No politicians, only survivors, to speak at 80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation

Site director says for first time, leaders won’t be invited to speak, preferring to focus on ‘the last survivors that are among us’; sizable Israeli delegation expected to attend

Politicians and world leaders will not be invited to make speeches to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp later this month, according to the director of the site, who has chosen to highlight Holocaust survivors at the main commemoration event.

“There will be no political speeches at all,” Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published Monday.

“We want to focus on the last survivors that are among us and on their history, their pain, their trauma, and their way to offer us some difficult moral obligations for the present,” he said.

It will be the first time world leaders have not been permitted to speak at a significant anniversary of the liberation of the camp.

Cywiński also said that recent discussions over whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be in danger of arrest if he attended were a “media provocation,” claiming there was never an indication that Netanyahu had planned to attend the event.

Netanyahu is currently not planning on attending the commemoration, an aide to the premier told The Times of Israel. Cywiński told the Guardian that a sizable Israeli delegation was nonetheless expected to attend.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and his wife Sara, second left, host Polish President Andrzej Duda, second right, and his wife Agata, at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem on January 18, 2017. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

The Polish government said last week it would ensure that Israel’s highest representatives can participate freely and safely in the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp on January 27, after the country’s president asked for a guarantee Netanyahu would not be arrested in accordance with an International Criminal court warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The Auschwitz director pointed out to the Guardian that the 80th-anniversary event is also planned under the shadow of another relevant world conflict even closer to home — Russia’s war against Ukraine.

We expect that some 50 Auschwitz Survivors will come to the Memorial to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation. The event will be held in front of the main gate of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.

On January 27, the eyes and ears of the world should rest upon… pic.twitter.com/ovcxRV1mYE

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) January 11, 2025

Cywiński said that no Russian delegation would be attending the event: “It’s called the day of liberation, and I do not think that a country that does not understand the value of liberty has something to do at a ceremony dedicated to the liberation. It would be cynical to have them there.”

He was also quoted as dismissing parallels between the two wars as “of course, absolutely different.” He described the war in Ukraine as “one country attacking an innocent and independent country,” and Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza as “a country trying to protect themselves from enormous terrorist attack.”

The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw some thousands of terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.