From August 28 to 31, 2017, Auschwitz survivors from many countries will be gathering at the Auschwitz Memorial and the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oswiecim/Auschwitz for the general meeting of the International Auschwitz Committee. They will be accompanied on their journey by their children and their grandchildren.
The general meeting will also be attended by people who have established foundations and initiatives which have developed in many different countries, inspired by the decades of educational and political initiatives and activities of the survivors. They are all united by the experience that the survivors, with their horrific memories of humiliation, hatred, exclusion, complacency, violence and mass murder, have refused to be silenced or to be hardened by bitterness. Instead, the survivors have tried throughout their lives to join in exchanges with young people, to tell them about their murdered relatives, their own experiences and their memories, and especially to motivate young people for the values of tolerance and democracy.