Tag: World War II

Nazi death camp survivors mark anniversary of Auschwitz liberation on Holocaust Remembrance Day

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A group of survivors of Nazi death camps marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during World War II in a modest ceremony Saturday in southern Poland.

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About 20 survivors from various camps set up by Nazi Germany around Europe laid wreaths and flowers and lit candles at the Death Wall in Auschwitz.

Later, the group will hold prayers at the monument in Birkenau. They were memorializing around 1.1 million camp victims, mostly Jews. The memorial site and museum are located near the city of Oswiecim. 

Nearly 6 million European Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust — the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II. 


Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the survivors will be accompanied by Polish Senate Speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz and Israeli Ambassador Yacov Livne. 

The theme of the observances is the human being, symbolized in simple, hand-drawn portraits. They are meant to stress that the horror of Auschwitz-Birkenau lies in the suffering of people held and killed there.

Holocaust victims were commemorated across Europe.

In Germany, where people put down flowers and lit candles at memorials for the victims of the Nazi terror, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that his country would continue to carry the responsibility for this “crime against humanity.”

He called on all citizens to defend Germany’s democracy and fight antisemitism, as the country marked the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

“Never again’ is every day,” Scholz said in his weekly video podcast. “Jan. 27 calls out to us: Stay visible! Stay audible! Against antisemitism, against racism, against misanthropy — and for our democracy.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country is fighting to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion, posted an image of a Jewish menorah on X, formerly known as Twitter, to mark the remembrance day.

“Every new generation must learn the truth about the Holocaust. Human life must remain the highest value for all nations in the world,” said Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and has lost relatives in the Holocaust. 

“Eternal memory to all Holocaust victims!” Zelenskyy tweeted.


In Italy, Holocaust commemorations included a torchlit procession alongside official statements from top political leaders. 

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said that her conservative nationalist government was committed to eradicating antisemitism that she said had been “reinvigorated” amid the Israel-Hamas war. Meloni’s critics have long accused her and her Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-fascist roots, of failing to sufficiently atone for its past.

Later Saturday, leftist movements planned a torchlit procession to remember all victims of the Holocaust — Jews but also Roma, gays and political dissidents who were deported or exterminated in Nazi camps.

Police were also on alert after pro-Palestinian activists indicated that they would ignore a police order and go ahead with a rally planned to coincide with the Holocaust commemorations. Italy’s Jewish community has complained that such protests have become occasions for the memory of the Holocaust to be co-opted by anti-Israel forces and used against Jews.

In Poland, a memorial ceremony with prayers was held Friday in Warsaw at the foot of the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, who fell fighting the Nazis in 1943.

Earlier in the week, the countries of the former Yugoslavia signed an agreement in Paris to jointly renovate Block 17 in the red-brick Auschwitz camp and install a permanent exhibition there in memory of around 20,000 people who were deported from their territories and brought to the block. Participating in the project will be Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. 

The gate with “Arbeit macht frei” (Work sets you free) written across it is pictured at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp during events marking the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Oswiecim, Poland on January 27, 2024. © Bartosz Siedlik, AFP

Preserving the camp, a notorious symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust, with its cruelly misleading “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes One Free”) gate, requires constant effort by historians and experts, and substantial funds.

The Nazis, who occupied Poland from 1939-1945, at first used old Austrian military barracks at Auschwitz as a concentration and death camp for Poland’s resistance fighters. In 1942, the wooden barracks, gas chambers and crematoria of Birkenau were added for the extermination of Europe’s Jews, Roma and other nationals, as well as Russian prisoners of war. 

Soviet Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on Jan. 27, 1945, with about 7,000 prisoners there, children and those who were too weak to walk. The Germans had evacuated tens of thousands of other inmates on foot days earlier in what is now called the Death March, because many inmates died of exhaustion and cold in the sub-freezing temperatures. 

Since 1979, the Auschwitz-Birkenau site has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage.

(AP) 



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Historian debunks claims that Coco Chanel served in the French Resistance

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New documents surfaced in September indicating that Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel may have played a double role during World War II, serving not only as an informant for the Nazis but also as a member of the French Resistance. But a historian who has analysed the new evidence says he has “serious doubts” about her alleged membership in La Résistance, suggesting the French fashion icon may have used the documents to restore her reputation after the war.

The previously unseen documents were revealed to the public in mid-September at the opening of a London exhibition tracing the life and legacy of the French couturier. Alongside more than 50 of Chanel’s iconic tweed suits and a whole room dedicated to Chanel No. 5 perfume, a part of the “Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto” retrospective also dealt with the designer’s wartime past.

Chanel’s links to the Nazis have long been established by declassified documents. She spent the war living at the Ritz after falling in love with German intelligence officer Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage. In July 1941, at the height of World War II, the Nazis registered her as a “trusted source” and gave her the code name “Westminster” due to her close connections with the British government and especially Winston Churchill. In 1943, Chanel was, among other things, tasked with the secret mission of trying to persuade Churchill to negotiate with the Germans.   

But the exhibition included two new documents claiming she was also part of the French Resistance. The first is a certificate allegedly showing her membership in the Resistance between January 1, 1943 and April 17, 1944 in which Chanel is described as an “occasional agent”. The other shows her affiliation with the “Eric” underground resistance network and lists her code name as “Coco”.

