No Political Speeches to be Given at Auschwitz Commemoration

warsaw - At the commemoration of eighty years since the liberation of Auschwitz, politicians are not allowed to give speeches. Only Holocaust survivors will have the opportunity to speak, reports The Guardian.

The director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, Piotr Cywiński, stated, "There will be no political speeches at all. We want to focus on the last survivors among us. And their stories, their pain, their trauma, and their way of imparting difficult moral obligations to us for the present."

While world leaders are expected to attend the ceremonies, the Polish government has made it clear that Israeli leaders, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, can attend the commemoration without fear of being arrested.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for the war in Gaza. Cywiński calls the debate over his attendance a "media provocation" and states that there is no indication that Netanyahu ever had plans to attend the commemoration. However, an Israeli delegation is expected.

The commemoration of the liberation of the infamous concentration camp is scheduled for January 27. During the Second World War, the Nazi regime murdered millions of Jews in camps like Auschwitz.

Although the camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945, this time Russia would not be invited. Cywiński told the newspaper that "a country that does not understand the value of freedom has no place at a ceremony centered around liberation."