#Tova Friedman

[madewithonerib]

RE: And here I thought I was the only one to get this kind of thing

I picture them crying in bed wishing they could veto some of the decisions their life partner is constantly going back to.

mc'loving it

Tova Friedman: Surviving Auschwitz | Documentary Series

Surviving Auschwitz: Child Emerges from the Holocaust | US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Reagan Library with Tova Friedman Ronald | Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute

A Conversation with Tova Friedman - Holocaust Survivor | EdisonBOE

This is the one I watched in full, all 2 hours & 30 minutes of it, and in it there is great detail provided by Tova, who speaks freely unscripted & unrushed.

[theredandwhitequeen]

Book 33 of the 50 book challenge. The Daughter of Auschwitz by Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant. Tova was born in 1938 a year before the Nazis took Poland. She survived the Holocaust and left Auschwitz when she was 6. She was in a ghetto, a labor camp and a death camp and survived which is miraculous, because most children were killed when they arrived at Auschwitz immediately. She spent months in a childrens block until the place was liberated. Both of her parents survived as well, her mom in Auschwitz and her father in Dachau. Her mother lost over 150 family members and her father had 3 sisters survive. 1 was later murdered by polish antisemetic people. Her family moved to a displaced persons camp in Germany then to the US. Her mother died when she was 14 in the US. Her father died much later in Israel. She married, had children and became a social worker. The book is fascinating.

[onetwistedmiracle]

content warning: Auschwitz, Shoah, subject of WP article survived the Holocaust

She survived Auschwitz. Now she’s teaching Gen Z about it — on TikTok.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/washpost/c735a7bb-d04e-404a-9f73-82314e1e810b.png&w=196&h=196

By Marisa Iati

March 29, 2023 at 9:17 p.m. EDT

Viewers frequently flood Tova Friedman’s TikTok account with probing questions: Why didn’t she try to escape from Auschwitz? Could she hear people screaming from the gas chambers? Were there any times when she almost died but got a second chance?

With the help of her 17-year-old grandson, the 84-year-old tries to convey the grim reality of Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp in Poland, while avoiding graphic language that might scare her young viewers.

“I don’t want to turn them off, so I have to be careful a little bit how to do it,” Friedman said. “I’m very careful in choosing my vocabulary.”

Nearly 500,000 people have subscribed to Friedman’s TikTok account, previously reported by NorthJersey.com, since she and her grandson, Aron Goodman, launched the page in fall 2021. They said they’re trying to counter online Holocaust denial and misinformation by sharing Friedman’s firsthand experience — ensuring that the truth lives on, even with antisemitic views widespread in the United States.

“I have a terrific obligation to speak,” Friedman said in an interview. “I don’t have survivor’s guilt, but I have survivor’s obligation, so that I speak to remember.”

Born in Poland on the cusp of World War II, Friedman was forced by Nazis first into a Jewish ghetto and then into Auschwitz. At age 6, she was released from a gas chamber for reasons she still does not know. She once hid next to a still-warm corpse to evade Nazis gathering prisoners for a death march, according to her memoir, and she eventually gained her freedom when Auschwitz was liberated in 1945.

In most of her TikTok videos, Friedman perches on a couch at Aron’s home in Morristown, N.J., and speaks directly to the camera. She also invites her audience into various other settings, including a radio recording studio and a float in a pro-Israel parade.

One post shows Friedman holding up her sleeve as the camera zooms in on the Auschwitz identification number tattooed on her forearm: A-27633. In another video, Friedman holds up the Red Cross card that she used to travel after the Holocaust ended.

TikTok not long ago was totally unfamiliar to Friedman, who initially thought Aron was saying “Tic Tac.” Aron said he recently had to explain to her why they can’t edit a live video like they do to other posts.

But Friedman said her grandson has made adjusting to the platform as painless as possible. He coaches her to make the most of the videos’ short time frame and edits the posts afterward. When she feels uncomfortable while recording, they stop.

Aron also shields Friedman from the antisemitic remarks that their account sometimes receives and said he tries not to dwell on them himself.While much of TikTok’s content is positive, antisemitic extremists have sometimes co-opted the platform to spread hateful content and conspiracy theories, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

“Those give me fuel to try to continue this work,” Aron said. “For the most part, I think about the positive impact we have,” including a message from a teacher in India who wanted to use some of the account’s material for her class.

Holocaust education in Aron’s own classes has been limited, he said. While TikTok videos can’t replace widespread lessons in schools, Aron said he hopes his account will inspire young people to learn further on their own. Friedman, who works as a therapist,also speaks frequently to students and other groups.

All of it, she said, is meant to make people understand the perils of unbridled loathing.

“It’s a warning to be careful with the hatred that you feel about somebody or something,” Friedman said. “It’s okay to feel dislike. … But it’s a different thing to act on it.”

While Aron and Friedman try to expand their content to Instagram and other platforms, they’re also figuring out the future of the “TovaTok” account. Aron is set to leave New Jersey for college in St. Louis this fall, and he’s unsure what that means for the project. He might expand the account to include interviews with other Holocaust survivors, he said, or make videos with his grandmother over FaceTime.

Friedman, for her part, isn’t ready to throw in the towel on their TikTok page.

“I just want to speak as long as I can and reach as many people as is possible as long as I’m alive,” she said.

[meandmybigmouth]

Survivors of Auschwitz deliver warning from history as memories die out

Survivors of Auschwitz deliver warning from history as memories die out

"We were victims in a moral vacuum," said Tova Friedman, who described witnessing the horrors of the Nazi genocide as a five and a half year-old girl clinging to her mother's hand.

AMERICA IS SUFFERING FROM A DIFFERENT MORAL VACCUM!. ONE OF HYPOCRISY AND PSEUDO-MORALS!.

[beardedmrbean]

Some of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz returned to the Nazi death camp on Monday, condemning a "huge rise" in anti-Semitism on the 80th anniversary of its liberation.

Auschwitz was the largest of the extermination camps built by Nazi Germany and has become a symbol of the Holocaust of six million European Jews. One million Jews and more than 100,000 non-Jews died at the site between 1940 and 1945.

"Eighty years after liberation, the world is again in crisis," warned Tova Friedman, 86, adding that "the rampant anti-Semitism that is spreading among the nations is shocking".

Along with Marian Turski, Janina Iwanska, and Leon Weintraub, Friedman was one of four former prisoners who spoke at the ceremony.

In total 50 fellow survivors gathered at the main commemoration outside the gates of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, joined by dozens of world leaders.

Earlier on Monday, elderly former inmates, some wearing scarves in the blue-and-white stripes of their death camp uniforms, laid flowers at the site, touching the camp's Wall of Death in silence.

"Today, and now, we see a huge rise in anti-Semitism and it is precisely anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust," Turski, 98, warned those at the ceremony.

Weintraub, a 99-year-old Polish-born Swedish physician, asked for the young to "be sensitive" to intolerance and discrimination and condemned the proliferation of Nazi-inspired movements in Europe.

'Never be silent' 

Also speaking at the ceremony, World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder said the horrors of Auschwitz and Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 were both inspired by "the age-old hatred of Jews".

Anti-Semitism "had its willing supporters then, and it has them now," he said.

"On January 27, 1945 when the Red Army entered these gates, the world finally saw where the step-by-step progress of anti-Semitism leads. It leads right here."

"Today all of us must take a pledge to never be silent when it comes to anti-Semitism or for that matter any other hatred," Lauder said.

The streets of Oswiecim were mainly deserted except for police and fleets of official cars. The camp was closed to the public and largely silent except for the fluttering of the Auschwitz Museum flags.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain's King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron and dozens of other international leaders attended the commemoration.

Organisers had however decided not to include political speeches to keep the focus on the survivors.

'Responsibility of remembrance' 

In a statement, Zelensky said the world must unite "to prevent evil from winning".

Russia's President Vladimir Putin praised the role of Soviet soldiers in ending the "total evil" of Auschwitz.

Until its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian delegation had always attended the ceremony but Moscow was barred again this year.

Organisers said this could be the last major anniversary with such a large group of survivors.

"We all know that in 10 years it will not be possible to have a large group for the 90th anniversary," Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki said.

"As the number of Holocaust survivors regrettably diminishes with the passage of time, the responsibility of remembrance rests far heavier on our shoulders and on those of generations yet unborn," King Charles said on a visit to Jewish community centre in Krakow on Monday.

Auschwitz was created in 1940 using barracks in Oswiecim, southern Poland. Its name was Germanised into Auschwitz by the Nazis.

The first 728 Polish political prisoners arrived on June 14 of that year.

On January 17, 1945, as Soviet troops advanced, the Nazi SS forced 60,000 emaciated prisoners to walk west in what became known as the "Death March".

From January 21-26, the Germans blew up the Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria and withdrew as Soviet troops approached.

On January 27, Soviet troops found 7,000 survivors when they arrived.

The day of its liberation has been designated by the United Nations as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

'Will they believe us?' 

 Ahead of the anniversary, survivors spoke to AFP about the need to preserve the memory of what happened in the death camp and warned of rising hatred and anti-Semitism. They also expressed fears that history could repeat itself.

Some 40 survivors in 15 countries told their stories, alone or surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren -- proof of their victory over absolute evil.

Julia Wallach, who is nearly 100, cannot recall the events without crying.

"It is too difficult to talk about, too hard," she said. The Parisian was dragged off a lorry destined for the gas chamber in Birkenau at the last minute.

But hard as it is to relive the horrors, she insisted she would continue to bear witness.

"As long as I can do it, I will do it." Nearby, her granddaughter Frankie asked: "Will they believe us when we talk about this when she is not there?"

[mariacallous]

"Never again?" The Guardian's This is Europe - 1/29/2025

As the last Auschwitz survivors gathered to mark 80 years of liberation, their ‘never again’ warning has rarely seemed so urgent

Elon Musk’s claim that Germans should stop focusing on ‘past guilt’ was a shocking reminder of what is at stake as the far-right AfD gains ground

Tova Friedman was five when she came to Auschwitz. Her “so vivid” memories include “the cries of desperate women” and the “terrible stink” of the chimneys. Friedman was one of four former inmates who on Monday spoke from inside the former Nazi death camp at a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation.

Jon Henley’s moving front page dispatch from Poland focused not on world leaders or political speeches (they had been banned by the Auschwitz museum), but rather on eyewitnesses such as Friedman: some 50 elderly survivors returned to the scene of their trauma. They stood, Jon wrote, “before princes and presidents to remind the world, perhaps for the final time, of the horrors they had suffered there during one of the darkest moments of human history.”

This was the last big commemoration of Auschwitz that camp survivors – the youngest are now in their mid-80s – could attend in any numbers (find a gallery of pictures here) – hence the emphasis on listening to their words, and only theirs.

But survivors’ poignant warnings about repeating the mistakes of the 1930s are entwined with contemporary events. Because even before time takes the Nazi era and the Holocaust out of living memory, the far right is already resurgent.

In Germany, the Alternativ fur Deutschland is polling second nationally ahead of next month’s general election. In response, the conservative CDU, favourite to form the next government, is defensively hardening its line on AfD-favoured themes, migration and domestic security. The CDU leader Friedrich Merz is now accused of wrecking the traditional “firewall” against the far right with a promised new deportations law.

The AfD now has powerful backers abroad. Delegates at a party rally in Halle last weekend cheered wildly as the US tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk made a surprise appearance by video link and attacked “remembrance culture” (the German policy of acknowledging Nazi crimes). He said that Germany was too focused on “past guilt”. This drew a firm rebuke from the German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who told a special gathering of the Bundestag on Wednesday that it was not possible to “draw a line” under the Nazi era. It was the “unavoidable truth … that Germans organised and committed these crimes against humanity.”

Musk, let’s recall, gave an hour of free exposure to the AfD leader Alice Weidel on X last month, and performed what looked like two Nazi salutes at an event to mark Donald Trump’s inauguration. Fascist-sounding discourse has crept into Trump’s communications, too: in recent speeches he used “vermin” to describe immigrants and said they were “poisoning” the blood of America.

Jewish groups told Ashifa Kassam they are appalled at the threat posed by Musk’s provocations. But surely, future generations could never think Nazi crimes were exaggerated?

An eight-country survey published this week suggests exactly that; it revealed alarming gaps in awareness of the death camps, particularly among younger adults. A startlingly high proportion of 18- to 29-year-olds had not heard of the Holocaust in France (46%), Romania (15%), Austria (14%) and Germany (12%). Asked if they had encountered Holocaust denial or distortion while on social media, nearly half (47%) of Polish adults said “yes”; in Austria and Hungary, this number was 38%. In Germany it was 37%.

Many survivors never, understandably, wanted to discuss their trauma with their families, after the liberation. This was the case for Ella Garai-Ebner’s grandfather, as she wrote for the Guardian. He left extraordinary written accounts, however, which she now shares. And three people, including Albrecht “Albi” Weinberg talked to the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, Kate Connolly. Albi, 99, says he is taken back to Auschwitz every day when he washes his face and sees his tattoo in the mirror.

Lessons from history

The aftermath of the second world war gave birth to the European Union. But a growing band of countries forms an illiberal, nationalist, Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly bloc – within the EU – led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Romania’s presidential election had to be annulled in November, after an obscure far-right figure won the first round with alleged outside interference.

And now Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, who is accused of democratic backsliding, is pivoting to closer support for Moscow. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets of Bratislava and other towns in recent days to protest. Fico’s culture minister’s oversight of a systematic purge of the country’s arts institutions is detailed in this chilling Guardian opinion piece from the Slovakian novelist Monika Kompaníková.

A pro-democracy grassroots uprising in Belarus five years ago raised hope of an overthrow of “Europe’s last dictator”, Alexander Lukashenko. On Sunday, a sham election perpetuated his brutal rule – all vestiges of the 2020 resistance movement stamped out. This may, as our editorial pointed out, be a hollow victory. Dictatorships do eventually get toppled.

But for now, the vow to “never forget” what authoritarianism and extremism led to in 20th century Europe has rarely seemed so pressing – or so fragile.

Until next week.

[defaultjane]

Get to know me better tag game I was tagged by @vorchagirl, thanks for the tag! ^_^

Last song I listened to: Feuer frei! by Rammstein

Currently reading: "The Daughter of Auschwitz" by Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant

Currently watching: The Righteous Gemstones, The X-files, Hannibal

Last TV show/movie: The Righteous Gemstones for TV and the last movie was Batman Forever.

Favorite color: Black, dark red, and dark blue.

Spicy/sweet/savory? Depends on what I'm in the mood for, mostly savory.

Last thing I googled: carrot ginger pineapple smoothie

Song stuck in my head: Kiss me you animal by Burn the ballroom

[marjaystuff]

The Girls of the Glimmer Factory 

Hilde Kramer Book 2

Jennifer Coburn

Sourcebooks Pub

Jan 28th, 2025

The Girls of the Glimmer Factory by Jennifer Coburn is relevant considering January 28th was Holocaust Remembrance Day. It takes place at the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp and is a novel about the importance of family, friendship, and community along with the healing power of art and music, finding one’s own strength/courage, and being able to resist, as well as a warning about the power of propaganda. The book alternates narratives between two childhood friends, Hilde and Hannah.  Hilde is a true believer of the Nazi ideology while Hannah is now a Jewish prisoner at Theresienstadt. Coburn’s extensively researched narrative conveys the full horror of conditions at the camp through Hannah’s eyes, not the “show camp” that the Nazis are putting out to the world. 

On background, Theresienstadt, the setting for the book, was 3.5 square miles, located in Terezin Czechoslovakia. It was a former military base, constructed in 1790, that was easily converted into a concentration camp. In its 3.5 years of existence 155,000 people passed through, 88,000 were sent to death camps in the East, 33,000 died from starvation and disease, and 34,000 survived.

This book along with the first book, Cradles of the Reich, are compelling, powerful, intense, captivating, and informative.  With antisemitism going on in today’s world both are must reads.

Elise Cooper: Why do you think the Nazis created the concentration camp, Theresienstadt?

Jennifer Coburn: I came across examples of Nazi propaganda that included posters, films, and even board games. After the Nazis codified the Final Solution of killing the Jews they knew the world would start to ask questions. They understood they needed somewhere to bring the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations to fool them that the Jews were living well in Nazi Europe. I wanted to set a story that tells about this Camp, including the resilience of those imprisoned there.

EC: What do you think Theresienstadt represented?

JC: The diabolical nature of the Nazis and the experts they were with propaganda. It worked. 

EC: Why do you think the Nazi propaganda worked?

JC:  When the Red Cross came there on June 23, 1944, they had three inspectors with eight Nazi representatives as their tour guides. The camp was beautified: importing 1200 plants and flowers, the building of a musical pavilion and playground, as well as prisoner housing converted to a coffee house.  As the Red Cross was leaving, the lead inspector supposedly told the Nazi Commandant, ‘your Jews are living better here than anywhere else in Europe right now, and we do not need to inspect Auschwitz,’ which was the Nazi death camp. 

EC:  Do you think the Red Cross had tunnel vision and wore masks over their heads?

JC: They were complicit.  They gave the Nazis a nine-month lead time where they were able to clean up the buildings and transport the sickest prisoners, 7500, to Auschwitz days before the inspection. They even put healthy bodies into hospital beds to show they were not that sick. 

EC: Can you explain your book quote, “hope is a Nazi accomplice”?

JC: This quote was in the memoir Daughter of Auschwitz by Tova Friedman. She pointed out how the Nazis told the Jews, as they were entering the gas chamber, that they were only going to take a shower. This kind of “hope” calmed people. After reading this I decided to explore the different roles of hope in the lives of these prisoners.  Is it something that is a salvation, or does it placate people to not fight back, or is it both? 

EC: Did the character Hilde represent those Germans who looked the other way or always say “I did not know anything about it”?

JC:  She did not know that Jewish people were people exterminated. This was hard for me to grapple with because I did not want her to be an excuse for Nazi deniability. Remember her husband says to her, ‘If you did not know, you did not want to know.’ She is a representation of the German people who were active participants in the Nazi movement. I wanted to show how many were born pure hearted and were told that Jews were the enemy with a slow descent into madness. 

EC:  How would you describe Hilde?

JC: An idealogue, naïve, self-centered, loyal, and a malignant narcissist. Someone who was starved for attention and adulation. She craved the acceptance from the outside.  She was one of the characters in Cradles of the Reich, the first book. She did have misgivings when witnessing Kristallnacht but decides that the others going along with it must know better.  She slowly begins to buy into the antisemitism.   

EC:  How would you describe the heroine, Hannah?

JC:  Loyal to her grandfather, anxious, and does what is necessary to survive.  She did not want to go to Theresienstadt and wanted to hide instead. She sacrificed herself to go along with her grandfather who decided to go to Theresienstadt.  Remember at that time she did not have much of a choice because she was brought up not to be in direct defiance of her grandfather. 

EC:  Does the grandfather represent those Jews that tried to fool themselves, someone with blinders on?

JC: The grandfather was based on Phillip Manes, the author of the book As If It Were Life. I found myself frustrated with him because I knew had the story will end, a Monday Morning QB. He talked about how he refused to look at the time in Theresienstadt as an imprisonment. He never spoke with anger or resentment.  His diary stops mid-sentence because he was sent to Auschwitz and did not survive the war. 

EC:  What was the relationship between Hilde and Hannah?

JC: The were best friends as children. Hilde is a true believer.  She wanted to save Hannah not because she realized the persecution and annihilation was wrong.  Nope. Her saving of Hannah was a selfish choice because she was only willing to save her, not others. She looked upon Hannah as basically a term called ‘Pet Jew, a true saying.”  She did not want to save Hannah as a human being.  While Hannah felt she made her choice and told her, ‘I don’t need a savior, I need friends, and you ceased to be one the day you joined the Nazi Party.’                                

EC:  Does the character Misa represent those Jews who resisted?

JC:  Yes.  She was tough, realistic, brave, manipulative, considerate, and caring. 

EC:  How would you describe Radek?

JC:  Kind, strong, confidant, encouraging, and courageous.

EC:  Was the baby smuggling operation true?

JC:  Yes.  BTW:  Irma, the nurse from Cradles of the Reich, and her husband Rolfe make a cameo appearance because they are involved in the baby smuggling operation. This really took place in Prague not in Theresienstadt.

EC:  Were fake documentaries really made by the Nazis?

JC:  There were three attempts in all. The first film was done by Irena Dodalov in 1942 who made it too realistic for the Nazis and rejected by Himmler. The second film was made by Hans Gunther in January 1944. They gave up after a day because there was so much suffering.  In June 1944, after the Red Cross inspection, using all the beautification made for the Red Cross, they made a propaganda film. 

EC:  Did the Jewish director of the last film, Kurt Gernon, represent those Jews who sold out?

JC:  Some thought that, but others thought he was such an egotistical artist that he could not help himself. Others thought he was more subversive and did help Jews. The Mourner’s Kaddish in the film was made up by me to show how the Jews there undermined the film.

EC:  Was the escape from the trains heading to Auschwitz true?

JC:  Between 700 and 800 escaped from trains in transport. What weakened was the connection between the bolts and wood, which is how they removed the bars and escaped. But I changed the setting because the trains from France had the bolts on the inside of the cattle car, but the trains from the East had bolts on the outside.

EC:  Next book?

JC:  It will probably come out in 2027.  The working title is the Greenwich Village Fiancé.  It is about a beard, a fake girlfriend, Angela, for gay men in the 1950s there.  At that time, it was very dangerous to be openly gay.  A very important character is Jewish.  A note to my readers, there will be a Jewish wedding attended by Shel, the brother of Leo, the hero in Cradles of the Reich. Also attending is Gundi, but spoiler alert, Leo the Jewish resistance boyfriend of Gundi, did not survive.      

THANK YOU!!  

[xhemilbeharaj]

E mbijetuara e Holokaustit: Urrejtja sjell vetëm urrejtje

Të mbijetuarit e Aushvicit përkujtuan 80-vjetorin e çlirimit të kampit të vdekjes dhe shprehën shqetësimin për rritjen e antisemitizmit dhe ksenofobisë në Evropë e më gjerë. Kthimi te “muri i vdekjes” – ku u kryen shumë ekzekutime – mbetet një plagë ende e hapur për shumë të mbijetuar. Tova Friedman, një nga të mbijetuarat, kujtoi momentet e tmerrshme kur u nda nga babai i saj dhe u dërgua në…

[newsclickofficial]

Paul KirbyEurope digital editor‘We were stripped of all our humanity’: Auschwitz survivors rememberTheir numbers are dwindling but the voices of the Auschwitz survivors remain powerful."We were stripped of all humanity," said Leon Weintraub, 99, the oldest of four who spoke beside the notorious Death Gate at the Birkenau extermination camp.World leaders and European royalty rubbed shoulders with 56 survivors of Hitler's genocide of European Jews on Monday as they marked 80 years since its liberation."We were victims in a moral vacuum," said Tova Friedman, who described witnessing the horrors of Nazi persecution as a five and a half year-old girl clinging to her mother's hand.She described watching from her hiding place at a labour camp, "as all my little friends were rounded up and driven to their deaths, while the heart-breaking cries of their parents fell on deaf ears".The warnings from history were clear: the survivors more than anyone understood the risks of intolerance, and antisemitism was the canary in the coal mine.Under an enormous, white tent that covered the death camp entrance, Leon Weintraub appealed particularly to young people to be "sensitive to all expressions of intolerance and resentment to people who are different"Beata Zawrzel/NurPhotoSurvivor Niusia Horowitz-Karakulska (C), who was sent to Birkenau in 1944, was among the 56 camp survivors attending the ceremonyThe Nazis murdered 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1941 and 1945. Almost a million were Jews, 70,000 were Polish prisoners, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and and unknown number of gay men.This was one of six death camps the Nazis built in occupied Poland in 1942, and it was by far the biggest.Another survivor to speak was Janina Iwanska, 94, a Catholic who was arrested as a child during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. She remembered how so-called Nazi "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele sent all the remaining Roma in the camp to their deaths at Birkenau, because he no longer needed them for his lethal medical experiments.Marian Turski, 98, said only a few had survived the death camp and now they were but a handful. His thoughts turned to the millions of victims "who will never tell us what they experienced or they felt, just because they were consumed by that mass destruction".The director of the Auschwitz museum, Piotr Cywinski, issued a plea to protect the memory of what had happened, as the survivors died out."Memory hurts, memory helps, memory guides… without memory you have no history, no experience, no point of reference," he said, as survivors listened on, many of them wearing blue-and-white striped scarves to symbolise prisoners' clothing.Memory was the watchword of this day, marked around the world as International Holocaust Memorial Day.Polish President Andrzej Duda pledged that Poland could be entrusted to preserve the memory of the six death camps on its territory, at Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek and Chelmno. Getty ImagesPolish President Andrzej Duda (left) and the director of the Auschwitz museum, Piotr Cywinski (right), both paid tribute "We are the guardians of memory," said Duda, after laying a wreath at the wall where thousands of prisoners were executed at Auschwitz 1, the concentration camp 3km (1.85 miles) away from Birkenau.Far away from the entrance to a Nazi death camp, at the United Nations in New York, Secretary General António Guterres said "remembrance is not only a moral act, it's a call to action", and warned that Holocaust denial was spreading and hatred was being stirred up across the globe.He cited Italian survivor Primo Levi who wrote his memories of the camps for posterity but was unable to endure the scars of what he had witnessed. In the words of fellow survivor Elie Wiesel, Levi "died at Auschwitz 40 years later".ReutersUkraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, joined other world leaders in placing a candle in memory of the victimsAmong those who travelled to southern Poland for Monday's commemoration of the day the Red Army liberated Auschwitz were King Charles, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, and Denmark's King Frederik and Queen Mary.Charles III became the first serving British monarch to visit Auschwitz, and could be seen wiping away tears as he listened to the accounts of the four survivors.ReutersKing Charles was given a tour of Auschwitz, including the displays of items belonging to those who were sent to the former concentration campAs he toured the camp he laid a wreath in memory of the victims.Sources close to the King said it was a profound visit for him, and one aide described it as a "deeply personal pilgrimage".Hours earlier, he said remembering the "evils of the past" remained a "vital task".Visiting the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow, which he opened 17 years ago, the King said the Krakow Jewish community had been "reborn" from the ashes of the Holocaust, and that building a kinder and more compassionate world for future generations was the "sacred task of us all".Polish-born British survivor Mala Tribich, 94, was liberated from the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen, and attended Monday's event at Auschwitz."We've seen the consequences of the camps and the beatings and hate," she told the BBC. "And what [children] are taught under the circumstances of a despot can be so damaging, not only to them but to everything around. So we really must guard against it."Lord Pickles, the UK's special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, who is chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, warned that "distortion" was threatening the legacy and historical truth of the Holocaust.Having listened to the survivors inside the tent at Birkenau, he told the BBC that "we saw a transfer from memory into history", because it was now very unlikely that survivors would be delivering speeches for much longer."That's very daunting and I don't believe we're in a post Holocaust world."A survey across eight countries published last week suggested a widespread belief that another Holocaust could happen again. Concern was particularly high in the US and UK, according to the survey of 1,000 people in each country for Claims Conference.Additional reporting by Laura Gozzi in London.

[trendingnews19]

