"This must not be forgotten": a meeting with the prisoners of the fascist concentration camps

On April 11, 1945, an event occurred that forever left a mark in world history. On this day, the prisoners of Buchenwald rose up and liberated the camp by their own efforts, ahead of the arrival of the Allied forces. Decades later, the United Nations declared April 11 as International Day of Liberation of Prisoners of Fascist Concentration Camps. 

In 2025, this date is celebrated in the year of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, which gives it special significance.

On the eve of this mournful yet important date, a meeting was held with former prisoners of Nazi camps. There are very few left — those who went through the hell of Dachau, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Salaspils, and other places where the fascists exterminated people with industrial cruelty.

Each of their stories is a cry of the soul, a reminder that we cannot forget.

— "Every day was a struggle for life. They fed us with slop, forced us to work to exhaustion. Those who fell were shot…", one of the prisoners who went through several camps recounts.

This year, in the anniversary of the Great Victory, it is especially important to remember not only the front-line soldiers but also those who survived in the dungeons of concentration camps. Their feat lies in the fact that they found the strength to live on, to tell the truth, and to fight so that the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazism never happen again.

At the end of the meeting, its participants honored the memory of the deceased with a moment of silence.

— "We do not want our children and grandchildren to experience such things. That is why we say: 'This cannot be forgotten'", said one of the female prisoners.

Today, when calls for violence and hatred are once again heard in the world, their words resonate as a warning. The memory of the victims of fascism is not only sorrow but also a call for peace.