With heavy hearts, we mourn the loss of Marian Turski. May his memory be a blessing, and may his soul be bound in the bond of life.
Marian Turski, born in 1926, was imprisoned in the Łódź Ghetto as a young man alongside his family. Later he and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He endured two death marches: the first from Auschwitz to Buchenwald and the second, four months later, from Buchenwald to Terezín. These gruelling marches brought him to the brink of death from exhaustion and typhus, yet he survived them both. He was 20 years old when Terezín was liberated.
On the occasion of Marian Turski’s passing in Berlin, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, stated: “Auschwitz survivors in many countries are saying goodbye with great pain and infinite gratitude to their friend, brother and fellow sufferer Marian Turski, who was heard all over the world as a powerful representative of their memories and as the voice of their murdered relatives,” Until his final days, as both a journalist and a Holocaust survivor, he followed political developments with growing concern. He was deeply dismayed by the resurgence of antisemitism and far-right ideologies across Europe, as well as the rhetorical violence used by certain leaders to radicalize their followers, especially young people. In the final months of his life, nothing troubled him more than the words of fellow Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi: “It happened, and it can happen again.” And yet, even in those days, hope was part of his life principle. Despite his fears, he trusted that his fellow human beings would also find ways to find each other beyond all fear and agitation.
Without Marian Turski, we are very much alone. All the more we are left with one of his last messages, the last sentence he formulated in his speech on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz for the commemoration ceremony on 23 January in Berlin:
“Our days, the days of the survivors, are numbered. But we will not fall silent if you, all of you, do not remain silent.”
