68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

The Speech of Xenya Olhova, Auschwitz survivor

Dear Friends!

Appearing before you on this significant day awakens in me a special feeling. Today’s opening in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum of the Russian exhibition, prepared by the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, with the cooperation of Polish colleagues, concerns me in the most direct manner. To me, who was only a minor of barely fourteen years of age during the Warsaw Uprising, fell a shared of that bitter fate – I found myself behind the barbed wires of the largest Nazi concentration camp, in which took place the mass murder of people of different nationalities.

We who survived the hell of Auschwitz are very few. We had to go through something that, even after decades, cannot be forgotten. Only the power of the spirit, courage, inner resistance helped us to persevere.

The dreadful memories of the time spent in the concentration camp have accompanied me all my life. Even now, I often dream the same dream – all these atrocities, supervisors, shooting, the uprising…

We underage prisoners were placed in barracks fenced with barbed wire, where there were over one hundred people. Dim light, a clay floor, cold, dirt, fleas. They locked us in the barracks and would not let us out. Inside were bunks with three levels. I was on the bottom shelf, because of my sick legs I could not go higher. Each shelf of the bunks fit two - three people.

No child was crying, not even the smallest ones; crying was severely punished.

In the evening, once a day, we were given something to eat: a small piece of bread; spread with something sometimes; and watery soup. Very often, children would be led to the medical point, where medical tests were done, blood was collected, then some of the children lost consciousness and never returned to the barracks. Almost all of the children suffered from scabies. I lost track of days and hours from fatigue; I dreamed of a quick end - of death.

Today, in spite of my age, I continue the work on the patriotic upbringing of young people. As a director of a group of former young prisoners of fascism in the Moscow district of Marino and the deputy president of the municipal organisation “Unsubdued”, I often visit schools and cadet corps where I talk about the difficult fate of their peers, about the inadmissibility of war, national socialism, racism, chauvinism and other anti-human phenomena.

I have recently published a book - supplementary material for students about the prisoners of the fascist concentration camps, in which an entire chapter is dedicated to my fate, the fate of my mother and sisters, who were also prisoners of Auschwitz.

I believe that the younger generation should know everything about that bygone war, the tragedy and sacrifice of those who stopped fascism, those who saved humanity from the Nazi plague. I have to say that children listen very carefully to the stories of our harsh wartime childhood. Once, a certain girl came up to me, hugged me and cried. I said, "Why are you crying?" "I feel sorry for you that you survived it." What does that say? About the compassion of today's boys and girls, about the understanding of what happened in the life of the older generation that lived through World War II. And it gives you hope; allows you draw the conclusion: the present generation will not allow a repetition of Auschwitz.

It's been 68 years since I was liberated by the Red Army from the Auschwitz death camp. But unfortunately, even now we hear the voices of those who try to justify the crimes of the Nazis, to place under one heading the victims and executioners, liberators and occupiers. And in some countries, they go further still - accomplices recognise the Nazis as heroes. Such attempts to revise history are unacceptable, and in fighting with them, we definitely learn that indifference, lack of interest, as well as forgetting the lessons of history, ultimately lead to tragedy and crime.

I am confident that today’s opening of the exhibition "Tragedy. Valour. Liberation" will be a significant contribution to the fight against falsifiers of the history of the war , and to the patriotic upbringing of the younger generation.

On behalf of the underage prisoners in the "factory of death" of Auschwitz, I would like to appeal to all those on the Earth: people, remember the past! Do everything to make these horrible experiences of ours never be repeated again. Protect peace!