A 1957 certificate purportedly attesting Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s membership in the French Resistance movement. © Guillaume Pollack / Private / Archive reference number: SHD/GR 16 P 118851

“We have verification from the French government, including a document from 1957, which confirms her active participation in the resistance,” exhibit curator Oriole Cullen told The Guardian at the time.

“Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto” opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on September 16.

It was not stated how the curators had found the documents.

Thin file

The new findings intrigued French historian Guillaume Pollack, a specialist on the French Resistance, who last year published a book on the history and inner workings of the movement’s networks.

“It really surprised me, and I thought to myself: ‘Chanel in the Resistance? How in the world could I have missed something as big as that?” he recalled, saying he went on to spend two weeks chasing down the documents.

He finally found them in the French military archives in the eastern Paris suburb of Vincennes.

“When I opened up the file, something struck me right away: It was basically empty. Aside from two official documents, there was nothing there. I’ve rarely come across such a dry file,” he said.

Under normal circumstances, Pollack explained, such files are filled to the brim with information explaining the exact role and actions of the resistance member in question, and are backed up with several third-party testimonies. 

Pollack explained that the reason for this is that these files were compiled by the French government after the end of World War II and conform to special legislation that stipulates how and under what circumstances a person can be officially recognised as a onetime member of the French Resistance.

“If one thing is clear, it is that in order to be called a résistant (member of the Resistance), you need to have been active as such and recognised [by others] as such.”

“In this case, there is none of that – not a single trace,” he said, noting that a bare-bones certificate with Chanel’s name does not offer convincing proof.

An important year for Chanel

The second document, citing Chanel’s role in the Eric network, also puzzled Pollack: “It seemed really strange to me.” 

Eric was a French resistance network that, for the most part, operated in the Balkans. Pollack said that even though its leader, René Simonin, was repatriated to Paris in 1943 and the network continued to work from the French capital for another year, there is no mention of Chanel in any other documentation related to the network apart from the affiliation certificate found in the military archives and presented at the exhibition.

On top of that, the network name, “Eric”, was written over a part of the document that had clearly been whited out.  

A document purporting to show that Chanel belonged to the French Resistance network
A document purporting to show that Chanel belonged to the French Resistance network “Eric”. © Guillaume Pollack / Private / Archive reference number: SHD/GR 16 P 118851

Pollack said he also questioned the date that Chanel’s membership certificate was issued: 1957. Chanel was 74 years old at the time, and Pollack said that was unusually late compared to other Resistance members.

It was also “the year Chanel was honoured with the ‘Oscar’ of fashion”, he said, referring to the prestigious Neiman Marcus fashion award created in 1938. At the time, it was one of the only international fashion designer awards in existence. 

No reason to keep it secret

Pollack said that if Chanel really was a member of the French Resistance, she would have had no reason to keep it secret and it would likely have been known before now.

“Especially considering the context surrounding Coco Chanel [who has long been known as a collaborator], it just doesn’t make sense.”

She may have had documents produced to rehabilitate her tarnished reputation in certain circles after the war, Pollack suggested

“In the 1950s, several different Resistance veteran organisations emerged. It would have prompted a lot of questions from former Resistance fighters” if Chanel had claimed to have been part of the movement, Pollack said, noting she would most likely have had to justify her role by providing details on what she did, where, when and with whom.

Pollack said he has “doubts, huge doubts, about this documentation” that has newly been discovered. “The certificate proves nothing.”

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The EU should join Britain’s push to illuminate its Holocaust past

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By uniting memory and cooperation, we can build a better world — a world where diversity is celebrated, where prejudice is condemned, and where the lessons of history guide us towards a future of compassion, understanding, and peace, Scott Saunders writes.

The recent announcement of a UK government inquiry into the Nazi concentration camps on Alderney is a profound and commendable step towards preserving the memory of one of history’s darkest chapters. 

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The Channel Islands, nestled within the UK and under Nazi occupation during World War II, became the site of unimaginable cruelty that mirrored the horrors experienced across Europe. 

Between 1942 and 1944, the Nazis operated four camps on Alderney. At least 700 people perished on the spot, with the remainder of the inmates transferred to France as the war neared its end. Some 400 graves of victims remain on the island to this day.

The victims of the Holocaust on British soil have waited too long for their stories to be told, and this inquiry is a crucial opportunity to bring their experiences to light.

A sacred journey to confront the past

Memory, as the cornerstone of our humanity, shapes our actions and guides our future. 

It is our solemn duty to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust are etched into the collective consciousness of humanity. 

By working to uncover the truth of lesser-known Holocaust atrocities, we honour the victims’ memories and embrace the survivors’ resilience, ensuring that their experiences reach every corner of the world.

The Alderney inquiry transcends mere historical examination; it represents a sacred journey to confront our past honestly and responsibly. 

It calls for an alliance of nations, standing together as guardians of memory and advocates for a more compassionate and understanding world.

The Holocaust was a universal tragedy, transcending borders and impacting the lives of countless individuals and communities. 

It is a history that calls for collective remembrance, transcending national boundaries to foster unity in our commitment to safeguarding human rights and preventing future atrocities.

Learning from the survivors

As the Chairman of March of the Living, an organisation dedicated to Holocaust remembrance and education, I have the privilege of meeting countless survivors whose indomitable spirit continue to inspire me. 

