That dreadful watchtower had been encased in a colossal heated tent, a cattle wagon parked beneath its arch.
Lined up before this gateway of death, they gathered for the last time – the handful of eyewitnesses to history’s greatest abomination.
Such was the backdrop to yesterday’s commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, held inside a giant marquee to protect the most important guests – 56 very elderly Holocaust survivors – from the elements. Bathed in the soft glow of television studio lights, the terrifying tower looked almost cosy.
Yet it was fooling no one. Nor was that vintage wooden railway truck, spruced up with a new lick of paint.
For these exalted VIPs, this setting was – and always will be – the entrance to Hell. Hence some had already decided this would be their last return.
Fresh carpet might have been laid down for yesterday’s event. Underneath it, however, were the same rail tracks leading out across that glacial, marshy hellscape to the genocidal gas chambers beyond.
It was in an identical cattle wagon that five-year-old Tova Friedman arrived here in the summer of 1944.
‘Hot, hungry, thirsty and very terrified, I held very tightly to my mother’s hand for countless hours,’ she told us, clearly and defiantly, standing near the same spot where she first clapped eyes on Auschwitz: ‘A gloomy Sunday with a sky obscured by smoke and a terrible stink in the air.’
King Charles at the ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland on Monday
King Charles III wipes his eye during a commemoration event at Auschwitz-Birkenau on Monday
A wreath laid by King Charles at the ‘Death Wall’ as part of the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation
King Charles (left) passes throughout the famous gate of Auschwitz with its slogan ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work Will Set You Free) as he tours the camp as part of commemorations on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by the Red Army
Her eloquent, intensely harrowing account of seeing her father cry for the first time, of her child’s-eye view of the teeth of a snarling alsatian, of watching countless tiny Jewish children her own age marched to their deaths, brought monarchs, presidents and prime ministers to their feet in an emotional standing ovation.
Mrs Friedman had not even shared with them one of the most sobering parts of her own story: on the day she herself was scheduled for the gas chamber, it was broken.
Holocaust Memorial Day never feels more raw and gruesome than here at the most evil killing ground of them all.
When the original Auschwitz complex could no longer cope, the Nazis built this vast industrial extension, known as Birkenau. It is where more than a million died, most of them Jewish men, women and children.
The date honours all victims of the Holocaust but is fixed each year on January 27.
Yesterday, the King joined the leaders of more than 50 nations for the 80th anniversary of that afternoon in 1945 when freedom arrived in the form of the Soviet 100th Rifle Division.
Contemporary conflicts meant that Russia, the liberating nation, was not invited to yesterday’s ceremony.
They also gave the proceedings an uncompromising reality check.
In years gone by, these anniversaries might have had the feel of a history lesson. Not this time. As all yesterday’s speakers made clear, the world could be on the cusp of a repeat.
Holocaust survivor Tova Friedman addresses the audience during the memorial ceremony at Auschwitz on Monday
Tova Friedman as a little girl in Poland before being sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp
The Princess of Wales lights a candle during a ceremony commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday in London
‘Our Jewish-Christian values have been overshadowed by oppression, fear and extremism and the rampant anti-Semitism is shocking to all of us,’ declared Tova Friedman. ‘Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is fighting for its very existence.’
The state of play was laid out even more starkly by the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, who pointed to the lack of global outrage after Hitler’s ‘Kristallnacht’ offensive against the Jews in 1938.
‘When Hitler heard that silence, he knew he could do whatever he wanted to the Jews,’ said New York-born Mr Lauder, 80, who has devoted a significant part of the family’s cosmetics fortune to preserving Auschwitz for future generations.
Turning to the surge of anti-Semitism since the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, he continued: ‘These lessons from Auschwitz are not just for Jews. they are for the entire world.
‘Because Jews are the canaries in the coal mine. The canary died 15 months ago on October 7.’
The most moving part of the ceremony was the sight of the survivors being helped forward with their candles of remembrance.
For one elderly woman, it was all too much and she collapsed, sobbing, into the arms of a young relative.
Next came the world leaders. Some, such as King Frederik of Denmark, were well wrapped-up in coat and scarf.
