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Auschwitz survivors mark 76 years since liberation, online amid pandemic
Holocaust survivors will commemorate their lost loved ones on Wednesday, as the world marks 76 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Author: VANESSA GERA Associated Press Published: 5:16 AM EST January 27, 2021 Updated: 7:27 AM EST January 27, 2021
WARSAW, Poland Tova Friedman hid among corpses at Auschwitz amid the chaos of the extermination camp s final days.
Just 6 years old at the time, the Poland-born Friedman was instructed by her mother to lie absolutely still in a bed at a camp hospital, next to the body of a young woman who had just died. As German forces preparing to flee the scene of their genocide went from bed to bed shooting anyone still alive, Friedman barely breathed under a blanket and went unnoticed.
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Roses with a note saying #weremember are placed on the Holocaust Memorial on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Berlin, Germany, January 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) Tova Friedman hid among corpses at Auschwitz amid the chaos of the Nazi extermination camp’s final days.
Just 6 years old at the time, the Poland-born Friedman was instructed by her mother to lie absolutely still in a bed at a camp hospital, next to the body of a young woman who had just died. As German forces preparing to flee the scene of their genocide went from bed to bed shooting anyone still alive, Friedman barely breathed under a blanket and went unnoticed.
The world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Across Europe, the victims were remembered and honoured in various ways.
In Austria and Slovakia, hundreds of survivors were offered their first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus in a gesture both symbolic and truly lifesaving given the threat of the virus to older adults.
In Israel, some 900 Holocaust survivors died from COVID-19 out of the 5300 who were infected last year, the country s Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday.
Pope Francis warned from the Vatican that distorted ideologies can end up destroying a people and humanity.
Meanwhile, Luxembourg signed a deal agreeing to pay reparations and to restitute dormant bank accounts, insurance policies and looted art to Holocaust survivors.
Jan 27, 2021
Roses with a note saying #weremember , are placed on the Holocaust Memorial on International Holocaust Remembrance Day today in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) A Jewish prayer for the souls of people murdered in the Holocaust echoed today over where the Warsaw ghetto stood during World War II as a world paused by the coronavirus pandemic observed the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Most International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations were being held online this year due to the virus, including the annual ceremony at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland. The memorial site is closed to visitors because of the pandemic.