Monday, January 27
Holocaust Remembrance Day: Berlin marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz
At around 15:00 on the afternoon of January 27, 1945, soldiers of the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp. Although the majority of the prisoners had already been forcibly marched away, the Soviet soldiers discovered that 7,000 prisoners had stayed behind, many seriously ill due to the effects of their imprisonment.
Since 2005, January 27 has been observed internationally as Holocaust Remembrance Day. This year, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, numerous events are taking place across Berlin.
At 10:00 on Monday, Berlin football clubs will visit the Platform 17 memorial at Grunewald station. This memorial commemorates the train platform from which many Jewish people were deported from Berlin to various camps. The Mitte district office is also inviting people at 10:00 for a commemoration at the memorial site of Moabit freight station. At 18:00, at the Lichtenberg Museum, a memorial event will take place during which the names of over 300 Jews expelled and murdered from Lichtenberg and Hohenschönhausen will be projected onto the gable wall of the town hall. This will remain visible until the early hours of January 28.
Pointedly, the memorial foundation responsible for many of today’s commemorations has decided not to invite AfD politicians, due to objections from guests and relatives of survivors. In recent years, many Holocaust memorials across Germany have raised concerns about the rise of right-wing symbols and provocations at memorial sites.
