The event, attended by more than a dozen former prisoners, is under the patronage of Polish President Andrzej Duda.
June 14 marks the day Auschwitz began operations and is observed in Poland as the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of German Nazi Concentration Camps and Extermination Camps.
According to Auschwitz Museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel, the commemoration will begin with a Mass at the church of the Franciscan St. Maximilian Center in Harmęże.
The church's basement houses a significant exhibition by Marian Kołodziej, an Auschwitz survivor from the first transport, titled "Clichés of Memory. Labyrinths," dedicated to the camp's suffering and the heroism of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest who gave his life for a fellow prisoner.
Following the Mass, flowers will be laid at a plaque commemorating the first deportation of Poles, located on a building near the Auschwitz Museum, which initially housed the first prisoners. At the time, the camp was not yet prepared to receive inmates.
Participants, including former prisoners and delegations from state and local authorities, will then lay wreaths and candles at the Execution Wall in the courtyard of Block 11, where many thousands, mostly Poles, were executed by the Germans.
On June 14, 1940, the first transport of 728 Polish political prisoners arrived at Auschwitz from the Tarnów prison. This group included Polish Army soldiers attempting to reach Hungary, members of underground independence organizations, and high school and university students. Of these prisoners, 239 survived the war. The last survivor from this transport, Włodzimierz Bujakowski, passed away on October 11, 2020, in Ireland. Others perished in Auschwitz or other German camps, or their fates remain unknown.
In total, the Germans imprisoned about 150,000 Poles in Auschwitz, half of whom died there, with many more dying after being transferred to other camps.
Initially, the camp's prisoners were predominantly Poles, but by mid-1942, their numbers were equaled by Jewish prisoners. From 1943 onwards, Jews became the majority.
The Germans, under the Nazi emblem, exterminated at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs, and others. Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945.
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Source: IAR, PAP