Opening

Today, January 27, the Liberation of the Auschwitz extermination and concentration camp is marked throughout the world. Over one million Jews were murdered in the gas chambers. There is no trace of the victims who were murdered as soon as they reached Auschwitz: no name or record. The vast majority of the victims were unaware of their destination and of their fate. They were transported to the camps in cattle-cars and arrived in a state of total collapse. Yisrael Gutman wrote, "Never will there be people innocent of all sin as were those victims who stood on the threshold of the gas chambers."

Source: Gutman Israel, Auschwitz, Its History and Its Uniqueness, in Bishvil Hazikaron no. 28, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1998, p. 4.

Jacob, who was 17 when he reached Auschwitz, recounted:
"The Lager Fuhrer (head of the concentration camp) said to us: From now on, you are all numbers. You have no identity. You have no name. All you have is a number. Except for that number you have nothing."
Jacob (age 17) Poland

Source: Tatelbaum Itzhak, Through Our Eyes - Children Witness the Holocaust, I.B.T. Publishing Inc., Jerusalem 1985, p. 108.

There are no graves or memorial sites for the more than one million people who were murdered in Auschwitz. This was the ultimate insult by the Nazis who wanted to deprive their victims of any identity or uniqueness.