Close to 300 survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, approximately 171 miles south of Warsaw, gathered in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Allied forces liberating the Nazi-run concentration camp where as many as 4 million people were said to have perished during World War II.
The event — possibly the last large gathering of Holocaust survivors — was preceded by a dinner in which filmmaker Steven Spielberg warned of a rise in anti-Semitism, the same force that fueled Adolf Hitler's murderous hatred.
Spielberg, the Associated Press reported, "said Jews are again facing the 'perennial demons of intolerance' from anti-Semites who are provoking hate crimes and trying to strip (Holocaust) survivors of their identity."
According to London's Daily Mail, another prominent Jewish figure at the event warned of troubles for today's European Jews.
"For a time, we thought that the hatred of Jews had finally been eradicated," said Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress. "But slowly the demonization of Jews started to come back. Once again, young Jewish boys are afraid to wear yarmulkes on the streets of Paris and Budapest and London. Once again, Jewish businesses are targeted. And once again, Jewish families are fleeing Europe."
A White House statement released in advance of the Auschwitz liberation commemoration said, "The recent terrorist attacks in Paris serve as a painful reminder of our obligation to condemn and combat rising anti-Semitism in all its forms, including the denial or trivialization of the Holocaust."
Among those killed in the attacks were four Jewish shoppers at Paris' Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket.
"The number of anti-Semitic acts doubled in France during 2014, with acts involving physical violence leading the increase, the country’s main Jewish group said," the Times of Israel reported three weeks after the attacks.
In December 2014, BBC director of television Danny Cohen, a British-born Jew, told an audience in Jerusalem "he has 'never felt so uncomfortable as a Jew in the UK' as it was revealed that antisemitic incidents in Britain hit record annual levels in 2014," according to Britain's Independent newspaper.
The newspaper quoted the 40-year-old Cohen as saying, "levels of hatred were on the rise across Europe. 'You’ve seen the number of attacks rise, you’ve seen murders in France, you’ve seen murders in Belgium. It’s been pretty grim actually.’ ”
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