The last speaker was Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, the director of the Museum.
‘Our world proved to be fragile in the age of murderous antisemitism, Übermensch ideology and a craving for the so-called Lebensraum. Our world continues to be fragile. Here we are, we stand with you, Dear Survivors, you who have walked the darkest path of war. And it is difficult for us to stand here. More difficult than before. First, war violates treaties, then borders, finally people. Civilian victims, dehumanised, terrorised, humiliated, they do not die by chance. They are taken hostage by wartime megalomania,’ director Cywiński said.
‘The Warsaw district of Wola, Zamojszczyzna, Oradour and Lidice, now bear different names: Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Mariupol and Donietsk. Similar sick megalomania, similar lust for power. And almost same-sounding myths of exceptionalism, of greatness, of primacy… but written in Russian,’ he underlined.
‘Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators, staying neutral means reaching out to the rapist, remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder. And today, before our very eyes, our memory is putting us to the test. Today we can clearly see which door is opening, and which remains closed,’ said Piotr Cywiński.
‘In the first generation after the war, the Rolling Stones sang:
War, children, it's just a shot away,
I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away.
We need to realise that every gesture of ours is as significant as a lack thereof. There is
a choice in everything. Today, once again, comes the time for essential human choices. And only in our memory can we find the key to the choices we are making,’ concluded the director of the Museum.
The second part of the commemoration event took place at the ruins of gas chamber and crematorium IV. Rabbis and clergymen of various Christian denominations said prayers. Participants laid candles by the ruins in memory of all the victims of Auschwitz.
Earlier on 27 January, Survivors together with the directors and staff of the Auschwitz Memorial laid wreaths in the courtyard of Block 11 at the Auschwitz I site. State delegations also visited the Memorial. In addition to Second Gentleman of the United States Douglas Emhoff, the US delegation included the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt and the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Ellen Germain.
Until the liberation of the camp by soldiers of the Red Army, German Nazis murdered approx. 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, mostly Jews, but also Poles, the Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and people of other nationalities. Auschwitz is to the world today, a symbol of the Holocaust and atrocities of World War II. In 2005, the United Nations adopted 27 January as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.