Auschwitz survivors warn of rising anti-Semitism 75 years on

OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) — Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered Monday for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of its liberation, returning to the place where they lost entire families and warning about the ominous growth of anti-Semitism and hatred in the world.

In all, some 200 survivors of the camp were expected, many of them elderly Jews and non-Jews who have traveled from Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere. Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but were being joined by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.

Some visited the site, now a memorial museum, on the eve of the anniversary. When asked by reporters for their reflections, they were eager to share their stories, hopeful that their message will spread.

“We would like that the next generation know what we went through, and it should never happen again,” said 91-year-old David Marks, his voice cracking. He lost 35 members of his immediate and extended family after they all arrived in Auschwitz from their village in Romania.

“A dictator doesn't come up from one day to the other,” Marks said, saying it happens in “micro steps."

"If we don't watch it, one day you wake up and it's too late,” he added.

Most of the 1.1 million people murdered by the Nazi German forces at the camp were Jewish, but other Poles, Russians and Roma, or Gypsies, were imprisoned there. Some of the Polish survivors walked with Polish President Andrzej Duda through the camp's gate Monday wearing striped scarves that recalled the prison garb they wore more than 75 years ago.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.

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