June 14th has been proclaimed by Polish Parliament as the day commemorating the victims of Nazi Concentration Camps.
It was first celebrated in 2006 on the 66th anniversary of the first deportation of prisoners to the Nazi German Concentration Camp in Auschwitz. The first transport of prisoners left from the southern city of Tarnow.
Grzegorz Rosengarten, head of the Associaition of the Auschwitz families says June 14th should be a date commemorating the martyrdom of the young people.
“Germans deported 728 Poles, mainly young people, members of the resistance movements who attempted to force their way to Hungary, to join the forming ranks of Polish Army in the west. Poles were the first inmates of the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, where they died of hunger and emaciation or murdered in gas chambers. This date should by a symbol of their suffering,” maintains Rosengarten.
Jerzy Kowalewski , who spent over four and a half years in the concentration camps of Auschwitz Gross-Rosen and Dachau, says that all the victims of those times should be remembered every day.
“To survive was a miracle, I thank God for watching over me. During the four years, seeing my friends die, I kept wondering which day will see my end,” said Kowalewski. (ab/mmj)