Representing Austria

80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp

Poland's President Andrzej Duda(Bild: AFP)

Today, Monday, marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and Minister Susanne Raab, among others, traveled from Austria to attend.

On January 27, 1945, Red Army soldiers entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. This was the largest German complex of prison camps; the German Reich had annexed this part of Poland. To mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation, there will be a commemorative ceremony today (Monday) with around 60 heads of state and government.

Family Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) is representing the interim Chancellor and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP). The delegation also includes Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna, Oskar Deutsch, and the Director of the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance, Andreas Kranebitter.

Commemoration of the Holocaust victims in Auschwitz on Monday(Bild: AP/Oded Balilty)

Macron in conversation with two survivors(Bild: AP/Thibault Camus)

Peter Haubner (front) and Ambassador Andreas Stadler(Bild: Büro Haubner)

Macron and Scholz expected
We must "remain vigilant when anti-democratic forces emerge", Van der Bellen said in a video message on Monday. Threats and insults against Jewish people must not be tolerated. "It is our shared responsibility to keep the memory of the victims alive forever. Their fate is harrowing proof of what hatred and hate speech can lead to," said Haubner in a statement. He is currently on a working visit to Poland and laid a wreath at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial.

Internationally, the Kings of Great Britain (Charles III) and Spain (Felipe VI) have announced their attendance, as well as Germany's Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, France's President Emmanuel Macron and EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola. A speech by Polish President Andrzej Duda was planned for the morning, with the commemoration ceremony starting at 16:00.

Exhibition dedicated to Austria
The Nazis murdered around one million European Jews in the Auschwitz camp complex alone between 1940 and 1945. In addition, around 80,000 non-Jewish Poles, 25,000 Roma and 20,000 Soviet soldiers were murdered.

Austria has its own national exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum. It was opened in 2021 by Federal President Van der Bellen.