Remembering the horrors of Auschwitz, German chancellor warns of antisemitism, threats to democracy

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER
Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called on all citizens to defend Germany’s democracy and fight antisemitism as the country marks the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II. Since 1996, Germany has also marked January 27 as a day to remember the horrors of the Holocaust. Scholz said in his weekly video podcast on Saturday the day call out to Germans to always be against antisemitism. On that day in 1945, Soviet Red Army troops liberated some 7,000 prisoners at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland. The Nazis murdered more than a million people in Auschwitz, most of them Jews.