Berlin President of the International Auschwitz Committee Turski dead
The President of the International Auschwitz Committee, Marian Turski, is dead. The Holocaust survivor died in Warsaw this afternoon at the age of 98, the committee announced. Turski had been elected president of the organization in 2021.
18.02.2025, 21:38
SDA
"Auschwitz survivors in many countries bid farewell with great pain and infinite gratitude to their friend, brother and fellow sufferer Marian Turski, who was heard all over the world as a powerful representative of their memories and as the voice of their murdered relatives," said Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the Committee.
Heubner: Increasing concern for Turski
As a journalist and contemporary witness, Turski followed the political developments with increasing concern right up to the last days of his life. He was dismayed by the flare-up of anti-Semitic and far-right ideologies across Europe and the rhetorical violence with which the representatives of these ideologies attempted to radicalize young people in particular, Heubner continued.
"All the more we are left with one of his last messages, the last sentence he formulated in his speech on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz for the commemoration ceremony on January 23 in Berlin: "Our days, those of the survivors, are numbered: But we will not fall silent if you, all of you, do not remain silent.""
In Nazi-occupied Poland, Turski and his family were imprisoned in the Lodz ghetto from 1942 before being deported to the German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in 1944. After his liberation, Turski worked as a journalist in Warsaw. He was a co-founder of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Roth praises Turski's fighting spirit and courage
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) said that Turski was a "man of incredible kindness, courage and fighting spirit." At the celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, he did not miss the opportunity to give a moving speech despite his serious illness. Turski will not only be missed as a tireless admonisher against forgetting, hatred and inhumanity and as a persistent representative of Holocaust survivors worldwide, but also as a person.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) emphasized on Platform X that Turski had called it the "eleventh commandment" not to be indifferent. "Not being indifferent is a task for the state - and a task for citizens that we carry forward. It is our duty," said Scholz. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) wrote on X: "His legacy is now a mission for all of us to carry on his message of remembrance of the Shoah & reconciliation in Europe."
The International Auschwitz Committee is an association of Auschwitz survivors and their organizations from 19 countries. It is based in Berlin. The name Auschwitz has become a synonym for the Holocaust and the epitome of evil in people's minds around the world. The National Socialists killed more than a million people there alone, most of them Jews. Throughout Europe, they murdered around six million Jews during the Shoah.
