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07.09.2022

16th General Assembly of the International Auschwitz Committee in Oswiecim/Auschwitz

 
 
7 September 2022: The 96-year-old Polish-Jewish Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski, was re-elected as president of the International Auschwitz Committee. Image: Bernd Oertwig

7 September 2022: The 96-year-old Polish-Jewish Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski, was re-elected as president of the International Auschwitz Committee. Image: Bernd Oertwig

 

 

 

Today, in Oswiecim Poland, the General Assembly of the International Auschwitz Committee ended. It takes place every five years. This year it was attended by Auschwitz survivors, relatives and descendants of the camp survivors, and representatives from Auschwitz foundations in 11 different countries.

The delegates re-elected the 96-year-old Polish-Jewish Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski, as president of the organization. Christoph Heubner was reaffirmed as vice president. The delegates also elected the following people as vice presidents: the Polish Auschwitz survivor Stanislaw Zalewski, Henri Goldberg from Belgium, who survived the Holocaust as a child, Avi Rosenthal from Israel and Hannah Lessing from Austria.

The letters of greeting were sent to the delegates by the Polish President Andrzej Duda, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the Federal Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz and the President of the German Bundestag Bärbel Bas. They thanked the survivors of the camp for their many years of dedicated and moving educational and political work by meeting with young people and preserving the Auschwitz Memorial. They also stressed their resolve to stand by the International Auschwitz Committee and to combat anti-Semitism, antiziganism and racist developments wherever they may occur.

At the end of the discussions, Marian Turski said: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February this year has added a new, horrifying date to our memories. It marks a date that we never expected to occur, not even in the worst of our dreams. Young people have now become witnesses of the times, and we call upon them to take on this role. We need their support and their interest to help carry our memories on through time. None of us, neither young nor old, should ever forget: Dictatorships depend on people who are willing to take orders. We are experiencing precisely this at this moment in time. But democracies depend on people who are always willing to critically question, and who want to support and protect the democracies. Especially in face of this war, in face of fake news, anti-Semitic and racist hatred, be it on the Internet or on the streets: Democracy depends on us all. Especially now!”