ANDREW GWYNNE: 'What I saw at Auschwitz will stay with me forever'

‘On the 27th of January 1945, soldiers from the 322nd Rifle Division of the Soviet Red Army marched into a camp on the outskirts of Oświęcim in Nazi-occupied Poland. What they found there shocked even the hardened Soviet soldier.

There, they found some 8,000 prisoners alive in the three main camps, but over a million pieces of clothing, thousands of kilograms of human hair, and thousands of pairs of shoes. The Soviets had just liberated Auschwitz, the largest concentration camp operated by the Nazi regime, where over 1.1 million people were systematically murdered.

In 2023, I visited the camp. What I saw there will stay with me forever. It was a completely traumatic experience. The scale of murder there was at an industrial scale, beyond any comprehension. The full weight of human cruelty exerted on an innocent population. It is a direct message from history on the dangers of political extremism and what happens when good people stay silent.

Each year, we mark this day, with Holocaust Memorial Day, a day to remember all those that perished under the tyranny of Nazi rule, but also to remember those that suffered genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. 

Today, 80 years on, the memory of this horrendous atrocity is beginning to fade out of living memory. Each year, we sadly lose more and more of those that survived the camps, and with them, they take their invaluable firsthand accounts of what it was like to suffer through such an ordeal and the warning this carries with it. 

That is why this Holocaust Memorial Day is arguably the most important since that cold day in January 1945. Extremism is on the rise, suspicion of the other is mounting, and more communities feel vulnerable than in years gone by. Whilst racism and hatred don’t always lead to genocide, all genocides begin with them: the fear of the other, dehumanisation, and polarisation. 

Holocaust Memorial Day provides an important opportunity to not only remember the past, but as a reminder to take action against racism, prejudice, and hatred wherever we see it. We should not just remember those who suffered, but it should compel us all to act and to build a better future. 

As the memory of the atrocities fades, we must carry the stories forward to future generations and to act against hatred so that nothing like the Holocaust is ever allowed to happen again.’