January 27, 2015 16:47

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Oswiecim January 26, 2015 (Reuters / Laszlo Balogh)

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Conflict, History, Politics

Many nations on Tuesday are commemorating the crimes of the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. An international gathering at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland is missing the leader of the nation, whose predecessor liberated its prisoners 70 years ago.

The event is being attended by 12 presidents, five prime ministers some 300 survivors of the camp, where more than 1.4 million people, most of them European Jews, were killed over five years of Nazi rule.

This year's commemoration of the Holocaust tragedy is of special significance, since it's likely to be the last major anniversary which most survivors will be able to attend. The youngest ex-prisoners of the death camp are now in their 70s.

Speaking on the eve of the anniversary, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that Auschwitz is a reminder of where the path of hatred can lead to.

"Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by Soviet troops," she said. "Today the word 'Auschwitz' is a synonym for a mechanism of mass persecution and murder used by the national-socialists."

 

"We Germans feel great shame for what happened. Germans are guilty of the suffering and the deaths of millions of people, and some Germans tolerated it. We don't want to hear slogans full of hatred against people who are believers or believe in different religions," the German leader added.

Merkel's speech blasted forces in Germany supporting the self-styled 'anti-Islamization' movement PEGIDA, thousands of members of which march in several German cities every week. The movement poses itself as countering hostile immigrants defying the German way of life. Many German politicians see them as xenophobic and leaning to an ideology not unlike that of the Nazis.

 

A survivor of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz reacts as he visits the camp in Oswiecim January 26, 2015 (Reuters / Laszlo Balogh)

The meeting of foreign dignitaries in Poland is marred by the political crisis which plunged relations between Russia and Western nations to their worst point since the Cold War. Poland chose not to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to Auschwitz in an apparent political move to highlight his position.

http://rt.com/news/226543-poland-auschwitz-commemoration-putin/