On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the 20 July uprising and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Majdanek concentration and extermination camp, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, emphasized in Berlin:

"At this time, and in many countries, survivors of Auschwitz are commemorating the courage and isolation of all those who stood up in Germany against the Nazi dictatorship and its murderous crimes. The survivors are aware of how small the number was of those who, from the beginning or towards the end, rejected the ideology of anti-Semitism and genocide and actively opposed it. Many of these people paid for their bravery with their lives. Few Germans managed to find this courage. Only a few Germans were willing to admit to the exclusion and deportation of their Jewish neighbours.

The survivors of all concentration and extermination camps established by German murderers in Europe are dedicating their acts of remembrance and recognition to all those people in Germany who chose not to remain blind and complacent during those years.

Just how late the uprising of 20 July 1944 came, and exactly how far the systematic Nazi extermination of the Jewish families of Europe had already advanced is shown by the fact that only a few days after the uprising of Stauffenberg and his comrades on 20 July, the Red Army liberated Majdanek concentration and extermination camp near Lublin on 23 July 1944.

In whispers, the news of both these events spread amongst the prisoners in Auschwitz and all the other camps, bringing new hope to the people who were still entrapped in the killing centres."