On January 27^th several Holocaust survivors as well as World Leaders met in Poland that sent millions of people to their deaths under Nazi control. “The commemoration was held in a heated tent above the train tracks that sent prisoners to death camps. This facility was where most of the inmates were gassed and cremated,” according to the website Good.

For 75, years the death camp Auschwitz has been closed after the allied soldiers stormed the camp. These must have been miserable moments for the survivors of the Holocaust to return. But also, hopeful; many of these riveting speeches and first count events of the torture and cruelty at Auschwitz (and other death camps) let the public and leaders know the importance of never letting a death camp of any sort to be open again.

Down by the tracks, speeches included the “Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ronald Lauder both had speeches for the more than one million people murdered at Auschwitz. It’s been three generations since the prisoners of Auschwitz saw its liberation. They we brutally exposed to slave work, exhaustion, disease, starvation, and exhaustion.” Over 1,000 people listened to the riveting and unsettling experiences from the survivors, sugar- coating nothing and leaving out no information. Senior Tyler Karl noted that the speeches may be “about the importance of not letting something like that happen again, accepting people of their differences.” Now that the world and the people have been exposed to the horrors of world war and death camps, it is safe to say that there will not be one ever again.

The closing of Auschwitz was recognized for the 75^th year of its closing because of the brutality that occurred there. “Auschwitz was the deadliest of Nazi Germany’s 20 concentration camps. From 1940 to 1945 of the 1.3 million prisoners sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died. That figure includes 960,000 Jews, 74,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 other Europeans,” the website Good states. Junior Aoife Buckley continued, saying that it was extremely terrible “because of the mass scale of death that happened there. Not that they just died, but their torture, and a combination of things.”

““Do not be silent! Do not be complacent! Do not let this ever happen again — to any people!” Lauder said.” Many former prisoners from Auschwitz spoke of their experiences, turning the stomachs of the audience of the grim experiences they and others had as teenagers, and children. ABC News states that “of the 232,000-youth deported to Auschwitz, only about 6,700 were selected for forced labor. Other children managed to survive by hiding or got lucky not to be sent to instant death.” Now that people are realizing their wrongdoings, it allows us as humans to learn from this, and change future events. Freshmen Joseph Buchanan said, “I think it’s a good thing, and people recognizing their mistakes, wanting it to never happen again.” However, the survivors’ memories of their time in any death camp, and of the loved ones will stay with them, and some of us forever.