Today, Tuesday January 27th, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It has been 70 years since the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945.
Auschwitz is actually more than just one camp. At its peak it included a network of dozens of camps all built and operated during World War II by Hitler's Third Reich in Silesia in occupied Poland. Auschwitz I and nearby Auschwitz II-Birkenau were the two main camps. Auschwitz I was primarily a work camp though tens of thousands died there.
Ok, on the one hand I don't want this website to be known as the WWII obituary page. On the other hand, a number of very notable participants in or survivors of the Second World War have passed away of late. And when it comes to someone like Alice Herz-Sommer...well let's just say that it behooves us to take note of her passing.
Alice Herz-Sommer was a remarkable person, and her advanced age of passing is only one of many things for which she should be remembered.
Last month we noted that the infamous war criminal Laszlo Csatary managed to escape justice and die at age 98 while awaiting trial for his crimes. However, this month things are looking up for those who support the rule of law. On September 3rd, German prosecutors announced that they are seeking to put 30 former Auschwitz death camp guards on trial for murder.
The 30 suspects all live in Germany, and their files have been referred to individual state level prosecutors who will decide whether to put them on trial.
Last year we reported on the discovery of and subsequent arrest of Nazi war criminal Laszlo Csatary in Budapest Hungary. Regrettably, the now 98 year old Csatary escaped justice when he died in Budapest last weekend while awaiting trial for his crimes.
Csatary is best known for being responsible for/participating in the deportation of an estimated 15,700 Jews while serving as a senior Hungarian police officer in the Hungarian ruled Slovakian city of Kosice.
Antoni Dobrowolski, the oldest known survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp died today in Debno, Poland. Born on October 8, 1904 Dobrowolski was 108 years old when he died. In a world where today the word "hero" is almost casually applied Dobrowolski truly was one.
A teacher, Dobrowolski practiced his profession during the World War II German occupation of Poland. What made him so memorable was that he continued to teach in spite of the fact that the Germans had banned education of most Poles past four years of elementary school.
Holocaust survivor Ernie Gross, age 83, and U.S. Army WWII veteran Don Greenbaum, age 87, were able to meet late last year in Philadelphia some 66 years after they unwittingly shared a day at a place and time in history that few people would ever want to be; Dachau concentration camp in April of 1945.
On April 29, 1945 Greenbaum was a G.I. in U.S. General George S. Patton's Third Army when the Third Army reached Dachau and its surviving victims.
Polish authorities have ordered a new investigation into the crimes against humanity committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The Germans murdered an estimated 1.5 million people at Auschwitz, located near Krakow, until the Red Army libereated the camp late in January 1945.
The crimes committed at Auschwitz were central to Nazi Germany's plans to create lebensraum in Eastern Europe - to be done mostly at the expense of the Slavic and Jewish people, though hundreds of thousands of Roma and other peoples characterized as "sub-human" were also murdered.