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Their courage in sharing their traumatic experiences highlights the significance of preserving and disseminating their stories to ensure that history’s lessons are learned, not forgotten.

The survivors of the Holocaust provide a living testament to the resilience of the human spirit. They serve as beacons of hope, reminding us that even in the darkest times, hope and courage can prevail. 

Their experiences are not merely chapters in history books; they are profound lessons in humanity and the consequences of unchecked hatred.

Preserving their stories and sharing them with the world is not only a tribute to their endurance but also a crucial step in educating future generations about the consequences of intolerance. 

Their voices must not be lost in the sands of time but must echo through the ages, inspiring generations to come to stand against bigotry and prejudice.

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The importance of collaboration

The UK government’s decision to undertake the Alderney inquiry is a commendable step, but it is essential to recognise the importance of international cooperation. 

As the European Union represents a union of diverse nations bound by a shared commitment to historical remembrance and human rights, its participation in the inquiry would reinforce the notion that the memory of the Holocaust unites us all.

By supporting the inquiry, the EU can contribute invaluable resources, expertise, and solidarity, elevating the investigation to greater heights of thoroughness and comprehensiveness. 

Collaborating on this vital endeavour will send a powerful message of unity and empathy, demonstrating that Europe stands shoulder to shoulder in the face of the darkest episodes in its history.

Moreover, the EU’s involvement would extend the impact of Holocaust education across its member states, fostering a sense of collective responsibility to remember and learn from the past. 

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The stories of the survivors, like echoes from history, resonate throughout the continent, reminding us of the price of hatred and intolerance.

Building a future rooted in compassion

The inquiry is not merely about unearthing historical facts but also about honouring the memories of those who perished and those who survived. 

By understanding the true extent of the horrors that occurred even in places we might not expect, we can confront the darkest elements of our history and work towards a future free from bigotry and violence.

Through collaboration and education, we can break the cycle of hatred and intolerance that has perpetuated human suffering throughout history. 

By uniting memory and cooperation, we can build a better world — a world where diversity is celebrated, where prejudice is condemned, and where the lessons of history guide us towards a future of compassion, understanding, and peace.

The Alderney inquiry is a testament to the power of memory and the strength of collaboration. 

Together, let us embrace this opportunity to illuminate history’s darkest corners, remembering the victims, honouring the survivors, and working collectively to build a world rooted in tolerance, compassion, and peace. 

May our unity in this endeavour serve as an eternal beacon of hope, guiding humanity away from the shadows of the past and towards a future defined by understanding, empathy, and a shared commitment to never forget.

Scott Saunders is the Founder and Chair of March of the Living UK.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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U.N. steps up criticism of IMF and World Bank, the other pillars of the post-World War II global order

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From the ashes of World War II, three institutions were created as linchpins of a new global order. Now, in an unusual move, the top official in one — the Secretary-General of the United Nations — is pressing for major changes in the other two.

Antonio Guterres says the International Monetary Fund has benefited rich countries instead of poor ones. And he describes the IMF and World Bank’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a “glaring failure” that left dozens of countries deeply indebted.

Mr. Guterres’ criticism, in a recent paper, isn’t the first time he’s called for overhauling global financial institutions. But it is his most in-depth analysis of their problems, cast in light of their response to the pandemic, which he called a “stress test” for the organisations.

His comments were issued ahead of meetings called by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday and Friday to address reforms of the multilateral development banks and other issues.

Neither the IMF nor the World Bank would comment directly on the secretary-general’s criticisms and proposals. But Mr. Guterres’ comments echo those of outside critics, who see the IMF and World Bank’s leadership limited by the powerful nations that control them — a situation similar to that of the United Nations, which has faced its own calls for reform.

Maurice Kugler, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, told The Associated Press that the institutions’ failure to help the neediest countries “reflects the persistence of a top-down approach in which the World Bank president is a U.S. national appointed by the U.S. President and the IMF Managing Director is a European Union national appointed by the European Commission.”

Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group’s U.N. director, said there is a lot of frustration with the U.S. and its European allies dominating decision-making, leaving African countries with only “a sliver of voting rights.” Developing countries also complain that the bank’s lending rules are weighted against them, he said.

“In fairness, the bank has been trying to update its funding procedures to address these concerns, but it has not gone far enough to satisfy countries in the Global South,” Mr. Gowan said.

Mr. Guterres said it’s time for the boards of the IMF and the World Bank to right what he called the historic wrongs and “bias and injustice built into the current international financial architecture.”

That “architecture” was established when many developing countries were still under colonial rule.

The IMF and what is now known as the World Bank Group were created at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944 to be key institutions of a postwar international monetary system. The IMF was to monitor exchange rates and lend reserve currencies to countries with balance of payment deficits. The World Bank would provide financial assistance for postwar reconstruction and for building the economies of less developed countries.

Mr. Guterres said the institutions haven’t kept pace with global growth. He said the World Bank has $22 billion in paid capital, the money used for low-interest loans and grants for government development programs. As a percentage of global GDP, that’s less than one-fifth of the 1960 funding level.

At the same time, many developing countries are in a deep financial crisis, exacerbated by inflation, rising interest rates and a standstill in debt relief.

“Some governments are being forced to choose between making debt repayments or defaulting in order to pay public sector workers — possibly ruining their credit rating for years to come,” Mr. Guterres said, adding that “Africa now spends more on debt service costs than on health care.”

