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Updated 5:20 p.m. ET: The world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday with a promise never to forget the genocide at Auschwitz during World War II.
Friday was the 67th anniversary of the Nazi camp's liberation by Soviet troops. Jan. 27 was designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations in 2005, and marked with ceremonies across Europe.
In Poland, Kazimierz Smolen, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor who after World War II became director of the memorial site, died Friday on the anniversary of its liberation.
Smolen died in a hospital in Oswiecim, the southern Polish town where Nazi Germany operated Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II, said Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum.
Sawicki said soon after Smolen's death the news was announced to Holocaust survivors who had gathered at the vast site of dilapidated barracks still enclosed in barbed-wire fencing, The Associated Press reported. They fell silent for a minute in his honor.
Smolen was born on April 19, 1920, in the southern Polish town of Chorzow Stary. He was a Pole involved in the anti-Nazi resistance who was arrested by the Germans in April 1941 and taken to Auschwitz in one of the early mass shipments of prisoners there. He left the camp on the last transport of prisoners evacuated by the Germans on Jan. 18, 1945, nine days before its liberation. He later attributed his survival to good health and extreme luck.
He once explained his decision to return to the camp to manage it as a way of honoring those who were killed there.
"Sometimes when I think about it, I feel it may be some kind of sacrifice, some kind of obligation I have for having survived," he said.
In other gestures of remembrance, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg apologized for his nation's role in arresting and deporting Jews after it was invaded by Nazi Germany. During the war, 772 Norwegian Jews and Jewish refugees were deported to Germany. Only 34 survived.
He said it's time the nation acknowledges that politicians and other Norwegians took part and expressed "our deep regrets that this could have happened on Norwegian soil." He spoke at a ceremony in Oslo attended by the last surviving Jew in a group of 532 deported from Norway in 1942.
In Turkey, state television on Thursday broadcast the epic French documentary "Shoah," about the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime. It was the first time the film has been aired on public television in a predominantly Muslim country.
"It is a historical event," filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, 87, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home in Paris. "It is extremely important that it is being shown in a Muslim country."
Germany's Parliament also gathered Friday for a special sitting to remember the Holocaust.
Prominent survivor and literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki recalled how the Nazi SS informed members of the Warsaw ghetto's Jewish council in July 1942 of plans for the inhabitants' "resettlement" to the east.
Reich-Ranicki, 91, recounted how a "deathly silence" was followed by uproar. He said those present "seemed to sense what had happened: that the sentence had been pronounced for the biggest Jewish city in Europe. The death sentence."
The Nazis set up the Warsaw ghetto in November 1940, cramming hundreds of thousands of Jews into inhuman conditions. Most who survived disease and starvation in the ghetto were transported to death camps.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The Auschwitz Concentration Camp (KZ Lager) was liberated by Soviet forces on January 27,1945. Auschwitz is in Poland. Germany first started honoring Gedanktag in 1995. In US I didn't see the present administration honoring the Remenbrance Day- it is for all those who were victims in the Holocaust- all the Jews ,Gypsies(Roma) in Auschwitz- the state sponsored culmination of annihiliation of a certain Human Race. Today we should remember that Never Again anf Honour Those Perished and to be ever vigilant when a State starts down the same path of annihiliation.
ASLO...African Decent ,Homosexuals , Disabled , Ukrainians (my family ), Communists ( and ALL with opposing views), the Elderly and Infirmed and MANY OTHER CULTURES AND PEOPLE , many who were not Jewish Died at their hands.
ALL MUST BE REMEMBERED .....NEVER FORGET !
Minor correction. Not only Jews and Gypsies died there ,but many Poles including priests and other nationalities that fought Nazis. My father's brother , a Catholic , died within a year of being liberated. Please do not distort history , it is very annoying. If you are going to write half-truths -do not bother, you insult people.
Genocides continue-East Timor, Cambodia under Pol Tot, Africa. Somehow no one talks about genocides in the Soviet Union where millions parished. Were they the wrong religion ?
A promise never to forget...not to happen ever again!!!
I promise that I will not let there Democrats and Obama's Socialist/Marxist agenda cuase this to happen again.
What a stupid and asinine thing to say! You Larry are disgusting to me!
