Auschwitz survivors are back as the world remembers the Nazi death camp 80 years ago

German historian Susanne Willems spoke fondly of the survivors she met over the decades: “Many were like my favorite grandfather.

There will be no political speeches from international leaders next to the Gate of Death, and no Russian presence because of the full-scale war launched against Ukraine almost three years ago, although the camp was liberated by the Russian-dominated 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front. Front.

Vladimir Putin attended the 60th anniversary; he is not welcome now.

The Nazi decision to exterminate the European Jewish population in extermination camps began to operate in early 1942. Six were built in occupied Poland: in Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Treblinka was much smaller than Auschwitz, and yet 800,000-850,000 Jews were killed there in a very short period of time.

Heinrich Himmler, the feared supreme head of the SS, and camp commander Rudolf Höss oversaw the expansion of the Auschwitz complex to build a second camp at Birkenau for industrial killings.

By the end of 1942 there were four separate gas chambers and crematoria.