The IMF’s rules unfairly favour wealthy nations, he said. During the pandemic, the wealthy Group of Seven nations, with a population of 772 million, received the equivalent of $280 billion from the IMF while the least developed countries, with a population of 1.1 billion, were allocated just over $8 billion.

“This was done according to the rules,” Mr. Guterres said. This is “morally wrong.”

He called for major reforms that would strengthen the representation of developing countries on the boards of the IMF and World Bank, help countries restructure debts, change IMF quotas, and revamp the use of IMF funds. He also called for scaling up financing for economic development and tackling the impact of climate change.

IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack, asked about Mr. Guterres’ proposals at a June 8 news conference, said “I’m not in a position to comment on any of the specifics.”

She added that a review of IMF quotas is a priority and is expected to be completed by December 15.

In a written response to a query from the AP, the IMF said it has mounted “an unprecedented” response to the largest-ever request from countries for help dealing with recent shocks.

After the pandemic hit, the IMF approved $306 billion in financing for 96 countries, including below-market-rate loans to 57 low-income countries. It also increased interest-free lending fourfold to $24 billion and provided around $964 million in grants to 31 of its most vulnerable nations between April 2020 and 2022 so they could service their debts.

The World Bank Group said in January that its shareholders have initiated a process “to better address the scale of development.”

The bank’s development committee said in a March report that the bank “must evolve in response to the unprecedented confluence of global crises that has upended development progress and threatens people and the planet.”

Mr. Guterres’ push for reforming the IMF and World Bank comes as the United Nations also faces demands for an overhaul of its structure, which still reflects the post-World War II global order.

Mr. Gowan said many U.N. ambassadors think it might be “marginally easier” and more helpful to developing countries to overhaul the IMF and World Bank than to reform the U.N. Security Council, which has been debated for more than 40 years.

While Mr. Guterres and U.N. Ambassadors talk about reforming the financial institutions, any changes are up to their boards. Mr. Gowan noted that when the Obama administration engineered a reform of IMF voting rights in 2010, “Congress took five years to ratify the deal — and Congress is even more divided and dysfunctional now.”

“But Western governments are aware that China is an increasingly dominant lender in many developing countries,” Mr. Gowan said, “so they have an interest in reforming the IMF and World Bank in ways that keep poorer states from relying on Beijing for loans.”

Beyond the Paris meeting, the debate over IMF and World Bank reforms will continue in September at a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 in New Delhi, and at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

U.S. climate chief John Kerry said in an Associated Press interview on Wednesday that he will be attending the Paris summit along with IMF and World Bank officials.

“Hopefully, new avenues of finance will be more defined than they have been,” he said. “I think it’s really important.”

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Netflix devotes series to Varian Fry, the man who saved thousands from Vichy France in WWII

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The story of Varian Fry, a US journalist who helped some 2,000 of Europe’s imperilled artists, writers and refugees escape from Nazi-occupied Europe, has inspired the new Netflix series “Transatlantic”. FRANCE 24 takes a look at a hero who risked his life many times over before falling into relative anonymity.

The new Netflix series “Transatlantic” dramatises the short but intense period of Fry’s life when he helped found the Emergency Rescue Committee and enabled hundreds of illustrious writers, artists and refugees to flee Vichy France.  

Varian Fry, enamoured by European artists and writers, first travelled to Berlin in 1935 as a bookish and scholarly young journalist. But instead of finding high culture, he witnessed first-hand the violence meted out by fascist thugs in the streets of the German capital. He saw the SS beating and bloodying Jewish women and men, later writing that the police didn’t make any effort to save the victims from the brutality, instead trying to clear the area for cars to get through.  

In June 1940, Nazi forces marched into Paris, creating a massive exodus of refugees to the south of France. Driven by his abhorrence for Nazism and all that it stood for, Fry helped found the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC). Its mission was to help anyone persecuted by the Nazis, including European writers, artists or intellectuals, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

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On August 4, Fry boarded a transatlantic flight from New York to German-occupied France with $3,000 strapped to one leg and a list of 200 European artists and intellectuals thought to be in danger compiled by the ERC. The list included many of the most influential figures of the 20th century, including painter Marc Chagall, French surrealist André Breton, author Walter Mehring, German-born painter Max Ernst and musician Alma Mahler.

From Paris, Fry took a train to Marseille where he created an office at the Hôtel Splendide overlooking the Marseille’s Old Port. With the help of Mary-Jayne Gold, an American heiress who supplied funds and connections, and Albert O. Hirschman, a German-Jewish intellectual, Fry began contacting the people on his list, telling them he could help them repatriate.

‘Refugees were racing towards Marseille in the early 1940s’

Word of Fry’s rescue operation quickly got out and soon hundreds of people were lining up outside his office. The phone was constantly ringing and a typical day could involve up to 120 interviews. “Refugees were racing toward Marseille in the early 1940s because it was the only point of passage through which they could board a ship and escape France. The only other route was through the Pyrenees leading into Spain,” said George Ayache, a French author and historian. “In the very beginning, France was divided into two zones: the north, occupied by Nazis, and the south, administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy. There was more freedom in the south than in the north.”