Thank you, SumFunGi. Nauseating. What do you think Social Security is, Larry? Also... put your opinions somewhere else. Be ashamed.
larry-2037452 I had a woman who was being dead serious tell me that Obama was an atheist Moslem. Michael Savage has called him both a Marxist and fascist , sometimes in one sentence. Obviously you can't be both. It would be like me calling you a genius numb skull. The holocaust remembrance point is that your not supposed to label someone different with all kinds of stupid labels. Thus making them less human. So go back to your compound, restock your 2012 end of the world supplies, and put more aluminum foil around your head, to stop the ATF from reading your mind !
No we won't FORGET.You're welcome
I can't believe that our government didn't even mention this very special day. Are they that wrapped up in not paying thier far share of taxes that they can't see any further than thier wallets? As a bestfriend of someone who had family in the "camps"... I promise to never forget those that died, survived and battled to free the prisoners. Thank you from ALL of us. This is a part of history we DON'T need to repeat.
Did they ever mention it...EVER?
Holocaust ? Are they talking about the African Holocaust, in which over 150 million Africans were killed just in the middle passage alone, not to mention how many died and were killed during the course of enslavement. 6 million is no comparison.
This is a holocaust in which the same Jews were the major financiers. They collected monies from their peoples all over and financed the slave ships among other things. Am I surprised the same Jews have the palestinians in concentration camps in the Gaza. After all Hitler was a Jew. Could this behavior be hereditary? One thing that I know for sure is that it is a big lie that the Jews were ever enslaved in Ancient Egypt. Lies, more lies and most lies.
Hey Zumbi...two wrongs don't make a right.
Yes another nationalities died in the holocaust, but the Jews are the only one that are making a hell of an isuue politicaly to the Palestinians, Iran and anyone else when it comes to Israel expansion.
And Pharaoh said of Moses, "His god, is god."
Holocaust???? Are you refering to what the Jews did to the Palestanians in 1947*Pushed old men and woman out of their homes,many died on the streets..and behold,the stolen land was formed...Called Israel..With blood of the Palestanians.Story Tales have been written ,just to justify this Massacre of the inhabitants.Why curse Hitler all the Time..Jews are no different...They did the same to create Israel..What a shame..They can never live in peace..It is not the so called promised land..It is actually the Stoleland Land8And Burglars can never live in peace*History proves that*Hamas...Yasser Arrafat..are the creation of this...They are fighting to get their homes back!!3 Cheers to President Obama..Maintain a low profile policy..The Best thing to maintain peace..Unlike Tom King...Trouble..
No Al; I think they're referring to the systematic extermination of the Jews in Europe from the mid 1930's right up until the Nazi reich was crushed.
It was good to hear that Norway finally rendered an official apology for their participation in the Holocaust, just waiting for Denmark to do the same (despite the actions of private individuals who made a difference).
The former Soviet republics are the ones I'd like to see an apology from; preferrably from some of the 90 year olds who actually did the killing.
Yes it is true that most would like the Holocaust to be remembered hopefully to keep similar events from happening in the future. The shame is that most only equate the genocide with what happened during World War II to the Jews. Genocide is not isolated to those war years and goes on in wars to date all over the known world. Ethnic cleansing seems to be very much in force in today's local civil wars and revolutions. I feel that future acknowledgements of genocide should include all such events in recent history. Not just the World War II years.
That genocide in the WWII was one of the most civilized countries in the world, with a democratically elected government, using every possible high-tech tool of the state to kill off a whole religion of people.
Holocaust ? Are they talking about the African Holocaust, in which over 150 million Africans were killed just in the middle passage alone, not to mention how many died and were killed during the course of enslavement. 6 million is no comparison.
This is a holocaust in which the same Jews were the major financiers. They collected monies from their peoples all over and financed the slave ships among other things. Am I surprised the same Jews have the palestinians in concentration camps in the Gaza. After all Hitler was a Jew. Could this behavior be hereditary? One thing that I know for sure is that it is a big lie that the Jews were ever enslaved in Ancient Egypt. Lies, more lies and most lies.
