Georgia leaders honor 80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation

Gov. Brian Kemp traveled to southern Poland Monday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, while in Georgia state leaders vowed to never forget the atrocities committed at the former death camp.

The governor said in an interview shortly after leaving the Auschwitz memorial ceremony that he was was resolved to help preserve the memory of the millions of Jewish people murdered by Nazi German forces during World War II .

The commemoration on Monday could be one of the last major events at Auschwitz attended by survivors of the death camp. Most of the 56 survivors who gathered near the railway tracks on the Auschwitz grounds were in their 80s and 90s.

“The survivors aren’t going to live forever, just like the great veterans from World War II who helped liberate them,” Kemp told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Everybody there had a stark reminder that this generation is slowly slipping away. And it’s up to us to continue to teach about the Holocaust. It’s important that we learn from our past.”

Kemp was among several political leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, who attended the service. The governor, who was in Europe as part of a trade mission to Germany and Poland, also met privately with a survivor before the memorial.

Back in Georgia, legislative leaders honored International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a resolution and a new commitment to fight rising antisemitism and hatred.

State Rep. Deborah Silcox, R-Sandy Springs, noted her grandfather was an engineer during World War II who went behind enemy lines to build airplane runways for U.S. forces, and was among the first allied soldiers to witness the liberation of concentration camps.

“Just like the antisemitism that rose in Germany and caused the Holocaust, antisemitism is on the rise worldwide,” she said, noting legislation adopted last year that makes antisemitism a hate crime. “I’m very proud of Georgia for setting an example for a lot of the rest of the country.”

Sally Levine, the executive director of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, repeated a favorite saying of many historians: History doesn’t repeat itself, but often it rhymes.

“It’s not just about remembering, but also being guardians of our democracy. We need to nurture our democracy and understand what it means to be a citizens and what a gift that is. That’s part of what we teach.”