It was this relative freedom that Fry and his colleagues seized upon when they started forging passports and securing passage on ships headed to the United States and other locations. The window of opportunity would soon close. “By 1942, the Germans occupied the entire country, including the south. Leading up to the occupation, it was practical for the Germans to have a regime that governed in their place,” said Ayache.

The links between Vichy and the Nazi regime are depicted in “Transatlantic” through the character of Philippe Frot, portrayed by Grégory Montel, a zealous French police officer determined to please the German occupiers and present a “clean image” of the city. He patrols the port area and its environs, determined to root out the hideaways seeking shelter in the dark corners of the city and send them to the Camp des Milles, an internment camp north of the city.

The perilous evacuations were further complicated by Fry’s inability to discern who was really at risk. “We had no way of knowing who was really in danger and who wasn’t,” wrote Fry in his memoir “Assignment: Rescue”. “We had to guess, and the only safe way to guess was to give each refugee the full benefit of the doubt. Otherwise we might refuse to help someone who was really in danger and learn later that he had been dragged away to Dachau or Buchenwald because we had turned him away.”

Part of Fry’s mission included hiding refugees at Bel-Air, an immense villa east of Marseille. The Provençal residence was nicknamed “Chateau-espère-visa” (“Visa-hope-castle”) by the Russian revolutionary writer Victor Serge, who was a guest. The villa also opened its doors to Spanish painter Remedios Varo, German philosopher Hannah Arendt, French painter and surrealist artist Jaqueline Lamba, and French poet René Char, among others. The artist Marc Chagall, accompanied by his wife Bella, took a long time to decide whether to leave Europe, refusing to go until they were sure to be able to leave with all his paintings.

In one of the most spectacular scenes of “Transatlantic”, Fry and his colleagues organise a birthday party for surrealist painter Max Ernst at the villa. Along with some of the artists and thinkers who helped define the 20th century, they dine and later spend the night dancing in the villa’s garden. The show is less of a period drama than it is a comedy taking place in dark times, celebrating the humanity of certain individuals in treacherous situations.

US divided over wartime role 

The activities of Fry and his colleagues quickly earned the disapproval of US Consul General Hugh Fullerton (renamed Graham Patterson in the show and played by Corey Stoll). To the US authorities, Fry was a troublemaker who undermined official policy. For Ayache, the US government had a troubled position before 1942 and hesitated over what role they should play in World War II before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour. “They had an American representative for the Vichy government. They didn’t help the allies and they did even less to help the resistance.”

During the 13 months he spent in France, Fry helped some 2,000 refugees to leave. But his network of allies and their activities took on such significant proportions that it became impossible to keep them secret. After months of spying on Fry and his colleagues, the French police decided to act and raided his offices. In December 1940, he was arrested and briefly held on a prison ship in the Marseille harbour. But he chose to stay in France, even after his passport expired, so that he could continue his activities. He was eventually arrested by the French police in August 1941 and brought to the Spanish border. He was informed that his deportation had been ordered by the French Ministry of the Interior with the consent of the American Embassy. 

Official honours came late

Back in the United States, Fry wrote an article for The New Republic magazine in 1942 entitled “The Massacre of the Jews”. It went unnoticed. The atrocities continued as Western powers looked away.

Fry struggled to adjust to civilian life after leading missions in occupied Europe. His wife divorced him, the army deemed him unfit for service and even the ERC severed ties with him after he publicly criticised the US State Department. He would spend the rest of his life teaching and writing in relative obscurity. A brain haemorrhage at the age of 59 cut his life short. 

Official honours came late: Fry received the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest order of merit, shortly before his death in 1967. It wasn’t until 2000 that a monument was inaugurated by Marseille’s city hall in honour of Fry, even though he was the first American to be recognised as “Righteous Among the Nations” by the State of Israel in 1994. 

Although highly fictionalised, “Transatlantic” shows how one individual had an impact on thousands of lives. Filming of the show began in March 2022 and coincided with the outbreak of war in Europe, as Ukrainian refugees poured into Europe seeking safety after the Russian invasion. With its themes of statelessness and the refugee experience, the story of Varian Fry still resonates today. 

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Holocaust Memorial Day commemorated amid horrors of Russia-Ukraine war

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Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and other mourners commemorated the 78th anniversary Friday of the Nazi German death camp’s liberation, some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten.

The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oświęcim in southern Poland, which was under the occupation of German forces during World War II and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen.

In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945.

Today the site, with its barracks and barbed wire and the ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the world’s most recognized symbols of evil and a site of pilgrimage for millions from around the world.

Jewish and Christian prayers for the dead were recited at the memorial site, which lies only 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating unthinkable death and destruction — a conflict on the minds of many this year.


 

“Standing here today at this place of remembrance, Birkenau, I follow with horror the news from the east that the Russian army, which liberated us here, is waging a war there in Ukraine. Why? Why?” lamented survivor Zdzisława Włodarczyk during observances Friday.

Piotr Cywinski, Auschwitz state museum director, compared Nazi crimes to those the Russians have committed in Ukrainian towns like Bucha and Mariupol. He said they were inspired by a “similar sick megalomania” and that free people must not remain indifferent.

>> The smile at Auschwitz: Uncovering the story of a young girl in the French Resistance

“Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators,” Cywinski said. “Remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances marking the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation in 2005. This year, no Russian official at all was invited due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the event in a social media post, alluding to his own country’s situation.

“We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred,” he said.


