WARSAW, Poland — The world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday amid a revival of hate-inspired violence and signs that younger generations know less and less about the genocide of Jews, Roma and others during World War II. In Poland, which was under Nazi German occupation during the war, a far-right activist who has been imprisoned for burning the effigy of a Jew gathered with other nationalists Sunday outside the former death camp of Auschwitz ahead of official ceremonies remembering the 1.1 million people murdered there. Since last year's observances, an 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor, Mireille Knoll, was fatally stabbed in Paris and 11 Jews were gunned down in a Pittsburgh synagogue during Shabbat services, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. People walk through the main gate of the German Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland on Jan. 27, 2019. Ceremonies marked the camp's liberation from the Nazi's 74 years ago. Janek Skarzynski / AFP - Getty Images Human Rights First, a U.S. organization, recalled those killings and warned that "today's threats do not come solely from the fringe." "In places such as Hungary and Poland, once proudly democratic nations, government leaders are traveling the road to authoritarianism," said Ira Forman, the group's senior adviser for combating anti-Semitism. "As they do so, they are distorting history to spin a fable about their nations and the Holocaust." The Polish nationalist, Piotr Rybak, said his group was protesting the official observances at Auschwitz, claiming they remember only murdered Jews and not murdered Poles. That accusation is incorrect. The observances at the state-run memorial site pay homage each Jan. 27 to all of the camp's victims, both Jews and gentiles. Counter-protesters at Auschwitz on Sunday held up a "Fascism Stop" sign and an Israeli flag, while police kept the two groups apart. Former Auschwitz prisoners placed flowers Sunday at an execution wall at Auschwitz. They wore striped scarves that recalled their uniforms, some with the red letter "P," the symbol the Germans used to mark them as Poles. Early in World War II, most prisoners were Poles, rounded up by the occupying German forces. Later, Auschwitz was transformed into a mass killing site for Jews, Roma and others, operating until the liberation by Soviet forces on Jan. 27, 1945. In Germany, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned in an op-ed in the weekly Welt am Sonntag that across Europe populists are propagating nationalism and "far-right provocateurs are trying to downplay the Holocaust." "We shall never forget. We shall never be indifferent. We must stand up for our liberal democracy," Maas wrote. The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin on Jan. 27, 2019. Markus Schreiber / AP Over the past year, Germany has seen a rising number of often violent attacks against Jews carried out by neo-Nazis and Muslims, prompting the government to appoint a commissioner against anti-Semitism and to start funding a national registration office for anti-Semitic hate crimes. The clashes of views at Auschwitz come amid a surge of right-wing extremism in Poland and elsewhere in the West. It is fed by a broader grievance many Poles have that their suffering during the war at German hands is little known abroad while there is greater knowledge of the Jewish tragedy. However recent surveys show that knowledge of the atrocities during World War II is declining generally. A new study released in recent days by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the Azrieli Foundation found that 52 percent of millennials in Canada cannot name even one concentration camp or ghetto and 62 percent of millennials did not know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Its findings were similar to a similar study carried out a year before in the United States. In Britain, a new poll by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust found that one in 20 adults in Britain do not believe the Holocaust took place. The poll of more than 2,000 people released Sunday also found that nearly two-thirds of those polled either did not know how many Jews had been murdered or greatly underestimated the number killed during the Holocaust. "Such widespread ignorance and even denial is shocking," chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman said. Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said in its Global Antisemitism Report released Sunday that 13 Jews were murdered in fatal attacks in 2018, marking the highest number of Jews murdered since a wave of attacks on Argentinian Jews in the 1990s. The report found that around 70 percent of anti-Jewish attacks were anti-Israel in nature and that most of the attacks were led by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The United Nations recognized Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005.<doc-sep>An old school photo slides from the printer into Frank Bright’s hands. It is black and white because it dates from May 1942. But since it was taken, tiny red and blue stickers have been scattered over the image. Red for dead; blue for survived. Most are red. Bright, now 90, points to a younger version of himself, a tall lad in the back row. Some time after the photo was taken, he and his mother arrived at Auschwitz. She was immediately sent to the gas chambers; his father had already been killed at the camp. Bright spent years researching the fate of his classmates, cataloguing them on a spreadsheet. Number 24: “She had ginger hair as far as I remember … sent to Auschwitz in October 1944, did not survive.” Number 9: “A very pretty girl – I think I had a crush on her but from a distance. Sent to Auschwitz, did not survive.” In the BBC documentary The Last Survivors – to be broadcast on Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January – Bright says: “I can’t really communicate with others properly because they don’t know what I’m talking about. I mean how many people in England have their parents murdered, or see a gas chamber in action? It has affected me, yes.” He adds: “You’ve got to forget about it, you’ve got to wear blinkers.” If one got too emotionally involved, “I’d be sitting here crying my eyes out”. The Last Survivors features a handful of people, now in their 80s and 90s, who were children when they experienced the horrors of