good evening from southern poland where
we're on perhaps the most
infamous site in europe the former nazi
death camp at
auschwitz world leaders joined survivors
here to keep alive the memory of the
victims
six million people mostly jewish were
murdered by the nazis
more than a million of them in this camp
well 75 years ago today the soviet army
liberated auschwitz
and it came to symbolize the horror of
the nazi regime
today's ceremony had at its heart the
survivors who urged the world never to
forget the suffering here
our world affairs editor john simpson
was watching
[Music]
each anniversary there are fewer
survivors yet even after 75 years there
are still
thousands of them left
soon after dawn today igor malitzky
prisoner number 188005
took part in a ceremony at the wall
where tens of thousands were shot
nowadays auschwitz is protected and
restored
so the world won't forget the terrible
things that happened here
the infamous gateway to auschwitz was
covered over with a
vast awning to protect the guests from
the bitter cold of southern poland
royalty world politicians though no
british ministers among them
religious leaders but above all the
survivors themselves
many proudly wore the blue and white
stripes
of the pajamas which the auschwitz
inmates were forced to wear
rose upon rows of seemingly unremarkable
elderly people
who are among the last living witnesses
of
unimaginable cruelty the worst crime in
human history
here in this great factory of death
in auschwitz-birkenau i remember naked
women driven in trucks from the barracks
to the gas chamber
i can hear them screaming i can hear it
in my subconscious when i remember those
events
as another speaker noted nothing was
done
to stop the slaughter rickshaw
maybe i would like to cry because only
with tears i can tell you about this
past
i hope you will all try to preserve the
memory of this place
and other sites where innocent people
died
i hope you'll bear this responsibility
so that this terrible thing
will never happen again
[Music]
there were thousands of nazi
concentration camps
but auschwitz was by far the worst
1.3 million people were brought here
and 1.1 million of them died
the plan was to use industrial methods
to wipe out the jewish people
understandably many ex-prisoners are
reluctant to come back
among them haya frisch who lives in
israel
she was sent to auschwitz from hungary
at the age of 20
with her parents and sister now though
she's decided she's got to show her
daughter
what it was like
with 70 others she was jammed into a
railway truck like this for three days
with no food or water
her mother and sister survived with her
her father was sent directly to the gas
chamber
like her father they took her father he
said
he said that the father was
not right side and that's it they didn't
see him anymore
tonight after the gathering at the
auschwitz gateway
the guests went out and walked along the
railway line
where dr joseph mengele the so-called
angel of death
had once decided which of the new
arrivals
should live or die they placed candles
at the monument
this terrible death camp was planned to
wipe out the jewish people
failed utterly john simpson
bbc news auschwitz
[Music]
well among those who did manage to
survive their time at auschwitz was
anita laska val fish
who's now 94. she arrived here fearing
the worst but she escaped death by
saying that she was a musician
and in this place of mass murder torture
and starvation was signed up to play in
the women's orchestra
i went to speak to the woman who came to
be known as the cellist of auschwitz
at her home in north london
there's a funny picture of me sitting on
the floor with the
children's broom in the comb and i was
scraping that thing
and i think my parents must have seen
that and said i think she wants to play
the cello
anita laska val fish arrived in
auschwitz in 1943.
fearing she was destined for the gas
chamber prisoners sit
and do the work of shaving your head and
tattooing a number on your arm
so this girl asked me where do you come
from and what did you do before the war
and like an idiot i said well i used to
play the cello she said fantastic
you'd be saved our job
was every morning to sit at the gate and
play marches
for all the workers who worked out into
the factory and in the evening we had to
go against it outside the camp
play marches again for the people who
came back in and we survived like we
knew very well as long as they want
music
we will exist the cello saved my life
how on earth did you endure that
environment you lived from one
day to the other today i'm alive
tomorrow probably not
so that's what life was very very short
notice yeah
after the horrors of the war her love of
music dominated her life
she helped found the english chamber
orchestra trying to put the past behind
her
what has been the effect on your life
afterwards of being a survivor
well i think i have never lost my sense
of appreciation that i am alive and i
have a house and i have enough food and
yeah i've never lost
being grateful somehow and appreciate
what i've got
but the trauma didn't end her daughter
maya says she's been profoundly affected
by being the child of a holocaust
survivor
without a doubt i absorbed
unconsciously all of the trauma
that my mother tried so hard to contain
so
my parents my mother really could not
understand
why if i and this is absolutely literal
if i wasn't about to be killed and if i
wasn't starving what was my problem
have you ever been bitter i'm not bitter
i'm
i'm sad that really nothing seems to
have changed people kill each other as
we are speaking now
why why
well there was the extraordinary anita
laska val fish there
well three quarters of a century has
passed since this camp was liberated but
there remains inevitably
an eerie haunting chill to this place
many of the old buildings are still here
including those where so many met their
deaths today's event is possibly the
last major gathering of the survivors
last time five years ago there were 300
who came
this time just over 200 their message
in a world where anti-semitism is on the
rise the monstrous crimes committed here
must never
be forgotten with that it's back to you
clive
rita thank you rita chakrabarti there
live in southern poland