 

“Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values ​​life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy.”

>> Hitler’s ‘war of annihilation’: Operation Barbarossa, 80 years on

An Israeli teacher, Yossi Michal, paying tribute to the victims with a teachers union delegation, said it was important to remember the past, and while he said what is happening in Ukraine is terrible, he felt each case is unique and they shouldn’t be compared.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the post-Word War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, called the Holocaust “the abyss of humanity. An evil that touched also our country with the infamy of the racial laws of 1938.”

Bogdan Bartnikowski, a Pole who was 12 years old when he was transported to Auschwitz, said the first images he saw on television last February of refugees fleeing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered traumatic memories.

He was stunned seeing a little girl in a large crowd of refugees holding her mother with one hand and grasping a teddy bear in the other.

People watch a virtual reality film that allows viewers to tour Auschwitz.
People watch a virtual reality film that allows viewers to tour Auschwitz. © Reuters

 

“It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll  to her chest,” Bartnikowski, now 91, said.

Bartnikowski was among several survivors of Auschwitz who spoke about their experiences to journalists Thursday.

Another, Stefania Wernik, who was born at Auschwitz in November 1944, less than three months before its liberation, spoke of Auschwitz being a “hell on earth.”

She said when she was born she was so tiny that the Nazis tattooed her number — 89136 — on her thigh. She was washed in cold water, wrapped in rags and subjected to medical experiments.

And yet her mother had abundant milk, and they both survived. After the war, her mother returned home and reunited with her husband, and “the whole village came to look at us and said it’s a miracle.”

She appealed for “no more fascism, which brings death, genocide, crimes, slaughter and loss of human dignity.”

 

Among those who attended Friday’s commemorations was Doug Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Emhoff, the first Jewish person to be married to one of the top two nationally elected U.S. officials, bowed his head at an execution wall at Auschwitz, where he left a wreath of flowers in the U.S. flag’s colors and the words: “From the people of the United States of America.”

The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said “the suffering of 6 million innocently murdered Jews remains unforgotten — as does the suffering of the survivors.”

“We recall our historic responsibility on Holocaust Memorial Day so that our Never Again endures in future,” he wrote on Twitter.

The German parliament was holding a memorial event focused this year on those who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people were incarcerated and killed by the Nazis. Their fate was only publicly recognized decades after the end of World War II.

Elsewhere in the world on Friday events were planned to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005.

In Britain, candles were lit to remember victims of genocide in homes and public buildings, including Buckingham Palace.

UK man who saved children from horrors of concentration camps


 

(AP)



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‘Forgotten’ Holocaust heroes help Slovakia come to terms with its past

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In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler became the first Jews to escape from Auschwitz.

Not only did the two Slovaks manage to flee the short distance across Poland to make it back to their homeland, their 32-page testimony of the barbarism they witnessed at the Nazi extermination camp, the so-called “Vrba-Wetzler report”, made clear to the world the true horror of the Holocaust.

That report was highly detailed, with the two young men able to draw maps of the camp, detailed diagrams showing where the barracks were location, where the gas chambers and crematoriums were. Vrba even committed to memory details of train arrivals, where they came from, and how many people were on board: crucial details which later helped the Allies understand the true extent of the Nazi genocide.

The lives of up to 200,000 Jews in Budapest were saved when their deportations were halted after the Vrba-Wetzler report came out, argued Jonathan Freedland, author of one of the most acclaimed nonfiction books of last year, “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World”, the story of Vrba and Wetzler retold for English speakers.

Their names deserve “to stand alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler and Primo Levi, in the first rank of stories that define the Shoah,” Freedland said, though added: “That day may never come.”

When Wetzler died in Bratislava in 1988, he was “bitter, drunk and forgotten,” the Israeli author Ruth Linn wrote in a book about the pair. Vrba, who emigrated early from post-socialist Czechoslovakia, passed away in 2006 in Canada.

Slovakia’s foreign ministry notes on its website that their story “recently resurfaced” because in 2021 the well-known actor and producer Peter Bebjak directed a Slovak-language film “The Auschwitz Report” (titled locally as Zpráva) about the pair’s escape.

Many Slovaks on the streets of Bratislava will know they story of Vrba and Wetzler: “They are both well known in Slovakia, they are both part of the Slovak history class,” said Tomáš, a sales manager. “I remember their story from school,” Martin, another Bratislava resident, told Euronews. 

However, neither Vrba nor Wetzler made it onto the shortlist of the “100 Greatest Slovaks” television programme organised a few years ago by the public-service broadcaster RTVS, a spin-off of the popular “Great Britons” TV series a decade earlier.

But RTVS came under criticism for showing Josef Tiso, Slovakia’s wartime fascist leader, on trailers for the show, suggesting he was a contender. There were even a suggestion Slovakia’s National Criminal Agency might investigate the channel for instigating extremism.

The broadcaster eventually decided to exclude Tiso, a willing partner of Adolf Hitler. There were concerns viewers might have ranked him quite high.

A 2013 survey asked Slovaks how much they knew about what happened during the Holocaust. When asked how many people, mainly Jews, were deported from the Slovak lands during the Second World War, around half answered “I don’t know”.

Estimates differ, but it’s reckoned that around 58,000 Slovak Jews were deported to Nazi death camps. 