the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps. There is no central record of Holocaust survivors in the UK, and the exact number of those still alive is unknown. But these are among the last people who can provide first-hand testimony of what happened. Arthur Cary, the documentary’s director, said: “It’s a film that will be very difficult to make in five or 10 years from now simply because there won’t be many survivors left, and those that are still here may not be in a position to engage in the same way. “And even though the film is not overtly political, this is an important time to make a film like this. When we look at what’s going on in the world around us, whether it’s the rise of the far right, or continued genocide in Burma, it felt like an opportune moment. “I think it was a comfort to these survivors to know that, after they were gone, the film would endure and there would be an opportunity for future generations to hear their testimonies.” Some of those featured in The Last Survivors did not talk about their experiences for many decades, believing it was better for them and their children to move on. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, 93, who survived Auschwitz because she played the cello in the camp orchestra, says the Holocaust was “not family conversation … It doesn’t fit into normal life and I wanted to have a normal life”. Ivor Perl, 86, who returns to the site of the Auschwitz camp for the first time in the documentary – a deeply painful visit, in the company of his daughter and granddaughter – said he had been reluctant to tell his children what had happened. “But running away from it wasn’t the right thing either.” He adds: “I’m crying in my heart every day.” Many survivors simply wanted to get on with their lives after the Holocaust, said Cary. “But now they are thinking of the past more than they ever did before. Knowing they may only have a few more years to live, they are in a more reflective space. “It’s very traumatic for them to go over the past, but they also feel a responsibility to do something with their status as survivors. And the world is looking to them more and more because we are conscious they won’t be with us much longer.” The Last Survivors will be shown on BBC Two on Sunday 27 January at 9pm.<doc-sep>
Survivors Mark Holocaust Remembrance Day On 74th Anniversary Of Auschwitz Liberation Enlarge this image toggle caption Bernd Thissen/Picture Alliance via Getty Image Bernd Thissen/Picture Alliance via Getty Image Former prisoners of Auschwitz gathered at the former Nazi concentration camp on the 74th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet forces. In the site that once housed the largest Nazi death camp, a group of survivors, politicians and foreign dignitaries marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a ceremony Sunday. "Auschwitz has shown what can happen when the worst qualities in people come to bear," said Armin Laschet, premier of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Survivors gave testimonies and Poland's chief rabbi read out the names of all the concentration camps, where many of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust were killed. Over a million people were killed in Auschwitz alone, most of them Jews. Poland's prime minister and the ambassadors of Israel and Russia also attended the ceremony. Enlarge this image toggle caption Czarek Sokolowski/AP Czarek Sokolowski/AP "People growing up today must know what people were capable of in the past," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her weekly video address on Saturday. "And we must work proactively to ensure that it is never repeated." President Trump added to the chorus of voices decrying the Holocaust on Sunday. "To remember these men and women — those who perished and those who survived — is to strive to prevent such suffering from happening again," he wrote in a statement. "Any denial or indifference to the horror of this chapter in the history of humankind diminishes all men and women everywhere and invites repetition of this great evil." Sunday's ceremony memorialized all those who died at Auschwitz, yet a group of far-right Polish activists gathered there and falsely claimed that the Polish government was remembering only Jews. Enlarge this image toggle caption SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images This year's anniversary comes amid growing concern among survivors and world leaders alike that the Holocaust has begun to slip from international, collective memory — particularly among younger generations. In remarks both before and on the day of the anniversary, leaders also lamented recent spikes in hate-inspired violence. According to a poll released Sunday by The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, five percent of adults in the United Kingdom don't believe the Holocaust happened, and 64 percent either don't know the number of Jews murdered or underestimate that number. In a recent op-ed for the newspaper Die Welt, Germany's foreign affairs minister, Heiko Maas, wrote that with fewer people directly connected to the past, Germany must continue to teach its young people about the Holocaust. Enlarge this image toggle caption Picture Alliance via Getty Image Picture Alliance via Getty Image "Our culture of remembrance is crumbling," Maas wrote. "It is under pressure from extreme right-wingers." In the United States, a poll from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany conducted last year finds four out of 10 people don't know what Auschwitz was. That proportion rises to two-thirds for millennials. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement Sunday remembering victims of the Nazis and acknowledging Canada's own history of anti-Semitism. "The threats of violence, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism still exist today," he wrote. "The murder of eleven Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh ... is fresh in our minds." Worshipers were killed last October at the Pittsburgh synagogue when a gunman open fired on congregants. That attack followed a historic 57 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States from 2016 to 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs released its Global Antisemitism Report Sunday, saying 13 Jews were murdered in fatal attacks last year, the highest number since a wave of attacks on Argentinian Jews in the 1990s, the AP reports.