“NOT FORGOTTEN”
Ahead of the anniversary, survivors spoke to AFP about the need to preserve the memory of what happened in the death camp and warned of rising hatred and anti-Semitism. They expressed fears that history could repeat itself.
Some 40 survivors in 15 countries told their stories, alone or surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren – proof of their victory over absolute evil.
Julia Wallach, who is nearly 100, cannot recall the events without crying.
“It is too difficult to talk about, too hard,” she said. The Parisian was dragged off a lorry destined for the gas chamber in Birkenau at the last minute.
But hard as it is to relive the horrors, she insisted she would continue to give witness.
“As long as I can do it, I will do it.” Nearby, her granddaughter Frankie asked: “Will they believe us when we talk about this when she is not there?”
That is why Esther Senot, 97, braved the Polish winter last month to go back to Birkenau with French school students.
She kept a promise made in 1944 to her dying sister Fanny, who – laid out on the straw coughing up blood – asked her with her last breath to “tell what happened to us so that we are not forgotten by history”.
