Auschwitz survivors gather to mark 75th anniversary of liberation
Survivors mark Holocaust Remembrance Day; Lauren Green reports.
Holocaust survivors gathered around the world Monday to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious Nazi concentration camp.
In Poland, nearly 200 Holocaust survivors gathered outside the camp's infamous gate. Others went to the United Nations to discuss their stories with a "new sense of urgency" as the world sees a frightening rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
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"I was punished with 25 beatings," survivor Shraga Milstein told Fox News.
Main gate to nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz Birkenau with train rail, Poland on April 14, 2018.
"We were living day-to-day because we did not know what the next day will bring," Milstein added. "I was forced to lie down on a bench and they started to punch. I told myself, 'You either escape or you are dead.;"
Milstein added that the Holocaust does not serve as a memory solely for those who experienced it.
"It’s a present-day ... personal decision, how you behave and act towards the next person," he said through tears.
President of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder stands near the lettering "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes you free) at the Auschwitz entrance gate in 2015 (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)
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An estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz, located in present-day southern Poland, between 1940 and 1945. An estimated 1.1 million people died there, the vast majority of the victims were European Jews. The camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on Jan. 27, 1945. The date is now marked as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"Its liberation brought to the world the atrocities that we now call crimes against humanity," Fox News chief religion correspondent Lauren Green explained on "Special Report."
A group of child survivors at Auschwitz photographed on the day the Red Army liberated the camp.
The anniversary takes place at a time when the world and the U.S. are seeing a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.
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Green said one message was "loud and clear" at Monday's events: "Never again means never again."
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