Especially to Zumbi and Al Sayee: All people of peace grieve when anyone is denied their basic human rights and when any people group is victimized by another. One of the purposes of remembering the Holocaust is to emphasize that we must all speak up when others are belittled as inhuman, worthless, or the property of another. Have countless millions of Africans died? Absolutely! Have they all died at the hands of Westerners? Of course not! Is any one group of people responsible? No! But we all must begin to take responsibility now to do what we can. Were many Palestinian individuals and families denied property and rights in the war that followed the establishment of the state of Israel? Yes! Were many Jewish individuals and families killed in that same war? Yes! Who should we blame more: the Israelis seeking a place where they could at least trust their neighbors not to turn them in to the Gestapo or the Arab nations that declared war, spread disinformation, and then refused to allow the newly-displaced "Palestinian" people into their newly re-drawn borders--redrawn in a totally different way than they had anticipated before the war. There is plenty of blame for individuals and countries to go around and around ad nauseum. How about starting now to speak peace instead of war? And how about starting now to acknowledge the right of others to a place where they can practice their beliefs in peace. "If the Palestinians put down their weapons tomorrow, we would have peace; if the Israelis put down their weapons, we would have no Israel." As Benjamin Netanyahu said at the UN, he was ready to sit down right then, right there and talk peace. But it is impossible to talk peace with a nation whose leaders insist that Jews are the descendants of monkeys and pigs and that they will push Israel into the sea. Let's acknowledge the right of others to have peace, let's have the international community (including the Arab League) start working together to help the people who have been used as pawns since 1948, and especially since 1967, and let's let the desert blossom instead of blasting it to smithereens! Let's start seeking solutions instead of blame.
lets see they proved that all the gas chambers ,and the stories of people actually seeing people gassed turned out to be a LIE. now if you tell the TRUTH about the holo-lie they throw you in jail , freedom of speech huh , what a crock of @!$%#. By the way there used to be a monument at Auschwitz saying 4 million died there ,and now its down to 1 million . just tell the truth only 16,000 died there and it was because of a damn typhus epidemic and lack of supplys. if you actually have a BRAIN and look at facts the lie unfolds ,but that will never happen because if you do the commies (ADL, JDL, SPLC, ARA, ANTI-FA and a whole host of other TERRORIST ENEMY OF FREEDOM ORGINAZATIONS) will fire bomb your house and commit terrible acts against you ,your family and friends, or anyone who agrees with the truth . the media will help those terrorists along with the government to defame , lie ,and put you on trial for FACT TELLING . freedom of speech my ass ,tell the truth for once and stop the charrade.
I mean...REALLY?
I agree that we must never forget.
The myth that is called "The Holocaust" must be remembered not because it has truth and merit to it but because we must never forget that propaganda and intimidation can be used against humanity to further a politicial agenda. It seems the more preposterious a story that is repeated again and again can become established history over time. But this does not make it true. No one denies that europe was the worst place to have total war ...density of population and too many large cities being crushed would produce massive casualities in such a war. But to some facts first.
1. Germany never tried to massacre all the world's Jews, nor to take over the world. It is absurd to keep repeating this claim. Germany couldn't ever cross the English channel to invade Britain much less cross any ocean.
2. No more that 3 million Jews ever came under German control ... in fact Germany itself had fewer than 500,000 Jews when the war began. Many were still living in their homes when the war ended. Poland had about 3 million Jews when Germany and soviet Russia invaded her and most went east under Stalin's control. also the Katyn forest massacres were blamed on Germany but that now has been exposed as a lie.
3. Over 150,000 Jews served in Germany's military with distinction and several becoming high ranking Generals.
4. the very room at Auschwitz which is shown to tourist as a "gas chamber" was really a morgue/undergrown bomb shelter which once had a crematory in an adjoining room for cremating dead bodies that could not be buried due to the high water table. There are photos of a dance party between the russian and Poles held soon after the war atop this very room. Also the communists claimed for over 40 years that 4 million Jews died at Auschwitz and Presidents and Popes prayed at this site for the 4 million dead, the authorities were forced to remove this sign and replace it with another sign that said about 1 million died here.
5. that so-called "forced march" from auschwitz due to the nearing Red Army was ordered by US authorities ... they didn't want the Russian to capture any anti-communist people who might be interned by the Germans. Also the march was voluntary not ordered so those who went with the Germans went because they did not want to come under communist control.
