The 79th anniversary of the liberation of the German Auschwitz camp was commemorated at the Auschwitz Memorial in Oświęcim and Brzezinka on Saturday. The most important guests at the ceremony were about 20 former prisoners.

On 27 January 1945, Red Army soldiers opened the gates of the Auschwitz German camp. They liberated around 7,000 people at that time. The Germans had begun the liquidation a year earlier, obliterating the traces of their crime by destroying documents and dismantling the crematoria. They gradually transported the prisoners of war deep into the Reich. At Auschwitz, the Germans exterminated at least 1.1 million people – mostly Jews and Poles.

Before the main ceremony, former prisoners and the Museum management laid wreaths and lit candles at the Execution Wall in the former Auschwitz I camp, the place where the Germans executed many thousands of people. The ceremony concluded with a joint prayer by Jews and Christians and the lighting of candles at the monument to the victims of the camp.

Immediately before the prayer, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, pointed out that this year’s prayer is different from previous years, when it included the victims of the Holocaust and those who survived it. Referring to the Hamas attack on Israel, he said that he also prays for the hostages in Gaza. Schudrich recited the kaddish and the mournful “El male rachamim”. Bishop Roman Pindel of Bielsko-Zywiec remembered the souls of the victims with the prayer “Eternal rest”.

The head of the Cieszyn diocese of the Lutheran Church, Bishop Adrian Korczago, and a representative of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Father Jarosław Antosiuk, also prayed for the victims. The clergy also recited Psalm 42 together.

After the prayer, the participants of the ceremony laid candles at the monument to the victims of the camp. Former prisoners were the first, followed by Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, Speaker of the Polish Senate, Dorota Niedziela, Deputy Speaker of the Sejm, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, Minister of Culture, Wojciech Kolarski, Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, representing President Andrzej Duda, diplomats and Auschwitz Museum staff.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński