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Struggle to mark horror of Auschwitz
By Tom Hundley Tribune foreign correspondent
On Jan. 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers from the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Sixty years later, leaders from more than 40 nations will gather Thursday beside the snow-covered ruins of the camp's Crematorium No. 2 to mark the occasion.
Tribute will be paid to the victims and survivors. There will be speeches and somber music as comfortable societies attempt to grasp some meaning in the systematic murder of 1.1 million people, to find something ennobling in the agonies of this place.
But in the end, there is nothing ennobling about Auschwitz.
"There are two options," said Michael Schudrich, an American who is chief rabbi of Poland.
"We can say Auschwitz is so horrible, it should just be buried and forgotten; so horrible, there is no purpose in gathering together," he said. "Or we can ask ourselves: What would those murdered at Auschwitz want? What is the way that we can most effectively pass their message on to the next generation?"
Struggle to mark horror of Auschwitz
By Tom Hundley Tribune foreign correspondent
On Jan. 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers from the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Sixty years later, leaders from more than 40 nations will gather Thursday beside the snow-covered ruins of the camp's Crematorium No. 2 to mark the occasion.
Tribute will be paid to the victims and survivors. There will be speeches and somber music as comfortable societies attempt to grasp some meaning in the systematic murder of 1.1 million people, to find something ennobling in the agonies of this place.
But in the end, there is nothing ennobling about Auschwitz.
"There are two options," said Michael Schudrich, an American who is chief rabbi of Poland.
"We can say Auschwitz is so horrible, it should just be buried and forgotten; so horrible, there is no purpose in gathering together," he said. "Or we can ask ourselves: What would those murdered at Auschwitz want? What is the way that we can most effectively pass their message on to the next generation?"
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