“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.”

― Primo Levi, If This Is a Man / The Truce

On January 27th, a cold and snowy winters day, more than 300 holocaust survivors from all over the world meet in front of the Death Gate in Auschwitz. 70 years after the liberation they all gather – each with their own stories and horrific memories of this place. Memories they’ve had to live with all their lives. What unites all of them is not only the fact that they survived. They all want to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and  make the world remember what humans beings are capable of.

85 year old Johnny Pekats came from Florida, together with his son. It is the first time he’s been back to Auschwitz.

When I came here from the airport  – the trees on the side – I knew it is Auschwitz, I felt it is Auschwitz. And I said to myself: I hope I don’t smell the same thing, because they were burning the bodies, the smell was so bad, that it lived with you for years. When I went into Auschwitz yesterday, there was no smell. I was looking for a place to say a Kadish. I had a little sister of four years, and my mother 36 years of age. When we came down from the train there was Polish people already working here. They kept saying in Yiddish: give away the kindle, send away the kids, don’t go with the kids. How can you throw away a kid of four years old. So my mum somehow she couldn’t get it. She said – I had a little brother, 2 years younger than me – she said: You stay with your brother, and I take the little kid. That was the last time I saw here.

Johnny and dozens of other survivors meet in a hotel in Krakow before the official ceremony, to listen to young Israeli soldiers whose job to educate people on the Holocaust. The female soldier recounts the facts, somewhat detached.  Still, some of the audience have tears in theirs eyes. Johnny is accompanied by his son Todd. Todd says that when he was young, he avoided listening to his father stories.  But that changed.

Now as an adult I realize that I can’t avoid it, I have to accept and understand it and I have to be his light so that one day, when he can’t share that I will able to share with my children, and their children, and make sure that this never happens again.

But then, Johnny explains,  there are glimmers of humanity, when 70 years on, Jewish survivors and young Germans meet each other:

I came to the gate yesterday, there was a young woman with a baby carriage and a little baby in there. She pulls me over and says: I want to show you my kid. The little kid with the blanket, couldn’t be older than three month. She says: “This kid is going to know.” I really – I couldn’t take it. And she apologized: I am sorry, I am German will you take something from me. She gave me a little flower. She said: Please take it from me, because I have nothing else to give you. I took it, I have it right upstairs.

Later that day, Johnny Pekats, his son Todd, and the other survivors gather for the official Holocaust memorial ceremony in Auschwitz. Dozens of representatives from all over the world are here, including Steven Spielberg, founder of the Shoa Foundation that documented  the testimonies of Holocaust witnesses. But the politicians and the celebrities keep quiet. They listen to the words of the survivors. Like Roman Kent, who was born in Poland in the 20s.

I am often asked how long I was in Auschwitz. the answer is: I don’t know. But what I do know that one minute in Auschwitz was like an entire day, a day was like a year, a month, an eternity. How many eternities can one man have in a single lifetime?

Yes, this day for listening to unthinkable story after unthinkable story, as told by the survivors. Today, only those who were children back then, are still with us. Soon, these witnesses won’t be around to tell the stories. So their message is clear:

We do not want our past to be our children’s future. Because that is the key to my existence, we survivors do not want our past to be our children’s future. I hope, I hope and believe that this generation will built on mankind’s great traditions, impelled by understanding, that this tradition must embrace pluralism and tolerance, decency, and human rights, for all people.

Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, made sure to connect the past to the present.

But slowly the demonization of Jews came back, first in articles and on the internet, and in some religious schools and even in universities and from these it made its ways into mainstream society and it all seemed so unimportant that few people paid an attention until now when Europe suddenly awoke, to find itself surrounded by anti-semitism once again, and it looks more like 1933 than 2015.

In 2005, Silvan Shalom, Israel’s current Minister of regional development, drove the UN initiative to mark today as International Holocaust memorial day. After the ceremony, he told me he was feeling optimistic:

I talked to President Holland today, they will fight very hard against anti-semitism and again the aggression against the Jewish community, he told me about what has happened in Toulouse and Paris and he will do everything to stop it. I believe it that The world realized that anti-semitism still kicking and still living and we have to work together and if we’ll be united finally we will prevail.

The next day survivor Danny Chanoch is on a flight back to Israel. Today Danny lives in Haifa and dedicates enormous amounts of time to telling the world about his experience. German television recently made a movie about him and he will fly to Munich soon for the screening. On the plane he reflects on his visit to Poland in German, a language he learned as a kid.

Ich habe das nicht begriffen und auch noch nicht verstanden. Als ich da saß und zugesehen habe, wie die Bahnlinien mit Glas bedeckt sind.

He hasn’t absorbed what’s happened yet. This time in Auschwitz, the railways were covered with glass for the ceremony. Over 70 years ago, he’d worked there as a kid on the wagons, bringing the belongings of those who were killed in the crematoriums to the SS. Sometimes you could find a sandwich in the pockets, he remembers.

It is difficult, sitting there and then I was thinking: Actually: What happened? What was it all about?

This commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, the ceremony and meeting of the survivors at the place where it happened couldn’t provide answers. Perhaps there are no answers  to why it happened or how something like the Holocaust is possible. But the consequence is clear: To make the world remember and not allow it to happen again.