Harrowing photographs taken during the liberation of Auschwitz 80 years ago today reveal the depths of human suffering left behind by the fleeing Nazis
Orphaned children stand in rows at Auschwitz as it is liberated, January 1945
Former Auschwitz inmate Eva Schloss, the step-sister of diarist Anne Frank, recalled her shock at the sight of the Soviet soldiers
Our King appeared warm enough in his suit. Making a surprise appearance was Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, tieless and in his trademark jumper.
Under-dressed he might have been, but he was the only leader to receive an impromptu round of applause.
After the ceremony, the British royal entourage moved on to the original part of the Auschwitz complex.
The King had laid a wreath at the ‘Death Wall’, scene of summary executions, and saw those dreadful displays of hair, shoes and suitcases.
Earlier, while visiting Krakow, he had delivered a speech urging us ‘to cherish our freedom, to challenge prejudice and never to be a bystander in the face of violence and hate’.
This was the first visit by a reigning monarch (Queen Camilla, as Duchess of Cornwall, was here for the 75th), but the King had long been determined to attend this event, regardless of his ongoing medical treatment, having been involved with Holocaust survivors and their organisations over many years.
Following the 75th anniversary, he commissioned a series of portraits of British survivors for the Royal Collection.
They have just taken up permanent residence on the walls of the renovated East Wing of Buckingham Palace.
Here in Auschwitz, Britain is held in high regard. After Poland itself, the nation with the highest number of the camp’s 1.8 million annual visitors, by some margin, is the UK. Auschwitz in January is no place for the frail.
Mala Tribich MBE outside Auschwitz
Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack (pictured in her north London home last week)
Just one British Holocaust survivor made the journey yesterday – 94-year-old Mala Tribich.
Britain’s other survivors marked the day at a series of events in the UK. They included Susan Pollack, 94, whom I met here at the 70th anniversary.
Back then she had forced herself to return as a homage to 50 members of her family who died here but once was enough. ‘Never again!’ she told me ahead of yesterday’s ceremony.
She had been a little girl in rural Hungary when a happy life turned into a gradual descent to Hell, culminating in her arrival at this murderous railway halt.
Her mother was sent directly to the gas chambers while a casual flick of an SS finger sent 13-year-old Susan to a slave labour camp. ‘Someone whispered to me in Hungarian “don’t say you are under 15” and that saved my life.’
One awful memory was to the fore yesterday: ‘To my last day, I will always remember that moment I last saw my mum.’
Eva Clarke was also thinking of her mother. Newlyweds Bernd and Anka Nathan were slave labourers in the Theresienstadt concentration camp near Prague when, despite segregation, Anka became pregnant.
The Nazis made her sign a document stating that, after the birth, the baby would be handed over to the Gestapo. ‘She had never heard the word “euthanasia” before,’ Eva recalls.
Eva Clarke was born in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, on April 29, 1945
In the event, her baby boy, Dan, died of pneumonia before the Gestapo could take him.
In 1944, Anka realised she was pregnant again but told no one, including Bernd who had just been deported to Auschwitz and would die not knowing that he was to be a father once more.
She was soon making the same journey. Had the Auschwitz guards known Anka was pregnant, she would have been sent straight to the gas chambers but, instead, she was taken to a slave factory near Dresden.
Over the winter, she grew more visibly pregnant and was eventually sent to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, giving birth to Eva on a cart on April 29, 1945. ‘Two things saved her life and mine,’ says Eva.
‘The Germans had run out of gas for the gas chamber the day before. Then, the next day, Hitler committed suicide.’ Anka was accorded a rare privilege.
‘She was allowed clean straw,’ Eva notes, adding that she herself was wrapped in old paper.
Three days later, American troops liberated the five-stone mother and her three-pound baby girl, making Eva, at 79, the world’s youngest Holocaust survivor.
The pair moved to Britain where Anka remarried and Eva grew up in Cardiff. A bright, energetic grandmother and ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust, she is adamant that its memory cannot and will not fade.
That was the message from Poland last night as the fragile band of survivors cast eyes on Auschwitz-Birkenau for one last time.
They have passed on the baton here. If we do not pick it up, the consequences do not bear thinking about.
