A joint prayer by Jews and Christians and the laying of candles at the ruins of Crematorium IV at the former German camp of Auschwitz II-Birkenau concluded the commemoration of the 78th anniversary of its liberation from Auschwitz. The ceremony was attended by clergy and 18 former prisoners who attended the ceremony.
In front of the ruins of the crematorium, an instrument used in the mass extermination of the Jews, the kaddish and the mournful prayer “El male rachamim” were sounded. They were recited by the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich. With the words of the prayer “Eternal Rest”, the souls of the victims were remembered by the chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference’s committee for dialogue with Judaism, Archbishop Grzegorz Ryś and the auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Bielsko-Żywiec, Piotr Greger. Also, priest of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Father Aleksander, also prayed for the victims.
After the prayer, the participants of the ceremony laid candles at the ruins of Crematorium IV. Former prisoners were the first, followed by the representative of the President of the Republic of Poland, Minister Wojciech Kolarski, Vice-Marshals of the Sejm Małgorzata Gosiewska and Piotr Zgorzelski, Vice-Marshal of the Senate Michał Kamiński, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, Douglas Emhoff, representing the United States, and representatives of other countries.
On the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki appealed to never forget the victims of this place or the guilt of their oppressors. “This must never happen again”, wrote the head of government on social media.
“Today is the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – the biggest factory of human evil in history. We owe eternal remembrance to the victims of this hell, and eternal damnation to the German executioners”, wrote Mateusz Morawiecki.
27 January has been celebrated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day since 2005. On this day in 1945, the Auschwitz camp was recaptured from the Germans. The Holocaust took the lives of six million Jews, including 2 million children. A large proportion of the murdered in the Holocaust were Polish citizens.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński