ATIK | Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe | AHM-ATIK News Center
BERLIN | 27-01-2015 | On the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the world remembers the millions of victims of the Holocaust. Six million Jews, and also homosexuals, gypsies and communists, were murdered by Nazi Germany.
Today in Berlin, President Joachim Gauck lead a commemoration at the Bundestag parliament before joining leaders and government officials of 39 other countries at the former Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland.
There, along with three former Auschwitz prisoners who will represent some 300 remaining survivors, they will remember the 1.1 million people who were gassed, beaten to death, shot or who died from disease and hunger at Auschwitz as part of the Nazis’ so-called “Final Solution” under Adolf Hitler.
The camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945.
In all, the Nazis killed six million of pre-war Europe’s 11 million Jews, using a network of 24 main extermination centers and 1,000 ancilliary sites located across Nazi-held continental Europe during World War Two.
Also In Berlin, a commemoration by the Memorial Foundation for the Murdered Jews of Europe will take place, and a memorial will also be held by the Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD) to remember homosexuals who became victims of the Holocaust.
Call against racism
Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma told the Catholic Press Agency on Tuesday that the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz should be a powerful call against xenophobia and racism.
“Because the Holocaust is and will remain a component of German and European history, a responsibility has grown to protect democracy and the rule of law, today and always,” Rose said.
Referring to the increase in support for the German anti-Islamization group PEGIDA in recent months, Rose described its participants as racists “trying to divide society by creating a picture of Muslims and non-Germans as the enemy.”
