Ronald S. lauder
Your Majesties, Your Excellences, Rabbis, Clergy, Honored Guests and most importantly, The Survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau,
This is about you the Survivors and I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am that you are here and in some cases here with your children and grandchildren. Five years ago when I stood here. In front of these painful gates I admitted that I am not a Survivor. But I am so grateful for the Survivors. Who are here today.
But I am so grateful. For the Survivors. Who are here today.
I am not a liberator. Although I salute the courage of the veterans who saved us all.
I am here simply as a Jew and like all Jews everywhere. This place this terrible place called Auschwitz has sadly become an inseparable part of us.
Auschwitz is like a scar from a terrible trauma. It never goes away. It never goes away and the pain never stops. I have always wondered if I had been born in Hungary where my grandparents were from instead of New York in February 1944. Would I have lived?
The answer is no. I would have been one of the 438,000 Hungarian Jews gassed by the Nazis in 1944 right here in Auschwitz. I can assure you almost all Jews have pondered this question. 75 years ago today when Soviet troops entered these gates they had no idea what lay behind them. And since that day the entire world has struggled with what they found inside.
We have all wondered how an advanced country that gave the world great literature and art and scientific advancement could sink to an anger, a meanness, a depravity like Auschwitz. I’m afraid Auschwitz offers more questions than answers.