Some of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz will gather at the site of the Nazi death camp on Monday as the world marks the 80th anniversary of its liberation in the final months of World War II.Around 50 ex-inmates are expected at a ceremony outside the historic gate of Auschwitz II-Birkenau alongside dozens of leaders including King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron.”This year we will focus on the survivors and their message,” Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told AFP. “There will not be any speeches by politicians.”Speaking to AFP ahead of the anniversary, survivors around the world spoke about the need to preserve the memory of what happened when there will no longer be living witnesses.They also warned about rising hatred and anti-Semitism around the world and spoke of their fears about history repeating itself.The ceremony is set to start at 1500 GMT and 54 international delegations are expected, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.Organisers said it could be the last major anniversary with such a large group of survivors.”We all know that in 10 years it will not be possible to have a large group for the 90th anniversary,” Sawicki said.- 7,000 survivors -Auschwitz was the most notorious of the extermination camps and has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom died at the site between 1940 and 1945, along with more than 100,000 non-Jews.It was created in 1940 using barracks in Oswiecim, southern Poland. Its name was Germanised into Auschwitz by the Nazis.The first 728 Polish political prisoners arrived on June 14 of that year.On January 17, 1945, as Soviet troops advanced, the SS forced 60,000 emaciated prisoners to walk west in what became known as the “Death March”.From January 21-26, the Germans blew up the Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria and withdrew as Soviet troops approached.On January 27, Soviet troops arrived, finding 7,000 survivors.The day of its liberation has been designated by the United Nations as Holocaust Memorial Day.Until its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian delegation had always attended the annual liberation ceremony but Moscow will be barred for a third time this year.There has also been controversy following rumours about the possibility that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could attend the ceremony.The International Criminal Court last year issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes.After a request from Polish President Andrzej Duda, the Polish government confirmed last month that it would not arrest Netanyahu if he were to visit even though it appears that the Israeli leader has no plans to.- ‘Never forget’ -Some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps agreed to talk to AFP as in the run up to the anniversary.In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa they sat in front of our cameras to tell their stories, alone or surrounded by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren — proof of their victory over absolute evil.”How did the world allow Auschwitz?” asked 95-year-old Marta Neuwirth from Santiago, Chile.She was 15 when she was sent from Hungary to Auschwitz.Julia Wallach, who is nearly 100, has difficulty talking about what happened without crying.”It is too difficult to talk about, too hard,” she said. The Parisian was dragged off a lorry destined for the gas chamber in Birkenau at the last minute.But hard as it is to relive the horrors, she insisted she would continue to give witness.”As long as I can do it, I will do it.” Beside her, her granddaughter Frankie asked: “Will they believe us when we talk about this when she is not there?”That is why Naftali Furst, a 92-year-old Israeli Auschwitz survivor born in Bratislava, has been going to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic for years to tell his story “so the younger generations never forget what happened”.It is also why Esther Senot, 97, braved the Polish winter last month to go back to Birkenau with French high school students. She was keeping a promise she made in 1944 to her dying sister Fanny, who — laid out on the straw coughing up blood — asked her with her last breath to “tell what happened to us… so that we are not forgotten by history”.

Azzam al-Shallalta dropped to his knees and wept at his mother’s feet as he arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah with other Palestinian prisoners released under the Gaza ceasefire on Saturday.A jubilant crowd carried Shallalta on their shoulders from the bus that brought him from jail, the freed prisoner still wearing his grey prison tracksuit.”My situation was heartbreaking, truly heartbreaking. We pray to God to free all our brothers we’ve left behind,” he told the crowd, his head shaved and his face pale and thin under a long red beard.”I can’t describe the feeling — just hearing the news that I would be released was overwhelming”, he said while shaking hands with well-wishers.Around him Palestinians cheered and waved the national flag, as they welcomed dozens of prisoners who arrived in buses.Hundreds waited in the local sports centre where the prisoners were dropped off for a short health checkup, while hundreds more watched on from the surrounding hills as fireworks went off.Israel said it released 200 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in exchange for four Israeli women soldiers held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 2023 attack which sparked the war.Not all of the prisoners were bused to Ramallah. Sixteen were taken to Gaza, while 70 were sent via Egypt into exile in Algeria, Tunisia or Turkey.A total of 121 of the prisoners released had been serving life sentences.- So ‘much love’ -Tareq Yahya, another freed prisoner, spoke with emotion as he stepped off the bus into the crowd.”It’s amazing how much love our people have shown us, how they’ve stood by us and expressed their solidarity,” the 31-year-old from the northern West Bank city of Jenin said.Looking through the crowd, Yahya searched for relatives, finding none.”It seems, based on the situation in Jenin, they weren’t able to make it,” he said, referring to an ongoing Israeli military operation in the city. “I’ll try to find them, though.”Thinking of the other prisoners who will be released in the coming weeks in exchange for Gaza hostages, Yahya said the ceasefire’s guarantors “need to set strong conditions to prevent the beatings, humiliation and mistreatment the jailers have inflicted on us in these last days before our release”.Maisa Abu Bakr, 33, came early with her family to see her uncle Yasser Abu Bakr, whose name was on the list of those to be released this week.She said they avidly followed the news “on Telegram and TV, and we were ready, wearing our (best) clothes, waiting for the time to get out and come here”.Yasser Abu Bakr had been in jail since 2002 serving multiple life sentences.”When the lists were published, we saw his name and we were surprised because we didn’t expect that he would be freed.”- ‘Left hoping’ -Others were not so lucky, like the family of Sadiqi al-Zaro, 65, who made the time-consuming journey from the southern West Bank city of Hebron through multiple Israeli checkpoints to Ramallah.Zaro’s nephew Tareq told AFP the family had come after receiving a phone call from an Israeli intelligence officer who said he would be among those released on Saturday.”We were shocked when the official lists were announced and his name wasn’t included,” he said.The procedures for clearing prisoners for release are opaque and the final list was not released until a few hours before the buses arrived.”There have been a lot of issues since the beginning of this prisoner release process. It’s been difficult for families to get clear confirmation,” Tareq al-Zaro said, his cousins nodding in agreement.He said he was still hoping for his uncle’s release after 24 years in prison.”We’re leaving this in God’s hands. We came here based on a phone call, and God willing, he’ll be released based on an official announcement”.