Only a few hundred survived. The Slovak State, which broke away from Czechoslovakia in 1939, even paid the Nazis to help deport Jews, most to camps in neighbouring Poland. Slovaks were allowed to keep the property left behind.

“For many years, the topic of the Holocaust and the deportations of Jews from Slovakia during World War II were taboo,” Luciána Hoptová, of the University of Prešov, wrote in a 2020 academic essay about the teaching of the Holocaust in Slovakia’s schools.

Deborah L. Michaels, another academic who assessed Holocaust education in Slovakia, in 2015, argued that this was a spillover of sentiment in the 1990s.

After the fall of communism in 1989, she wrote, “the ideology of democratic liberalism encouraged a historical discourse that articulated minority rights.” Some historians began to tell the story of Slovakia’s role in the Holocaust, something hushed up under communist times.

In 1997, the European Union even came under flak after sponsoring the publication of a nationalist Slovak history textbook, approved by the country’s education ministry, that was conspicuously short on chapters about the Holocaust and Slovakia’s role in it.

This was around the time that US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dubbed Slovakia “a black hole on the map of Europe.”

Things have markedly improved since, expert reckon. Now, the Holocaust “plays a very important role in the teaching of history,” Hoptová concluded in her 2020 essay.

Slovakia’s first Holocaust Museum opened in 2016, in the southwestern city of Sereď. Study of the Holocaust is part of the national curriculum — mandatory from the ninth grade onwards in state schools.

According to the curriculum’s unit on the Slovak State, the goal is for teachers “to specify gradual restrictions of the human rights and freedom of Jewish citizens.” The education ministry recommends students take trips to concentration camps and memorials, as Auschwitz is not too far across the Polish border.

“But the quality of that education depends on teachers,” Matej Beranek of the Holocaust Museum in Sereď told Euronews.

And it also depends on what children are taught at home.

According to a 2019 survey by Pew Research, Slovaks are amongst the least tolerant of minorities in Europe. Some 77% said they had negative opinions of Muslims, the highest of the European states surveyed; while 76% looked unfavorably upon the Roma — only Italy recorded higher rates. 

More striking, almost a third of Slovaks held unfavourable views of Jew; only Greeks were more intolerant.

The treatment of minorities came into sharp light last October when two men were shot dead outside a gay nightclub in Bratislava. The perpetrator, who committed suicide, left a note online describing the COVID-19 pandemic as a “Jewish plot to train the white race to be obedient”.

Zuzana Čaputová, the popular and liberal Slovak president, said afterwards that hatred of minorities had been fuelled by “stupid and irresponsible statements of politicians.”

Several political parties still continue to laud the Nazi-aligned Slovak State. Perhaps most infamous is Marian Kotleba, the figurehead behind a political party now known as the Kotlebists–People’s Party Our Slovakia.

Many analysts and newspapers deem Kotleba to be openly “neo-Nazi”. Its symbols and outfits resemble the wartime Nazi puppet state’s Hlinka Guard, Tiso’s shock troops. Kotleba’s party rails mainly against “Gypsy criminals” but anti-semitism also features.

“We are Slovaks, not Jews, and that is why we are not interested in the Jewish issue,” Kotleba said in 2009, when asked by a local journalist about Slovakia’s wartime collaboration with the Nazis.

The party now controls 17 of the parliament’s 150 seats, having won around 8% of the popular vote at the last general election. Kotleba was governor of Banská Bystrica, the country’s largest region, and he finished fourth at the last presidential election, with around a tenth of the vote.

But his political fortunes are waning. Several other hard-right or far-right parties are stealing supporters; his party is dwindling in the latest opinion polls.

Last April, the Supreme Court gave him a six month suspended prison sentence for demonstrating sympathy for a movement directed at suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms, after he donated money to organisers of an event celebrating the formation of the Nazi-aligned Slovak State.

“On the one hand, we have those kinds of parties in the Slovak parliament,” Beranek, of the Holocaust Museum, said. “On the other hand, we have remembrance days.”

In September 2021, Eduard Heger, the prime minister, formally apologised for the so-called Jewish Code, a law enacted in 1941 by the Slovak State that placed oppressive restrictions on Slovakia’s Jews.

Slovakia has its own remembrance day each 9 September, the day in 1941 that the “Jewish Code” was proclaimed.

In March 2022, on the 80th anniversary of the first transport of Slovak Jews to Auschwitz, Slovakia’s parliament issued a resolution condemning the mass deportations. Kotleba’s party abstained.

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‘Tirailleurs’: France’s forgotten colonial soldiers step out of the shadows

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The last surviving African soldiers who fought for colonial-era France will be able to live out their final days in their home countries following the French government’s U-turn on their pension rights. The decision coincides with the cinema release of a film highlighting the untold sacrifices made by African “tirailleurs” on France’s battlefields during World War I.

In November 1998, just months after France’s multiracial football team lifted its first World Cup title, another legacy of the country’s colonial history passed away quietly in a faraway village north of Dakar, Senegal. 

Abdoulaye Ndiaye, who died aged 104, was the last of the tirailleurs, the African riflemen who fought for their colonial masters in the trenches of northern France during World War I. He died just one day before France’s then-president, Jacques Chirac, was due to decorate him with the Legion of Honour in belated recognition of his services. 

