International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Reminiscences and Lessons to be Learnt

International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This date is commemorated every year on the 27th of January, as per the 2005 resolution passed by UN General Assembly. It is dedicated to the date of January 27th, 1945, when prisoners of the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, were liberated. Approximately 1.3 million people went through this factory of death; over a million of these were murdered by the Nazis. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. And today, the world honours the memory of the victims of the Nazi regime: Jews, Roma people, Poles, and Ukrainians, all of whom were exterminated by the Nazi due to their ethnic origin. Last year, our journalist, Daria Vorona, visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, and shared her memories and stories she heard from other visitors.

«Notes of life and freedom breaking into the camp do not bring joy but make me feel even more pain»

I have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, and my impressions are going to be with me forever. Every step, every glance, every breath one takes are heavy and invisible there, as if they were the spirits of the fallen standing next to me. I do not believe in any mystical phenomena. But it was only in Auschwitz I felt the presence of people who are not alive any more. I sensed their pain, their despair—and their incredible strength.

As I am writing these lines, I feel how, once again, the camp’s dry air touches my skin—as I felt back then, standing in that horrendous place. I just cannot cry as my heart is unable to process the entirety of pain I feel there. I was just standing there, petrified, froze every time I made a step, at every barrack, where once the screams were heard, where there was despair and death. Now, though, there is only silence—which strikes a nerve, same as the camp itself does.

This is an empty place, with not a soul in it... but it is full of horror. A place that makes you feel you are an alien, deprived of any right to live. And you just want to disappear into the blue, to flee all that—yet you’re unable to. It appears that the image of Dementors in Harry Potter books has been created using these horrendous vibes as prototypes. Whatever light, whatever kind, whatever joyful there is—it all abandons you right here,  leaving only emptiness inside.

Notes of life and freedom breaking into the camp do not bring joy but make me feel even more pain. This unbearably green grass. This gentle sun. The tops of trees out there somewhere, at the horizon… And the burnt-out brown earth. And the ruins of the barracks. And the cynically smooth, pedantically evenly constructed hives of the ‘administrative sector’.     

«For many years, the Roma victims and the memory of them stayed in the shadows»

I am a relatively young and healthy woman but after a couple of hours of this ‘sightseeing tour’, I was physically and mentally exhausted. That was only after a couple of hours… What then, would one expect from those who spent days in this concentration camp, suffering from abuse and trying to survive? Those who were famished, exhausted, ill. They were unable to escape all that; they could not just ‘exit the territory’ and see the world of the living ones. They were driven to the edge, forced to work, without water, food, rain or shine. They had no choice. And that was but one of the millions of instances of suffering which went down to history.

The actual hell is what you cannot see right away. For a long time, no one was telling the truth. History of this was suppressed for years, particularly the story of the genocide of the Roma people—one of the first ethnic groups deported by the Nazis into the camps. People who survived tons of horror and suffering—same as Jews did. Yet for many years, the Roma victims and the memory of them had remained in the shadows. Nay, even today, we often refrain from discussing that, never giving a thought to the fact of how much pain and sorrow Roma families went through.

«80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The world must remember» 

It is the 27th of August, 1945. The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front enter the premises of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. The truth comes out into the world, disseminating rapidly.

It is the 27th of August, 2025. We talk about the inhumanity of the Nazi regime. Of how important it is to not let history repeat itself. Of how the world must remember.

I hate to be the sceptic one. But things our eastern neighbour has done speak for themselves. Lessons have not been learnt. The world is waiting…

But today, we honour the memory of the victims of the Second World War, whose only ‘fault’ was... What was it, actually? I know not how one would describe the ‘criteria’ of the ‘racial purity’.   

No one will leave this place the person he or she was before

I am not alone in my emotional upheaval. The Ukrainian group participating in the Dikh He Na Bister project told us what they felt as they were visiting this camp of death.

And here are their stories.

