Emotional scenes as Holocaust survivors visit 'Death Wall' in Auschwitz to light candles of remembrance
Emotional scenes as Holocaust survivors visit 'Death Wall' in Auschwitz to light candles of remembrance
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Shaky, red-eyed but determined, many holocaust survivors struggled to bend as they left candles in remembrance at the foot of the ‘Death Wall’ in Auschwitz this morning. These are the last witnesses of the “catastrophe of humanity” which was conducted by the Nazis in World War II and they bravely returned to the scene of their nightmares to send a message to the world.
One elderly man wore the striped hat of his prisoner’s uniform, while another gripped the wall, where prisoners were exterminated, for support as he bent to lay his tribute to the dead. Others placed their palms flat in silent prayer on the recreated special cement and sawdust, which was used by SS guards to catch the firing squads' bullets.
Among those to attend the ceremony was Holocaust survivor and former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner, Stanislaw Zalewski, aged 95, who describes the camp as a “hell that cannot leave a person”. He was just 18 when he was arrested for underground activities and became a political prisoner. He painted Polish resistance symbols on walls. He has said previously that he returns to the “gates of hell” to teach the world the lessons of Auschwitz.
More than 50 Holocaust survivors arrived at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 80 years after it was finally liberated on January 27th 1945. Polish President Andrzej Duda said he was honoured to join the “last survivors” to lay their candles at the wall of death.
“Through this memory the world never again lets such dramatic human catastrophe happen and to be more precise, a catastrophe of humanity because representatives of one nation were able to cause such horrible unimaginable pain and harm upon other nations and especially upon the Jewish nation.
