‘Memory hurts, memory guides’: Auschwitz survivors mark anniversary with warnings over rising antisemitism

Stanisław Zalewski, whose scarf carries the stripes of the Auschwitz-Birkenau prison uniforms, was one of several Holocaust survivors who was able to attend the ceremony. Photograph: Wojtek Radwański/AFP/Getty Images

On a day of startling blue skies, Auschwitz survivors stood before princes and presidents on Monday to remind the world, perhaps for the final time, of the horrors they suffered there during one of the darkest moments of human history.

Beneath a white marquee erected in front of the gate to the former Nazi death camp, four former inmates – the youngest 86, the oldest 99 – warned world leaders on the 80th anniversary of its liberation against the danger of rising antisemitism.