Today, Auschwitz survivors around the world are remembering the First Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial which began sixty years ago on 20 December 1963. In Berlin Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said:

"Eighteen years passed before the German judiciary finally managed to make a move and bring the crimes of Auschwitz to trial in a German courtroom and enabling survivors of that death camp to speak out. The Auschwitz survivors who were invited to attend the trial as witnesses came from numerous countries. Although they knew that they were travelling to Frankfurt, their real destination would be Auschwitz. They were also aware that large sections of German society would register their presence and their words with aversion, and at best indifference. Today, in Germany and the world, there is no going back to the times before the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Just as the perpetrators were exposed in their entire brutality, cowardice and wretchedness, for the survivors this first trial marked the beginning of a discussion with German society that continues until this very day."

In Warsaw, the President of the International Auschwitz Committee and Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski, said:

"We, as Auschwitz survivors, are today remembering Hermann Langbein, an Austrian survivor of Auschwitz and the Secretary General of the International Auschwitz Committee at that time. Together with other Auschwitz survivors and very few allies in Germany, such as Hesse’s prosecutor general Fritz Bauer, he fought for and actually enabled this trial to take place against the reluctance of the German authorities and the self-defensive complacency of German society. Hermann Langbein also managed to ensure that the sound recordings of the testimonies given by the Auschwitz survivors were preserved. These recordings now belong to Unesco’s Memory of the World as part of the world’s documentary heritage. And they will continues to tell the truth about the perpetrators and the victims of Auschwitz when we, as survivors, are to longer here to speak out."