Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Krakow, Poland on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
KRAKOW, Poland – Miriam Ziegler said she’s reminded of being an eight-year-old girl, left all by herself, as she prepares to return to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Eighty years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camp, the now 89-year-old said “the hatred” in the world makes her fearful history may repeat itself.
“I’m afraid that it can happen again. For my children, for my grandchildren… I was lucky enough to survive,” Ziegler said.
She said it’s difficult to return to Auschwitz, but feels God spared her life so she could share her first-hand story of the Holocaust.
“I have to keep telling the story, it shouldn’t happen again. It shouldn’t happen, doesn’t matter – any nation,” she said.
The rest of Ziegler’s family died during the Holocaust. More than six million Jews were killed in the systemic extermination during the Second World War.
Ziegler was placed in an orphanage after the camp’s liberation before eventually moving to Canada.
Howard Chandler, 96, is a fellow Canadian Auschwitz survivor who travelled back to Poland to mark the anniversary.
Like Ziegler, Chandler said it’s necessary that he share his story.
“If you don’t do anything about it, it’s going to repeat itself, which we are witnessing now with the hate,” Chandler said.
Chandler recalled when he was a boy and the Germans came to his village. He said the Jews all had their beards shaved off and hair cut in public.
“The Catholic people, our neighbours, were standing on the sidewalk laughing. There was one family that lived across from us… she says ‘don’t be so joyful with what they’re doing to the Jews. They’re going to start with the Jews, they’re going to finish with us.’ Very smart woman,” Chandler said.
“If you don’t nip it in the bud when this happens, it is going to spread as we see now. (Antisemitism) is a curse.”
Chandler, his brother and their father were first sent to a slave-labour camp in Wierzbnik. They lived and worked there for two years before being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Chandler survived death marches to Germany before being reunited with his brother in Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimer, Germany.
Both were liberated after the war concluded in Terezin, Czech Republic.
Chandler said he and other survivors have a responsibility to ensure that world leaders know their stories so broader action can be taken against antisemitism.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with both Ziegler and Chandler, and said he felt “blessed” to hear their stories.
“It’s a time in the world where we need to be reminded what ‘never again’ means, more than ever before,” Trudeau said at the start of his meeting with Chandler and Ziegler.
Trudeau and other world leaders are scheduled to attend an anniversary ceremony at Auschwitz where more survivors are set to speak.
The notorious Nazi extermination camp is where historians estimate more than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed during the Second World War.
This may be Trudeau’s last major international trip as prime minister before the next Liberal party leader is chosen on March 9.
Trudeau is scheduled to meet with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday before returning to Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2025.
