Three hundred Holocaust survivors came together earlier this week for a big anniversary. Tuesday marked 70 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Nazi party is also known as the National Socialist German Workers party, and was the acting political party in Germany from 1920 to 1945.
You're looking at drone footage from present-day Auschwitz, where the site now serves as a memorial for the lives that were lost there. Auschwitz was originally used as a detention center for polish citizens and anti-Nazi activists, after the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. After the start of World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler established a policy to eliminate all Jewish people, and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state. Auschwitz , which was located on a former military base, became a death camp for Jews and prisoners until Soviet troops evacuated the survivors in 1945.
Life after the war was difficult for the Jewish people of Poland. They were persecuted, and ultimately many of the survivors fled the country. But after all this time, there's a school in Warsaw unlike any other in Poland. It's now the only Jewish school in the country.
Ivan Watson reports on the lessons being taught.
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Some of you might have relatives or know someone who fought during World War II or survived the Holocaust. Film maker Steven Spielberg, who was born in Cincinnati, spoke earlier this week about hearing stories from survivors and the importance of passing those stories down to the younger generations. Spielberg himself said he learned how to read numbers by Holocaust survivors showing him the tattoo used by the Nazis as a form of identification.
So we want to hear from YOU. Did your grandparents or someone else you know share a story with you from World War II? Maybe your grandma's sister was a nurse or you have relatives that experienced the Holocaust. Share your thoughts and stories with us...