The failure to acknowledge Ndiaye’s sacrifice during his lifetime has stuck with French director Mathieu Vadepied ever since, inspiring a long-gestating project that has come to completion this week with the release in France and Senegal of his film “Tirailleurs” – whose English version is titled “Father & Soldier”. 

“It felt like a symbol of France’s failure to recognise the tirailleurs and tell their story,” said the director following his film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year. 

Vadepied, who has travelled and worked in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa, said he felt a duty to exhume the history of the tirailleurs. His film is a tribute to the young men of Senegal and other French colonies who were snatched from their homes and forced to fight in a war that meant nothing to them for a “motherland” whose language most didn’t speak. 


 

While the film’s original title, “Tirailleurs”, or “riflemen”, has evocative power in French, its English version highlights the director’s concern to approach war through an intimate focus on a father’s relationship with the son he is desperate to protect. “Lupin” star Omar Sy plays a weary village farmer who enrols in the army to watch over his son after he is forcefully conscripted by the French. 

Vadepied stressed the importance of rooting his story in Senegal and keeping an intimate gaze on the film’s protagonists while giving war itself a distinctly unspectacular treatment. 

“We know the history of the war, but not that of the tirailleurs,” he said, highlighting cinema’s “mission to educate, to pass on stories and historical memories, while also interrogating the society we live in.” He added: “The story of France’s colonial troops needs to be recognised and told, to allow subsequent generations to identify with this history too.” 

As Sy, himself a son of Senegalese immigrants, told the audience at the Cannes premiere, “We don’t have the same (historical) memory, but we share the same history.” 

A decision long overdue 

In one of the film’s rare battle scenes, moments before the tirailleurs leap out of the trenches and charge into muddy no-man’s land, a French officer is pictured yelling: “After this battle, you will no longer be indigenous, you will be French!”  

It would take a full century for France to deliver on that promise. 

In April 2017, then-president François Hollande granted French citizenship to a first group of 28 former tirailleurs in a ceremony at the Élysée Palace, following a petition signed by more than 60,000 people, including Sy. The event was timed to coincide with the centennial of the Chemin des Dames, a gruesome battle in which more than 7,000 African soldiers perished in the fields of northern France. 

Six years on, the last surviving tirailleurs have won another battle in their decades-long quest for recognition, securing the right to live out their final days in their home countries – while continuing to receive their French pensions. 

>> France’s forgotten African war heroes finally given full pension rights

France’s former colonial troops were previously required to spend at least six months of the year living in France in order to qualify for a monthly payment of 950 euros ($1,000). The rule separated ageing former combatants from their families in Africa, leaving some to die alone, often in cramped quarters, away from their loved ones. 

The change of rule will apply to 37 former soldiers known to be living in France, said Aïssata Seck, a campaigner for the rights of the tirailleurs. She said news of the breakthrough might inspire more veterans to come forward, estimating the total number of surviving tirailleurs in France at “around 80”.  


FOCUS © FRANCE 24

 

Seck, whose grandfather was a tirailleur, expressed relief that the last of his comrades would “finally be able to return home and live out their lives with their wives, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren”.

France’s decision was long overdue, said the head of Senegal’s National Office for Veterans and Victims of War, in an interview with AP.  

“For a long time veterans have asked to return with their pensions but were not successful. This decision will relieve them. These veterans live alone in their homes, they are not accompanied, they live in extremely difficult conditions,” said Capt. Ngor Sarr, 85, who fought for the French military in Algeria and Mauritania and then moved to France in 1993 so he could receive his pension. He said he then lost it when he returned to Senegal 20 years later. 

‘Repair the injustice’ 

A product of France’s 19th-century colonial expansion in Africa, the tirailleurs were initially designed as a lightly-armed infantry corps deployed to harass enemy lines. The corps was expanded during World War I to bolster French troops on the Western Front, and eventually disbanded in the early 1960s.  

Over the two World Wars, some 700,000 soldiers from France’s African colonies fought for the colonial power. While some volunteered, others – like the son’s character in Vadepied’s film – were captured and forcibly enlisted. 

Historians estimate that around 30,000 African soldiers died in the trenches fighting for France during World War I. But their names never featured on the war memorials that grace towns and villages across the country, daily reminders of the cost of the conflict. 

The tirailleurs were a vastly enlarged force by the time Nazi Germany invaded France. They fought for Free French forces in sub-Saharan and North Africa and took part in the Allies’ landings in southern France in August 1944, precipitating the Nazis’ retreat.  

Months later, however, French troops at a barracks near Dakar opened fire on mutinous tirailleurs demanding back pay for years spent in prisoner-of-war camps. Dozens were killed in a massacre that was hushed for decades but is bitterly remembered in Senegal.

REPORTERS
REPORTERS © FRANCE 24

 

Hollande promised to “repair the injustice” on a trip to Dakar in 2014 – in line with tentative steps to acknowledge France’s debt towards its former colonial troops. Their sacrifice was honoured on Armistice Day last year during a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe attended by Aïssata Tall Sall, Senegal’s minister for foreign affairs and Senegalese abroad. 

Despite such gestures, more needs to be done to “give the tirailleurs visibility in the public space”, said Seck, whose campaign group has appealed to French mayors to name streets after France’s African soldiers.  

“The history of the tirailleurs is still insufficiently known,” she explained. “But things are starting to go in the right direction – slowly but surely.” 

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