200 Holocaust Survivors Gather for Auschwitz Liberation 80th Anniversary

During the live stream from a ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former death camp in Poland, Holocaust survivors at the Museum of Jewish Heritage stand in tribute to those who perished. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

As children they faced the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. Today, in their 80s and 90s, they are the last of a dwindling number of survivors, witnesses to Nazi killing camps, death marches and forced starvations. On Jan. 27, more than 200 survivors gathered at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It was the largest U.S. gathering of survivors for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Seated around tables facing a giant screen, they watched the simulcast of the commemorative event in Poland, where those like themselves, along with dignitaries, sat beneath a large tent at the entrance to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. 

As they watched the proceeding, each held his or her own memories of seemingly unbearable loss and hardship, but also the miracle of survival. Among them was Eugene Ginter, 85, a retired engineer who as a child nearing his sixth birthday, survived a death march days before the liberation. 

“All these people were being shot and the entire road would look like pick-up sticks,” he remembered. “Bodies laying in every position and people trying to save themselves trying to walk faster. The Germans at the end of the line were just shooting, shooting, shooting. But the guards that shot us, they ran away.” 

“I have nightmares, but they become less and less,” he said. “Now they only come once a month or so, twice a month. Before they used to come all the time.”

Nearby sat Rosalie Simon, who is frequently asked to speak at schools and she shares her own story. Now 93, she was 12 when Dr. Josef Mengele selected her to go to the gas chamber with her mother. “But as we stood in line,” she recalled, “over a loudspeaker they said all those people that are going to the left will receive more bread. They fooled us. I was very close with my five sisters and I wanted them to get more bread as well. So I turned around and ran to get my sisters. Once I got there, I couldn't go back because there were SS with guns and they wouldn’t let me go back. I was devastated for leaving my mother. She  perished the same day with my 13-year-old brother. However, because I went to get my sisters, I survived.” 

Now she is "so thankful," she added, "that I can tell my story to thousands of students in schools, and teach them what happened."