Holocaust survivors issue warning 80 years after Auschwitz liberation

STORY: Holocaust survivor Eva Szepesi has a warning for the world: don’t let history repeat itself.

Asked about how she views rising antisemitism and right-wing populism, she said:

“It is terrifying. It is definitely terrifying that it is like this. And that is why we have to do something about it in the very beginning. Because the Shoah did not begin with Auschwitz, but with words, silence, and society looking away. And every single person should do something to ensure that something like this never happens again.”

The 92-year-old survived Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp liberated 80 years ago by Soviet troops.

She’s among a group of survivors voicing concern about the current political climate.

During a visit to the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, she recalled being a young girl and on the brink of death at Auschwitz.

She said prison guards mistakenly thought she was dead already and left her behind.

She did not speak about her experiences for decades.

In 2016, she discovered a death list containing the names of her mother and brother.

“And then I was able to grieve, to cry, I couldn’t do that before.”

Ninety-six-year-old Teresa Regula was also brought to Auschwitz.

It’s difficult to make out the numbers the Nazis tattooed on Regula’s arm, but they’re fresh in her mind:

“Twenty-two, zero, eleven,” she said.

Once a healthy child, she contracted chickenpox, measles, and scarlet fever in the camp.

The thought of reuniting with her father kept her alive.

Those dreams were dashed when she later found out he had been mistakenly shot by Russian forces when they liberated the concentration camp he was in.

Speaking at her home in Krakow, Poland, she says terrible things are happening in the world.

“(People) didn’t draw any conclusions,” she said, adding she chose not to have children so they wouldn’t have to go through anything like what she suffered.

Janina Iwanska, a Polish Catholic woman sent to Auschwitz at almost the same time as Regula in 1944, also remained childless.

She is worried about the generations of children to come.

“What will their future be like? Because I see it as bleak. Bleak. Because I remember before 1939 hatred was created between people… pitting some people against others, treating others as a slightly lower, worse race. And what came of it? But what is now is still on a much, much larger scale.”