‘Stop sanitizing the Holocaust!’

“We do not want our past to be our children’s future,” says an emotional Roman Kent, president of the International Auschwitz Committee at the ceremony marking 70 years to the liberation of Auschwitz. “That’s the key to my existence, we survivors do not want our past to be our children’s future!”

Kent, who was born in 1929 in Łódź, calls on international media to desist from sanitizing the Holocaust and using terms such as “lost,” which he said “protects the perpetrators.”

“11 million, including 6 million Jews and 1.5 million Jewish children were not lost or misplaced. These children were murdered,” said Kent.

Kent also calls on the 49 heads of state in attendance to stop being spectators and to remove all anti-Semitism and racism from their lands.

“If I had the power, I would add an 11th commandment — you should never, never be a bystander,” says Kent.

Kent speaks before the world premiere of the Steven Spielberg-produced film “Auschwitz,” which will be screened to all visitors at the Auschwitz Museum in the future.

The documentary film gives a historical background to the genesis of the extermination camp and the mindset of those who allowed it to become the archetype of evil it is today. Using army film footage, survivor interviews and drawing and artifacts, the documentary also takes pains to depict the humanity found among prisoners, both during their interment, and after their survival.

— Amanda Borschel-Dan