Paul KirbyEurope digital editor‘We were stripped of all our humanity’: Auschwitz survivors rememberTheir numbers are dwindling but the voices of the Auschwitz survivors remain powerful."We were stripped of all humanity," said Leon Weintraub, 99, the oldest of four who spoke beside the notorious Death Gate at the Birkenau extermination camp.World leaders and European royalty rubbed shoulders with 56 survivors of Hitler's genocide of European Jews on Monday as they marked 80 years since its liberation."We were victims in a moral vacuum," said Tova Friedman, who described witnessing the horrors of the Nazi genocide as a five and a half year-old girl clinging to her mother's hand.The warnings from history were clear: the survivors more than anyone understood the risks of intolerance, and antisemitism was the canary in the coal mine.The Nazis murdered 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1941 and 1945. Almost a million were Jews, 70,000 were Polish prisoners, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and and unknown number of gay men.This was one of six death camps they built in occupied Poland in 1942, and it was by far the biggest.Under an enormous, white tent that covered the death camp entrance, the director of the Auschwitz museum, Piotr Cywinski, issued a plea to protect the memory of what had happened, as the survivors died out."Memory hurts, memory helps, memory guides… without memory you have no history, no experience, no point of reference," he said, as survivors listened on, many of them wearing blue-and-white striped scarves to symbolise prisoners' clothing.Memory was the watchword of this day, marked around the world as International Holocaust Memorial Day.Polish President Andrzej Duda pledged that Poland could be entrusted to preserve the memory of the six death camps on its territory, at Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek and Chelmno. "We are the guardians of memory," he said, after laying a wreath at the wall where thousands of prisoners were executed at Auschwitz 1, the concentration camp 3km (1.85 miles) away from Birkenau.Getty ImagesPolish President Andrzej Duda (left) and the director of the Auschwitz museum, Piotr Cywinski (right), both paid tribute Far away from the entrance to a Nazi death camp, at the United Nations in New York, Secretary General António Guterres said "remembrance is not only a moral act, it's a call to action", and warned that Holocaust denial was spreading and hatred was being stirred up across the globe.He cited Italian survivor Primo Levi who wrote his memories of the camps for posterity but was unable to endure the scars of what he had witnessed. In the words of fellow survivor Elie Wiesel, Levi "died at Auschwitz 40 years later".Among those who travelled to southern Poland for Monday's commemoration of the day the Red Army liberated Auschwitz were King Charles, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, and Denmark's King Frederik and Queen Mary.Charles III became the first serving British monarch to visit Auschwitz, and could be seen wiping away tears as he listened to the accounts of the four survivors.As he toured the camp he laid a wreath in memory of the victims.Sources close to the King said it was a profound visit for him, and one aide described it as a "deeply personal pilgrimage".Hours earlier, he said remembering the "evils of the past" remained a "vital task".ReutersKing Charles was given a tour of Auschwitz, including the displays of items belonging to those who were sent to the former concentration campVisiting the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow, which he opened 17 years ago, the King said the Krakow Jewish community had been "reborn" from the ashes of the Holocaust, and that building a kinder and more compassionate world for future generations was the "sacred task of us all".Polish-born British survivor Mala Tribich, 94, was liberated from the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen, and attended Monday's event at Auschwitz."We've seen the consequences of the camps and the beatings and hate," she told the BBC. "And what [children] are taught under the circumstances of a despot can be so damaging, not only to them but to everything around. So we really must guard against it."Lord Pickles, the UK's special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, who is chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, warned that "distortion" was threatening the legacy and historical truth of the Holocaust.Having listened to the survivors inside the tent at Birkenau, he told the BBC that "we saw a transfer from memory into history", because it was now very unlikely that survivors would be delivering speeches for much longer."That's very daunting and I don't believe we're in a post Holocaust world."Additional reporting by Laura Gozzi in London. atOptions = 'key' : '6c396458fda3ada2fbfcbb375349ce34', 'format' : 'iframe', 'height' : 60, 'width' : 468, 'params' : ;

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Holocaust survivors mark 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, in Poland. Marian Turski, 98, Janina Ivanska, 94, and Tova Friedman, 86, are all survivors who shared their haunting memories of Auschwitz at a ceremony on Monday in front of world leaders. People also walked to the “wall of death” and left candles to pay their respects outside Block 11 in Auschwitz,…

[newtras]

Day

Holocaust survivors mark 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, in Poland. Marian Turski, 98, Janina Ivanska, 94, and Tova Friedman, 86, are all survivors who shared their haunting memories of Auschwitz at a ceremony on Monday in front of world leaders. People also walked to the “wall of death” and left candles to pay their respects outside Block 11 in Auschwitz,…

[satrthere]

Day

Holocaust survivors mark 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, in Poland. Marian Turski, 98, Janina Ivanska, 94, and Tova Friedman, 86, are all survivors who shared their haunting memories of Auschwitz at a ceremony on Monday in front of world leaders. People also walked to the “wall of death” and left candles to pay their respects outside Block 11 in Auschwitz,…

[mariacallous]

In “Honey Cake & Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors,” Tova Friedman writes, “My late husband’s favorite food was tzimmes, but he also shared his family’s recipe for kasha varnishkes. So from the time I had my own family and had children, we always used to prepare tzimmes and varnishkes. This is the “old-fashioned” way to make it: with lots of mushrooms.”

This hearty dish is perfect for the crisp fall months.