Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

===Legacy===
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| caption1 = Barracks at Auschwitz II
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| caption2 = Auschwitz II gate in 1959
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In the decades since its liberation, Auschwitz has become a primary symbol of the Holocaust. [[Seweryna Szmaglewska]]'s 1945 autobiography ''[[Dymy nad Birkenau]]'' (''Smoke over Birkenau'') has been credited with spreading knowledge about the camp to the general public.<ref name="Huener2007">{{cite book |last1=Huener |first1=Jonathan |editor1-last=Finder |editor1-first=Gabriel N. |editor2-last=Aleksiun |editor2-first=Natalia |editor3-last=Polonsky |editor3-first=Antony |title=Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 20: Making Holocaust Memory |year=2007 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-80034-534-8 |page=167 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AnFvEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA167 |chapter=Auschwitz and the Politics of Martyrdom and Memory, 1945–1947}}</ref>{{Rp|page=167}}<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Morawiec |first=Arkadiusz |date=2009 |title=Realizm w służbie (nieosiągalnego) obiektywizmu. "Dymy nad Birkenau" Seweryny Szmaglewskiej |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=166368 |journal=Pamiętnik Literacki. Czasopismo kwartalne poświęcone historii i krytyce literatury polskiej |language=Polish |issue=1 |pages=121–143 |issn=0031-0514}}</ref> Historian [[Timothy D. Snyder]] attributes this to the camp's high death toll and "unusual combination of an industrial camp complex and a killing facility", which left behind far more witnesses than single-purpose killing facilities such as [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] or [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]].{{sfn|Snyder|2010|pp=382–383}} In 2005 the [[United Nations General Assembly]] designated 27 January, the date of the camp's liberation, as [[International Holocaust Remembrance Day]].<ref>{{cite news |title=General Assembly designates International Holocaust Remembrance Day |url=https://news.un.org/en/story/2005/11/158642-general-assembly-designates-international-holocaust-remembrance-day |work=UN News |date=1 November 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180905023327/https://news.un.org/en/story/2005/11/158642-general-assembly-designates-international-holocaust-remembrance-day |archive-date=5 September 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Helmut Schmidt]] visited the site in November 1977, the first [[West Germany|West German]] [[Chancellor of Germany (1949–present)|chancellor]] to do so, followed by his successor, [[Helmut Kohl]], in November 1989.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Butturini |first1=Paula |title=Kohl visits Auschwitz, vows no repetition of 'unspeakable harm' |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-11-15-8901310354-story.html |work=Chicago Tribune |date=15 November 1989 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720064824/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-11-15-8901310354-story.html |archive-date=20 July 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> In a statement on the 50th anniversary of the liberation, Kohl said that "[t]he darkest and most awful chapter in German history was written at Auschwitz."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kinzer |first1=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Kinzer |title=Germans Reflect on Meaning of Auschwitz |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/28/world/germans-reflect-on-meaning-of-auschwitz.html |work=The New York Times |date=28 January 1995 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410130720/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/28/world/germans-reflect-on-meaning-of-auschwitz.html |archive-date=10 April 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> In January 2020, world leaders gathered at [[Yad Vashem]] in Jerusalem to commemorate the 75th anniversary.<ref>{{cite news |first=David M. |last=Halbfinger |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/world/middleeast/holocaust-jerusalem-auschwitz-leaders-antisemitism.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200122225006/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/world/middleeast/holocaust-jerusalem-auschwitz-leaders-antisemitism.html |archive-date=2020-01-22 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=World Leaders, Gathering to Mark Holocaust, Are Urged to Fight 'Deadly Cancer' |work=The New York Times |date=22 January 2020}}</ref> It was the city's largest-ever political gathering, with over 45 heads of state and world leaders, including royalty.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/22/jerusalem-hosts-largest-ever-political-gathering-for-holocaust-forum |title=Jerusalem hosts largest-ever political gathering for Holocaust forum |first=Oliver |last=Holmes |date=22 January 2020 |work=The Guardian |access-date=24 January 2020 |archive-date=25 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200125031702/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/22/jerusalem-hosts-largest-ever-political-gathering-for-holocaust-forum |url-status=live }}</ref> At Auschwitz itself, [[Reuven Rivlin]] and [[Andrzej Duda]], the presidents of Israel and Poland, laid [[Wreath|wreaths]].<ref>[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51266883 "Auschwitz 75 years on: Holocaust Day prompts new anti-Semitism warnings"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200128030155/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51266883 |date=28 January 2020 }}. BBC News, 27 January 2020.</ref>

Notable memoirists of the camp include [[Primo Levi]], [[Elie Wiesel]], and [[Tadeusz Borowski]].{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=383}} Levi's ''[[If This is a Man]]'', first published in Italy in 1947 as ''Se questo è un uomo'', became a classic of Holocaust literature, an "imperishable masterpiece".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Simpson |first1=Mona |title=If This Is a Man |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/if-this-is-a-man/305897/ |work=The Atlantic |date=June 2007 |access-date=4 February 2019 |archive-date=4 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190204065923/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/if-this-is-a-man/305897/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|In ''[[The Drowned and the Saved]]'' (1986), Levi wrote that the concentration camps represented the epitome of the totalitarian system: "[N]ever has there existed a state that was really "totalitarian"&nbsp;... Never has some form of reaction, a corrective of the total tyranny, been lacking, not even in the Third Reich or Stalin's Soviet Union: in both cases, public opinion, the magistrature, the foreign press, the churches, the feeling for justice and humanity that ten or twenty years of tyranny were not enough to eradicate, have to a greater or lesser extent acted as a brake. Only in the Lager [camp] was the restraint from below nonexistent, and the power of these small [[satrap]]s absolute."{{sfn|Levi|2017|pp=35–36}}}} Wiesel wrote about his imprisonment at Auschwitz in ''[[Night (memoir)|Night]]'' (1960) and other works, and became a prominent spokesman against ethnic violence; in 1986, he was awarded the [[Nobel Peace Prize]].{{sfn|Norwegian Nobel Committee|1986}} Camp survivor [[Simone Veil]] was elected President of the [[European Parliament]], serving from 1979 to 1982.<ref>[https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/foundingfathers-simoneveil-en-hd.pdf "Simone Veil: Holocaust survivor and first female President of the European Parliament (1927‑2017)"] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191121224603/https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/foundingfathers-simoneveil-en-hd.pdf |date=21 November 2019 }}. European Commission.</ref> Two Auschwitz victims—[[Maximilian Kolbe]], a priest who volunteered to die by starvation in place of a stranger, and [[Edith Stein]], a Jewish convert to Catholicism—were named saints of the [[Catholic Church]].<ref>{{harvnb|Espín|2008}}; for Kolbe, see p.&nbsp;139.</ref>

In 2017, a [[Körber Foundation]] survey found that 40 percent of 14-year-olds in Germany did not know what Auschwitz was.<ref>{{cite news |title=Auschwitz-Birkenau: 4 out of 10 German students don't know what it was |url=https://www.dw.com/en/auschwitz-birkenau-4-out-of-10-german-students-dont-know-what-it-was/a-40734980 |publisher=Deutsche Welle |date=28 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928204158/https://www.dw.com/en/auschwitz-birkenau-4-out-of-10-german-students-dont-know-what-it-was/a-40734980 |archive-date=28 September 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Posener |first=Alan |author-link=Alan Posener |title=German TV Is Sanitizing History |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/dont-mention-the-war-germany-television-holocaust-anti-semitism-babylon-berlin-europe/ |work=[[Foreign Policy]] |date=9 April 2018 |access-date=20 January 2019 |archive-date=20 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720064815/https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/dont-mention-the-war-germany-television-holocaust-anti-semitism-babylon-berlin-europe/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The following year a survey organized by the [[Claims Conference]], [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] and others found that 41 percent of 1,350 American adults surveyed, and 66 percent of [[millennials]], did not know what Auschwitz was, while 22 percent said they had never heard of the Holocaust.<ref>{{cite news |title=New Survey by Claims Conference Finds Significant Lack of Holocaust Knowledge in the United States |url=http://www.claimscon.org/study |publisher=Claims Conference |date=2018 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20180412152716/http://www.claimscon.org/study |archive-date=12 April 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Astor |first1=Maggie |title=Holocaust Is Fading From Memory, Survey Finds |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html |work=The New York Times |date=12 April 2018 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20180418071414/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html |archive-date=18 April 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> A [[CNN]]-[[ComRes]] poll in 2018 found a similar situation in Europe.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Greene |first1=Richard Allen |title=CNN poll reveals depth of anti-Semitism in Europe |url=https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/11/europe/antisemitism-poll-2018-intl/ |publisher=CNN |date=November 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181127064644/http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/11/europe/antisemitism-poll-2018-intl/ |archive-date=27 November 2018}}</ref>