German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomed the new president of the International Auschwitz Committee and Auschwitz survivor Dr Eva Umlauf during her inaugural visit.

While talking with the president, Eva Umlauf and Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the IAC, spoke about the committee’s current projects and areas of work, as well as how Auschwitz survivors and the organizations they founded work together with the Auschwitz Memorial and the International Youth Meeting Center in Oswiecim/Auschwitz.

The Federal President spoke warmly of Marian Turski, his friend and long-standing president of the IAC who passed away in February 2025, his close connection with the work of the committee and his interest in the activities and well-being of the International Youth Meeting Center. While discussing the current global political challenges presented by the rise of right-wing extremism and anti-Semitic hatred, the Federal President wished Eva Umlauf great strength and ‘every possible success’ in her work.

Eva Umlauf thanked the Federal President for always speaking clearly and steadfastly against right-wing violence and populist hatred. She also emphasized her hope that democratic parties, not only in Germany, had now realized that democracy is being crucially threatened and that their sensitivity and unity in the face of this threat must be audible and visible –especially for survivors of German concentration and extermination camps and their families.