Auschwitz 70th Anniversary: Death Camp Survivors Warn Against New Threats

On Tuesday, the Auschwitz death camp, Poland, was marked by gatherings from countries from many parts of the world to commemorate the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. However, the international gathering did not see the leader of the country, Russia, which was at the forefront of the liberation 70 years ago.

There were 12 presidents, five prime ministers some 300 survivors, where more than 1.4 million people, most of them European Jews, were killed over five years by Nazis.

This is a major anniversary for most survivors. The youngest ex-prisoners in the death camp are now in their 70s. Some Auschwitz survivors appealed that there should be no repeat of the crimes of 70 years ago.

"We survivors do not want our past to be our children's future," Roman Kent, born in 1929, told a memorial gathering at the death camp's site in Poland, according to bbc.com.

There were 300 Auschwitz survivors who turned up. Those who were killed included 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, between 1940 and 1945, when the Soviets freed them.

Ronald S Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said that "Jews are targeted in Europe once again because they are Jews... Once again young Jewish boys are afraid to wear yarmulkes [skullcaps] on the streets of Paris, Budapest, London and even Berlin."

On the eve of the anniversary, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that Auschwitz reminds everyone of the path of hatred.

"Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by Soviet troops," she said. "Today the word 'Auschwitz' is a synonym for a mechanism of mass persecution and murder used by the national-socialists."

"We Germans feel great shame for what happened. Germans are guilty of the suffering and the deaths of millions of people, and some Germans tolerated it. We don't want to hear slogans full of hatred against people who are believers or believe in different religions," the German leader added.

She slammed German forces who were on the side of the self-styled 'anti-Islamization' movement PEGIDA, thousands of members who march in many German cities. The movement opposes "hostile" immigrants, who are viewed by German politicians as "xenophobic " like the Nazis.

Even as foreign dignitaries met in Poland, it was a crisis that pulled down the relations between Russia and Western nations to the nadir since the Cold War. Poland has not invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Auschwitz.

Warsaw did not ban Putin, but changed this year's schedule, without inviting any foreign leader. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is slated to be a guest of honor at the Tuesday commemoration, even as he was given a personal invitation by Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz.

Russia is represented by Sergey Ivanov, who head's Putin's office. The Russian president is slated to be part of a Jewish museum and tolerance center in Moscow, according to the Kremlin.

Another world leader who was not present was US President Barack Obama, who decided to visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Last week Polish Foreign Minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, appreciated the liberation of the prisoners of the death camp to Ukrainians, as the liberating force was named the 1st Ukrainian front of the Red Army.

However, that statement is "historically inaccurate", as the name of the front is based on the territory where it had its operations, with soldiers from various ethnicities, including Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, Chechens, Poles and many others. A lot of censures were hurled at Schetyna, who admitted that he erred as he generalized an incident of the liberation. A gate from the death camp's facilities were removed by a tank driven by a Ukrainian soldier.

To set the record straight, the Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday brought to light a number of documents from the archives, one of which is the troop roster of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

The records showed 39 of the most numerous ethnic groups for soldiers, NCOs and officers enlisted in the 60th Army. There were 22,294 Russian soldiers, 12,603 Russian NCOs and 7,501 Russian officers, totaling 42,398 troops. With regard to the Ukrainians, the numbers were 28,347, 7,568 and 2,126, respectively, totaling 38,041 troops. There were also 1,210 Belarusians, 1,088 Tatars, 1,073 Jews, 838 Uzbeks, 711 Kazakhs, 555 Armenians, 546 Georgians and smaller groups of people of other ethnic origins, including Greeks and Chinese.

Schetyna's words as well as the debacle over the Auschwitz ceremony continue to foment suspicions in Russia that the Polish government is changing historical events to prod an anti-Russian agenda. Warsaw has so far criticized Moscow over the Ukrainian crisis supports political forces that cornered Kiev in an armed coup in February.