On Sunday, the Holocaust survivors urged the world not to forget the atrocities committed by the Nazis, during a ceremony to mark 80 years since the release of the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.
Nine men and women who survived the camp, now in the 80s and 90s, relatives of former prisoners and senior officials were part of about 1,200 people attending the event in northern Germany.
Lili Keller Rosenberg, a Jewish Frenchwoman expelled at the camp at the age of 11, told AFP that she thought that her survival was “exceptional” and a “great revenge on the Nazis”.
“We never imagined that we could last so long. I was intended to perish in 1943 when I was expelled,” said the 93-year-old, who spent more than a year in Ravensbrueck before being transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
She said that she was determined to continue telling her experiences to young people to avoid a rehearsal of the past: “These young people must fight racism, which is a scourge, and fight against anti -Semitism.”
About 130,000 people were sent from all Europe to Ravensbrueck, the largest Nazi camp for women and children, north of Berlin. An adjacent little camp was also built for male prisoners.
In addition to the Jews, those who were held at the camp included political adversaries, Roma and convicted criminals.
– “has left its brand” –
Between 20,000 and 30,000 people died there. Many died due to the forced workforce – the detainees had to work 12 to 14 hours a day – as well as in the gas chambers and during a final walk of death.
On April 30, 1945, the Soviet Red Army released Ravensbrueck, finding only about 3,000 remaining sick prisoners.
The German survivor Ingelore Prochnow, who was born in Ravensbrueck, told the Sunday ceremony that she had “no memory of fear, hunger or cold” at the camp.
“Nevertheless, I believe that all of this left his mark on my body and my soul,” she said to applaud the guests.
The concerns are increasing in Germany about the future of the Holocaust memory in the midst of an increase in support for far -right AFD, which has become the second largest party in national polls in February.
Some party politicians – who were appointed last week an extremist group of the German national intelligence service – have pushed the tradition of the country’s memory.
During a ceremony on Saturday to mark the release of the Neungamme concentration camp in Hamburg, Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned that “autocrats, extremists and populists around the world, including in our own countries, wanted to attack and destroy this peaceful and united Europe.
“We must not allow this to happen.”
Germany has organized several ceremonies this year to mark the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Nazi camps and other major events approaching the end of the Second World War.
Al-SR / SBK
