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14.06.2021

Marian Turski is elected new president of the International Auschwitz Committee

 
 
Auschwitz survivor Marian Turski marking the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 2020 Photo: Wojciech Grabowski, Marian Turski. 75 rocznica wyzwolenia Auschwitz, excerpt by the IAK Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0

Auschwitz survivor Marian Turski marking the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 2020 Photo: Wojciech Grabowski, Marian Turski. 75 rocznica wyzwolenia Auschwitz, excerpt by the IAK Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0

 

 

 

Following the death of their President Roman Kent, who passed away on 21 May 2021 in New York, the members of the IAC Presidium have elected the Polish-Jewish Auschwitz survivor and journalist Marian Turski from Warsaw as the new president of the International Auschwitz Committee.

Marian Turski was born in 1926. He and his family were imprisoned since 1942 in the ghetto of Lodz before he was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. In January 1945 the SS ordered him and other prisoners to leave Auschwitz on a forced "death march". Marian Turski reached Buchenwald concentration camp via Loslau and eventually arrived at Theresienstadt concentration camp. That is where he was liberated, more dead than alive, in the late evening of 8 May 1945 by soldiers of the Red Army.

After his liberation Marian Turski became a journalist in Warsaw where he is still active with the news weekly "Polityka". Mr Turski is Chairman of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and a co-founder of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

In January 2020, at the ceremony in the Auschwitz Memorial marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Mariam Turski gave a speech that was highly regarded around the globe. Together with the friends from his youth and his predecessors as IAC president, Noah Flug (1925-2011) and Roman Kent (1929-2021), who he knew well from their time in the ghetto of Lodz, he worked dedicatedly for many years in the International Auschwitz Committee and on the International Auschwitz Council which is designated to advise the Polish government in all matters concerning the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial.

In a statement in Berlin, Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the IAC said: "For many years Marian Turski has been one of the most important political voices internationally, speaking out for the survivors of Auschwitz. His voice is urgently needed in these times where anti-Semitic hatred and the propensity to violence on the part of right-wing extremists are flaring up everywhere. We are very pleased that Marian Turski has accepted this election, and that he will represent the International Auschwitz Committee up until the next General Meeting."

Commenting on his election, Marian Turski said: "As Auschwitz survivors we belong to a generation that remembers with horror how Germany and Europe were riddled with dictatorships or authoritarian regimes, and what this led to. And today, not only in Europe, there are hate-filled developments that remind us of those times. For this reason it is crucial that we, the survivors from Auschwitz and the International Auschwitz Committee, continue to make our voices heard, loud and clear for the world to hear."