The 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz: the eternal pain of survivors

The main ceremony of this international day of commemoration was held in Auschwitz, in a tent in front of the "Door of Death", main entrance to the camp where more than a million Jews were murdered. This entry through which came directly in the camp, the prisoners convoys.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and deadliest of all Nazi extermination camps and concentration. For this great ceremony, 42 countries were represented, but we particularly note the poignant testimony of three survivors. Seventy years later, their pain is intact.

"Nothing is human to Auschwitz. You are there and you can not be anywhere else in the world, there to die, trampled in the mud, covered with excrement and blood. (...) I stayed here two years in Auschwitz. Two years trapped, foreign to myself, in a sudden incarnation of hell, "said Halina Birenbaum. She survived the nightmare of the Warsaw ghetto and camps Majdanek, Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe where it was released in 1945. In 1947, she emigrated to Israel. It is called the author of the book "Hope is the last to die."

"From day began a struggle for biological survival. A fight to the death to steal the maximum number of people and the preservation of human dignity. (...) The fate made sure that I can be here, standing before the monument to the victims of Nazism. Let us honor the victims with a moment of silence, "continues Kazimierz Albin. He was one of the first convoy of prisoners deported to Auschwitz. After participating in the camp construction and have survived for three years as a cook, he managed the impossible escape from Auschwitz with six other prisoners February 27, 1943.

"The heart-rending cries of children torn from their mother's arms by the brutal action of the torturers resound in my ears until I die. (...) We, the survivors, share a common goal with the current generation. We do not want our past is the future of our children, "concludes sobs in his voice, Roman Kent, a former prisoner of Auschwitz and president of the International Auschwitz Committee.

Participants in the ceremony were then invited to walk to the monument to victims of Birkenau. One kilometer, they walked in the snow and silence along for about fifteen minutes a railway track and barracks for women at the time.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, are the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria that the Nazis blew up before fleeing. The ruins also some 300 huts that stretch to the horizon on a land of 200 hectares.