International Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked across Europe on Tuesday, with survivors, politicians and ordinary citizens gathering at events to reflect on Nazi Germany’s killing of millions of people. Derrick M. Collins reported that the day, observed on Jan. 27, commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and was established by a U.N. General Assembly resolution in 2005.
At a Glance
- Survivors and leaders gathered at sites like Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
- The day highlights the deaths of 1.1 million at Auschwitz and 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
- About 196 600 Holocaust survivors remain alive worldwide, down from 220 000 a year earlier.
- Leaders warn that anti-Semitism is at its highest level since the Holocaust.
- Why it matters: The remembrance serves as a stark reminder of past atrocities and a call to confront rising hatred.
Commemorations Across Europe
At the Auschwitz site in southern Poland, former prisoners laid flowers and wreaths at a wall where German forces executed thousands of inmates. President Karol Nawrocki was scheduled to join survivors for a ceremony at Birkenau, the vast complex where Jews from across Europe were exterminated in gas chambers.
In Berlin, candles burned and white roses were placed at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the Brandenburg Gate. The memorial honors the 6 million victims and stands as a powerful symbol of Germany’s remorse.
The Czech Republic hosted a candlelight march in Terezin, the former Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt. Thousands of Jews died there or were sent from there to Auschwitz and other death camps.
Survivor Voices
Dr. Edith Eger spoke about her book The Gift, describing grief as a force for positive change inspired by her survival of Auschwitz and her healing process from the trauma.
In the Czech Parliament’s upper house, 90-year-old survivor Pavel Jelinek, the last living member of the 37 Jews who returned to Liberec after the war, said: “The whole world is one narrow bridge, and what matters is not to be afraid at all.”
In London, 95-year-old survivor Mala Tribich addressed the British Cabinet, describing how Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 destroyed her childhood. She recalled forced hard labor at age 12, the hunger and disease in the first Nazi ghetto in Piotrkow Trybunalski, and the loss of her mother, father and sister. She was sent to Ravensbrück and then to Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated by the British Army in April 1945. She urged Cabinet members to fight antisemitism and to remember, saying: “Soon, there will be no eyewitnesses left. That is why I ask you today not just to listen, but to become my witness.”
Leadership Reflections
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, warned that the world is seeing the highest levels of anti-Semitism since the Holocaust. She added that some threats are now “taking new and disturbing forms” and highlighted the misuse of AI-generated content to blur the line between fact and fiction, distort historical truth, and undermine collective memory.
Czech President Petr Pavel described the day as “a call to reflect on the past and the responsibility we have as a society, but especially as individuals, in the contemporary world.” He added that even today there are people who trivialize the hateful Nazi ideology or even sympathize with it.
Shrinking Survivor Community
A New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany reported that there are an estimated 196 600 Jewish Holocaust survivors still alive globally, down from 220 000 a year earlier. Nearly all of them-about 97 %-are child survivors born in 1928 or later.
Although the community of survivors shrinks with time, many continue to share their stories for the first time after all these years.
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Associated Press writers Karel Janicek in Prague, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Mike Corder in Amsterdam contributed to this report.