«Criminals unpunished produce a new generation of followers; agency unrestored makes genocide a scar unhealed. Voices not restored forever remain under the skin of their descendants and become a burden which does not allow them to ignite the flame of their own history. It is as if we’re trying to break free, holding a candle that dies out before we even make our first step. And we seem to be not even there; we seem to be standing next to the destroyed walls of the barrack which had an intention to cover up the crimes, and then to raze it to the ground. It is as of we’re looking for new words again—the words which may be used to describe all that. Despite the fact that these words had existed for a long time now, we are denied the right to be heard nonetheless». Yeva Yakubivska

«Every lesson, every glance on those walls felt me with a profound feeling of something unfathomable, something utterly unbelievable that happened here. As we descended into the dungeons where the prisoners were once kept, I sensed how full of fear and despair these walls were. Here, the silence was not calm; it was instead felt with muted screams which sort of sounded from the depth of our past. Each and every item, each and every detail—from ventilation grilles to traces on the walls—filled me with a new wave of anxiety. Hundreds, thousands of suitcases which once contained hopes and dreams of their owners have now become elements of ‘museum specimens’. The kitchenware once used for ordinary family dinners, the tiny shoes… All of that is now a reminder of lives torn apart». Kateryna Kulykovska 

«Every day now, thousands of people walk around this concentration camp, observing the colours of genocide, feeling absolutely safe. They take photos, contemplate, and repeat ‘Never Again’. The sightseeing guide, standing in the barrack full of personal belongings, says: «imagine how it was to cram your entire life into a single suitcase», «just imagine, the Nazis were confiscating personal belongings from the camp inmates and then reselling them». People sigh and make more photos of the suitcases behind the platen glass. And now, all of a sudden, this little universe of mine begins to stretch, chaotically, painfully, in space and time. What is it that I am doing here, in this camp? Am I an observer? Or am I a witness?

Or am I a museum specimen that will never be displayed to anyone, as my time has not come yet? As testimony has not been documented yet, as deep concern has not been expressed yet, and as it has not been placed behind the platen glass, as stipulated by decree?

I wish to scream at the top of my voice but I cannot even move my lips. Yet, we are walking on, as we only have fifteen minutes to see the next barrack. Not a minute more. And I am carrying my exhibition in silence—alongside thousands of others, dead as well as living, whose time has not come yet». Samira TYMCHENKO

As you enter Auschwitz, you are a person schooled in history, understanding how horrendous the extermination of numerous ethnicities and social groups was. Yet you leave this camp as quite a different person. These memories, these impressions are never going to abandon you. It seems that I can still hear the screams off Auschwitz crematoria. That I can see a Sonderkommando loading dead bodies. That I can see new trains arrive.

This isn’t any kind of inspiration. This is life with no ornamentation

Speaking about art, we usually imagine something sublime, something inspirational. But these books make one feel pain. They tell the story of reality which is murderous. Yet these are the very books one should read. Books about Auschwitz.

Out of a multitude of options, we have selected several ones recommended by the ARCA team.  

1. Farby Wodne (Water Colour Drawings) by Lidia Ostałowska. We used to write about this book in detail sometime earlier. See our review here: Art or a way to survive? How a concentration camp has turned a talent into an instrument of extermination

2. Jonathan Friedland’s The Escape Artist. The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World. This book is written in plain English, yet it brings out a maelstrom of emotions. It is about a man that managed to escape hell—only to face more abuse and mental torture afterwards. The book does not actually mention Roma people. But it asks the right question: why had the world been silent for so long?

3. The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive by Lucy J. Adlington. A book describing how inmates tried and managed to survive by doing miscellaneous jobs. And how that job—humane, or so it seemed—was hypocritical and cynical nonetheless. To make an haute couture attire in a concentration camp? Surrealism… and yet, reality.      

So do read, see it for yourselves. The story of Auschwitz is of immediate interest even today, and it will never not be significant. As it is impossible to comprehend the scope of this evil. As we have no right to forgive and forget.

To the eternal memory of all those that have perished in the camps.