Even though the liberation of large territories by the military forces of the anti-Hitler coalition from the fascist occupiers had already brought impressive successes in 1944, January 27, 1945 remains a symbolic date. For many years now, January 27 has been observed worldwide as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust, as decided by the United Nations. This day is inextricably linked to the liberation achievement of the Soviet armed forces, who reached the Auschwitz extermination camp on this date.
Important Polish cities had already been liberated by the Red Army in the preceding days, including the Polish capital Warsaw on January 17, after the Warsaw Uprising of the “Home Army” in the summer of 1944 had been crushed with great severity. On January 19, the southern Polish city of Krakow was liberated. It took until January 27, 1945, before the 60th Army of the I Ukrainian Front, whose commander-in-chief was Marshal Ivan S. Konev, succeeded in liberating the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Auschwitz – and this must be emphasized again and again – still stands today as a symbol of the incomprehensible monstrosity of the fascist extermination policy. Between the summer of 1940 and January 1945, over 1.3 million people from all over Europe, Jews, Sinti and Roma, political opponents and other marginalized people were deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, and at least 1.1 million were murdered in the gas chambers, by shooting or by “extermination through work” for the IG Farben Group and other armaments companies.
Although the transportable prisoners of the camp had been herded onto death transports in the previous days, units of the Waffen SS and the Wehrmacht still put up fierce military resistance, so that over 230 Soviet soldiers lost their lives during the liberation of Auschwitz. On the morning of January 27, 1945, the 322nd Infantry Division of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Colonel General Pavel A. Kurochkin first reached the Monowitz camp. Later that day, Auschwitz I and Birkenau, where they liberated a total of around 7,000 sick and exhausted prisoners, some of whom died during their first days of freedom. Among those liberated were over 200 children up to the age of 15, mostly twins, who were intended as test subjects for SS doctors. On the site itself, the Soviet soldiers found around 600 dead – prisoners who had been shot by SS men immediately before they left.
These facts must never be forgotten. After all, they are symbolic of all the crimes of Nazism and the liberating achievements of the anti-Hitler coalition. Survivors of Auschwitz quite rightly declared in a message at the beginning of March 1945: “We, the rescued former prisoners, owe our rescue to the brave Red Army and ask the international public and their governments to take note of this and to thank them on our behalf.”
It is all the more scandalous that this liberation achievement has been falsified by the Polish government for many years – and not just since the Russian-Ukrainian war – and that efforts are being made to suppress it from the public consciousness. On the 75th anniversary of the liberation, neither the government nor the city administration commemorated the liberation of Warsaw, but veterans of the war and anti-fascist organizations did. And although German President Steinmeier was invited to the international commemoration ceremony in Auschwitz on January 27, no representative of the Russian Federation was invited. Such political ignorance towards the liberators has not changed with the Tusk government compared to previous governments. On the contrary, it can now even refer to the European Union, where “forgetting” the Soviet liberators has become “European history policy”.
The FIR and its member federations are not willing to follow such a revision of history. They will continue to take this date as an opportunity to commemorate the victims of the fascist extermination policy and at the same time pay tribute to the liberation achievements of the Red Army fighters as part of the anti-Hitler coalition – especially on January 27, 2025.
