No Red Army Veterans To Attend Auschwitz-Birkenau Liberation Anniversary - Museum Head

OSWIECIM (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2020) None of the Soviet Red Army veterans who liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp will attend a Monday ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the camp's liberation, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Piotr Cywinski said at a press conference on Sunday.

On Monday, in the Polish town of Oswiecim, 200 former inmates and numerous foreign dignitaries will attend the ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Sergey Andreev, Russia's ambassador to Poland, will represent Russia at the event.

However, none of the soldiers that freed prisoners at the Nazi German concentration camp will be present at the event, which Cywinski said was due to the inability to get in touch with any Red Army liberators who may still be alive.

"Of course, for many years we have tried to invite some of the veterans who actually liberated Auschwitz," Cywinski stated.

The museum director added that he has sought the help of the Russian embassy and Russian museums, but these efforts have yet to reveal tangible results.

"I could not get in touch with a single person who passed through Auschwitz and was still alive," Cywinski said, adding that "the fate of the Auschwitz liberators was often tragic."

He added that he does not question the historical fact that Red Army soldiers liberated the extermination camp.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau facility was Nazi Germany's largest death camp and saw around 1.4 million people � including 1.1 million Jews � exterminated between 1941 and 1945, before the camp was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945. It has also become a symbol of the Holocaust.