Why did the Germans round up Jews in the occupied lands ... well that is because the world Jew organizations had declared a total war upon Germany soon after Hitler was elected ... and when Britain declared war on Germany so did the Jewish world organization also declare war. so in effect the stateless Jews of those areas controlled by Germany became enemy aliens much like the US declared the American Japanese as enemy aliens after Pearl Harbor.
did many Jews die in horrible conditions ... yes. but most of those photographs are of German concentration camps in Germany when the bombing campaign was turning Germany into rubble. there war no such photos of Auschwitz, Treblinka, sobbibor, etc being in such dire conditions and these are the so-called "death camps". Actually 4 out of 5 of every inmate of the concentration camps was not Jewish so that Jews made up a small porportion of the population despite all the claims that this was directed entirely against the Jews. It was not ...
???
Judson; what???? You're a very dangerous fellow to have running loose in the world. That list of nonsense you've written puts you in the company of the most hardened Nazi supporters.
it's a shame you are not in Germany, they would place you in a jail cell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
kpr37, it is difficult to deny something like WWII and to say it never happened since most humans know that it did in fact happen. But if I claimed that during that war I saw little green men helping the Germans fight the allies then would one be denying the war if he stopped short of agreeing to the little green men story? the so-called "The Holocaust" story is much like that ...the war is the story but somehow the Jews have made their claims of genocide the main plot. I just happen to believe that unfortunately some Jews having died in the camps is not the main story of WWII, but rather a small insignificient part of the story. The real story is the soldiers and civilians who died in that terrible war ... and Jews didn't play the leading roles as they now claim. Britain lost all of her overseas empire, and Europe was weakened so much that today some 66 years later, she cannot withstand the north african and turkish invasions that have swarmed over the continent. the demographic character of europe has been radically changed so much and the low birth-rate of europeans will cause europe to become non-white in just a few more years if not changed. Germany lost most of her former lands after the war and those Germans who had been living there for centuries were forcibily thrown out or massacred by the hundreds of thousands. The soviet Union took Polish lands, the Poles in turn took German lands and the czechs took Sudentan German and Hungarian lands and massacred the inhabitants whose families had lived there for centuries in death marches back to Germany. Jews had begged roosevelt to kill or sterilize the entire German race after the war to completely wipe out German culture and race ...a book with the title "germany must perish" was published during the war and widely read. when the red largely mongolian army came rushing into germany the politicial commissars in russia urged them on with rants of killing or raping every german woman they found ... in some parts of germany there wasn't a woman or girl who hadn't been beaten or raped for miles around. even eisenhower after the war was over kept the German soldiers in open places without roofs or food and denied them POW status, thus the red Cross could not attend to their needs, much like we do the Afghanistan militants who are imprisoned in gitmo today ... again denying red cross visits. the Germans always allow Red Cross access to aliied prisoners and to the auschwitz work camp.
In 2004 the Israeli government issued the list for holocaust survivors still living and collecting reperation checks, and the number was over 1 million and that was 59 years after the war ended, Now to get an idea how many survivors there had to be in 1945 one must use insurance tables for life expectancy years and the numbers alive in 1945 had to be several millions. It is one of the mysteries of life on earth that no forensic evidence was ever collected by the allies if this holocaust actually occured ... like police do to find evidence of a crime and how it happened. But in the case of this holocaust, no evidence was searched for, just eyewitness statements collected without anyone being cross-examined by the defendants atorneys. the US supreme court justice of the time called the Nuremburg tribunals a lynching and he was right. but now people are beginning to see we all have been duped and that is why the world reaction to Holocaust day was not very well received or recognized.
There was a guy like you at a sports club I belonged to; he preached the same as you and it turned out he was a mental case with a long history of brushes with the law;...is that your story, Judson?
I was going to respond when I saw that tripe yesterday but figured since rational people already know the truth and Judson seems to be very far from rational, had hoped that he would "take his ball and go home". Just marked it inflammatory and moved on. Waterslide, you and steven stated it much better than I would have, anyway. :)
At steven #20, I have a friend who was in the camps as a child. She's an elderly woman now, of course. She never got over it. How could any sane person get over something as heinous as this???
@judsun you want people to feel bad for the Germans? guess what they started the war and lost it. To the victor goes the spoils the red army earn there vengence for all that the german's did to them and then some .I had the honor of meeting people that survival THOSE SO CALL DEATH CAMPS as you so put it to see there face and tell us all the horror and truth of the nazi . people like you are sick in the head .