60 YEARS AFTER LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ, IV

Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary Is Marked
More than two dozen presidents, prime ministers, members of royalty, and other leaders sat in the bitterly cold open air to remember the 6 million victims of the Holocaust, most of them Jews. Among those attending were Vice President Cheney, German President Horst Koehler, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac, Britain's Prince Edward, and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, whose father was held at the camp as a Soviet prisoner of war. (Washington Post)

The Sense of Shame that has Scarred a Continent - Philip Stephens
It is a place where Adolf Hitler's Nazis murdered the Jews, I heard myself saying as I answered my 11-year-old son's question about Auschwitz. Yet even recalling that six million had died somehow understated the dreadful significance of the effort to slaughter an entire race. Who was worse, I have found myself asking during this week's commemoration: the guards who forced fellow human beings into the gas chambers; the architects and engineers who labored mightily to design the crematoria in which the corpses were burned; or the functionaries in almost every part of the continent who never asked why as they identified neighbors to be herded on to railway cattle wagons? Is this what it means to be a European? Few outside Hitler's Reich were blameless. The brutal efficiency of the mass murder was built on the co-operation of politicians and bureaucrats in Paris and Amsterdam, Budapest and Rome. Britain and America kept their borders closed against many more who might have escaped the camps. (Financial Times-UK)

The Future of Denial - Deborah E. Lipstadt
Many people worry that without the survivors, there will not be enough evidence to "prove" what happened at Auschwitz. When I was compelled to defend myself against charges of libel brought by Holocaust denier David Irving, without relying on survivors as witnesses, we amassed a massive cache of documentary, testimonial, and material evidence about Auschwitz. Judge Charles Gray of the UK High Court of Justice said the evidence conclusively demonstrated that Irving's claims that Auschwitz-Birkenau was not a death camp fell far short of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian. Gray concluded that "no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt" the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz. The four different judges who heard Irving's appeals agreed. (Jerusalem Post)

In Auschwitz "We Saw Countless Unlit Bonfires with Layers of Logs and Corpses" - Jeremy Page
Russian soldier Genry Koptev, 18, was ordered to advance toward a point on the map marked Auschwitz in January 1945. He and his five comrades guessed they had come to some sort of prison camp. Then he saw 2,000 emaciated prisoners. Koptev, now 78, is one of the few surviving members of the 322nd division of the Soviet Army that liberated Auschwitz. "They only resembled people," he told The Times. "Their skin was so thin, you could see their veins through it and their eyes were sticking out because the tissue around it had sunk. When they stretched out their hands, you could see every bone, joint and sinew." As he advanced, the full horror of the death camp where about 1.1 million Jews were killed unfolded. He saw countless unlit bonfires, with alternate layers of logs and corpses, which the fleeing guards had not had time to ignite. (Times-UK)

Auschwitz Survivor Tells of Vain Uprising
An Auschwitz survivor Thursday brought the German parliament to its feet when he described the spontaneous uprising of Auschwitz prisoners in response to mass gassings of Jews. "The prisoners attacked the SS with axes and rocks and set one crematorium on fire," said Arno Lustiger, a Jew and Holocaust historian. "The SS mobilized, rounded everyone up in groups, and killed them all with shots to the neck." (Guardian-UK)

Never Again? The UN Gets a PR Boost - Anne Bayefsky
On Monday, the UN marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp with a special session of the General Assembly. The Europeans agreed to promote the special session on the condition that there were no resolutions and no final declaration. They were not prepared to do battle with Arab and Muslim states over texts or outcomes. The ground rules for the special sessions of the General Assembly for the previous decade were completely different - this one would be "commemorative" only. The upshot? The UN looks better in the eyes of many. The secretary-general improved his image. Israel, the perpetual UN-loser, was queen-for-a-day. But where does this leave "never again"? Last month the UN adopted 22 resolutions condemning the State of Israel, and 4 country-specific resolutions criticizing the human-rights records of other UN members. (National Review)

Survivor Interrupts World Leaders at Auschwitz Ceremony - Greer Fay Cashman (Jerusalem Post)
Of the more than 40 world leaders present for Thursday's ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, it was an Auschwitz survivor who stole the show. As President Moshe Katsav, the first foreign dignitary to address the gathering, was winding up his speech, a woman sitting in the rows of survivors got up from her seat and walked over to the speakers' podium, where she stood without a coat in the freezing cold, waiting with arms folded until Katsav finished talking. Auschwitz survivor Miriam Yahav (previously Merka Szevach), who was not listed on the program to speak, then positioned herself in front of the microphone. "They took away my name and gave me a number," she shouted in Polish, holding up her arm to show her tattoo. "What right did they have to kill my family? What right did they have to kill my people?" "I stood here, naked in the snow, in the cold, a young girl, 16. They brought my family here and burned them all." Then Yahav, who now lives in Israel, added proudly: "I now have a country, an army, and a president." It was already dark when the ceremony concluded with a dramatic candlelight procession led by heads of delegations. The crowd dispersed and made its way back. But in one of the barracks, a light was burning; some of the former inmates had gathered inside. They were singing Hatikva.

See also An Auschwitz Survivor Remembers (Voice of America) Dallas Man Recalls Time in Auschwitz (Dallas Morning News) Aussie Survivor Remembers Auschwitz (Melbourne Herald Sun) Auschwitz Survivor Tells His Tale (Jerusalem Post)