January 27th 1945: Liberation Of Auschwitz

January 27th 1945: Liberation of Auschwitz

On this day in 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland was liberated by the Soviet Red Army. One of the most notorious camps of Nazi Germany, Jews and others persecuted by the Nazi regime were sent to Auschwitz from 1940 onwards. During its years in operation, over one million people died in Auschwitz, either from murder in the gas chambers or due to starvation and disease. As the war drew to a close and the Nazis steadily lost ground to the Allied forces, they began evacuating the camps and destroying evidence of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed there. The leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, ordered the evacuation of the remaining prisoners at the camp as the Soviet Red Army closed in on the area. Nearly 60,000 prisoners from Auschwitz were forced on a march toward Wodzisław Śląski (Loslau) where they would be sent to other camps; some 20,000 ended up in the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany. However, thousands died during the evacuation on the grueling marches, leading to them being called ‘death marches’. 7,500 weak and sick prisoners remained in Auschwitz, and they were liberated by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Soviet Red Army on January 27th 1945. Auschwitz remains one of the most powerful symbols of the Holocaust and the horrific crimes committed by the Nazi regime against Jews and numerous other groups.

New English Review

In Memoriam

by Phyllis Chesler Day after day, I stare at their beautiful faces, learn their names, and read about the Israeli soldiers who have fallen i

by Phyllis Chesler

Day after day, I stare at their beautiful faces, learn their names, and read about the Israeli soldiers who have fallen in battle. I try to imagine their lives in all the cities of the land, lives cut so short. I salute them. I weep for them, and will always remember them.

The fallen soldiers are mainly men–boys really–in their early twenties, although some are only 19. Thus far, over 500 Israeli soldiers have been killed in battle; 168 in Gaza since 10/7.

Demographically speaking, this is equivalent to approximately 18,444 fallen American soldiers.

In addition, three thousand members of the IDF have been wounded which is the equivalent, demographically, to 110,666 wounded American soldiers.

Although one does not hear about this very much, about 200,000 Israelis have been displaced, pulled back from both the north and the south. This is the demographic equivalent of more than seven–nearly eight–million displaced American civilians.

Imagine the cost of such relocation, imagine the trauma of such internal exile.

This is a nightmare, a horror, a continuation of the atrocities launched by Hamas against Israel on 10/7.

You would not know any of this if all you read was the Western media. With some honorable exceptions, your attention would be primarily focused on the number of Gazans dead–statistics which routinely combine Hamas’s soldiers with pro-Hamas Gazan civilians. Even so, one can never trust the totally untrustworthy statistics issued by Hamas.

Where is the media and activist outcry about the Red Cross’s craven refusal to visit the Israeli hostages and to deliver medicine to the sick and dying? Where is the world’s righteous indignation about the Arab Muslim world’s refusal to allow Gazan civilians even temporary asylum?

Jews have watered our ancient homeland with their blood. Arabs have always, always attacked Jews, whether they lived in Iraq or Syria, in Morocco or Iran, or in the Holy Land. Jihad against the infidel always meant “Kill the Jews first.”

In the 1948 war of Independence, 4000 Israeli soldiers and 2000 Israeli civilians were murdered.

I’ve been told that during the Six Day War of self-defense in 1967, more than 700 soldiers fell in six days but no one knew this, (there were no cellphones), and so “it did not affect morale.”

According to Ambassador Michael Oren, 2,656 Israeli soldiers were killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. 

So many wars of self-defense, so many false accusations that Israel launched only unjust wars of aggression.

Nine or more wars later–here we are again.

One Israeli told me that his young soldier son has just lost thirteen friends, “real friends,” who have fallen in battle, and “how each funeral is devastating.” But he adds: “When you see the amazing kids this country has raised, you feel even more how lucky they were to grow up in this country and that this truly is a special place worth defending.”

Another Israeli described the unending shiva calls and how “the burial grounds are a place of honor, love, solace, and community. When one visits the homes of the bereaved, the mourners are surrounded by supporters from their towns and loved ones.”

The spirit of the people is amazing. I received a Newsletter about how a platoon of army reservists on their way to Gaza were treated at the Jerusalem market. The entire line of shoppers insisted on paying for their food and would not take “No” for an answer.

A third Israeli broke my heart with her eloquence. She wrote: “These dutiful Israeli soldiers will not grow old. Nor hug their parents again, nor meet someone they will love, nor parent, nor stroll in a Nature preserve in their beautiful land….ever again.”

Finally, the most humbling email I’ve received to date, was from an Israeli mother whose sons were in combat. She said that my words sustained her and functioned as a light in the darkness.

Oh, but they will all be enshrined in both history and memory. However, they were so young! I am about sixty years older than many of them and thousands of miles away. How many universes have been lost? How many future children and grandchildren will never be born?

When will the American government finally understand that Islamist Jihad is a religious war against infidels, (Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Baha’i), a war launched by Islamist barbarians? What will it take for Western journalists and academics to understand that the Jihadists are coming for the Sunday people next; that Iran has Europe and America in its gunsights?

Most important, when will our government decide to respond to Iran’s attacks on America?

“Auch Adorno hat sein Buch, auf seine Weise, in Fragmenten geschrieben. Ohne offenkundigen Willen zur Fragmentierung, vielmehr, wie mir scheint, infolge einer extrem und beinahe bis zur Unerträglichkeit gespannten Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber dem harte Widerspruch innerhalb jener Dialektik ‘vom Standpunkt des Bewußtseins’ bei Hegel, die alles das ihrer Identität vindiziert, was von ihr differiert. Adorno versucht (ich sage nicht, es gelingt ihm, das gäbe keinen Sinn) nicht etwa, den Widerspruch zu erhalten, sondern den Bruch auszuhalten. Das Negative bei ihm und das Fragment bei Blanchot stellen den Versuch dar, aus dem Meistern eine Probe zu machen.”

— Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe und Jean-Luc Nancy: Noli me tangere, in: Fragment und Totalität, Frankfurt am Main 1984, S. 70.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

January 27 marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated this day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD), an annual day of commemoration to honor the victims of the Nazi era.

From 1940 to 1945, more than 1.1 million men, women and children were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp. 90% of them were Jews. All were innocent. Today, we remember

Never Again.

Source: yadvashem.org

אמילי הנד פוגשת את אביה תומאס, לאחר ששוחררה משבי חמאס, 26 בנובמבר, 2023 (צילום: דובר צה"ל)

9-year-old Emily Hand reunites with her father, Thomas, after she was released from hamas captivity. November 26, 2023 (photo credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)