Today it has been 81 years since U.S. forces came across Nazi concentration camps in Germany and Soviet forces liberated Jews from the horrors of Auschwitz.

Nazi German forces killed some 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, most of them Jews, but also Poles, Roma and others. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945. In all, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust — in ghettos, concentration camps and shot at close range in the fields and forests of Eastern Europe .
In the heart of Berlin, candles burned at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs which honors the 6 million victims and stands as a powerful symbol of Germany’s remorse.

Men, women, and children were murdered because of their faith. Because they were Jews. It started with ‘changing the laws’ to keep Jews from advancing or “infecting” (yes that was word that was used) others with their Jewishness. Then came Kristallnacht. It was the yellow stars signaling they were Jewish. It was banning them from schools, work, and shutting down their businesses. 

When that didn’t work enough, the work camps for supposed reeducation got more crowded and then the killings commenced. It wasn’t enough for them to just starve to death in the camps. The Nazis decided the final solution was to murder them in the gas chambers. 

Today, we are seeing too much “whataboutism” regarding this horror that is a stain on the world. Make no mistake. You cannot and must not claim that people starving (supposedly) in Gaza is the exact same thing as the Holocaust. It is not. Period. 

Their stories must continue to be told. And many are doing their absolute best to gather those stories before the survivors of those horrific camps are no longer living. 

Jiri Kluc is one such story teller.

Rosalie Simon, who is from Czechoslovakia, said she was 12 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz, where she saw her mother, Regina, and teenage brother, William, for the last time shortly after arriving. Simon survived, she recalled, only because a red-haired woman discreetly took Simon’s place in a group destined for a gas chamber because the woman decided to die alongside her daughter.

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Near the beginning of 2025, Kluc said he was interviewing survivors and veterans in Melbourne, Australia, when he met Annetta Able’s family, who told Kluc that Able was hesitant to discuss her time being experimented on at Auschwitz by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. But Kluc said he was both honored and horrified when Able told him about the forced blood transfusions and injections she and her twin sister, Stephanie, endured.

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While the conversations can be difficult, Kluc said he tries to find hope by asking survivors about their lives after the war. Hearing how they moved to new places, invested money, started families, learned new languages and found jobs is inspiring, Kluc said.

Kluc wants to cast his net wider and interview at least 1,000 Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans. He hopes to make the interviews available to the public — a project he said he plans to work on for the rest of his life.

Their stories must be told and we need to remember Hitler’s horror was inflicted because of his hatred of Jews. It was magnified because too many were afraid to stand up to his regime. 

Today, too many don’t remember, aren’t being taught, or are twisting what happened for political gain.

Tim Walz compares the current situation in Minnesota to Anne Frank’s when the Nazis controlled Amsterdam. pic.twitter.com/tbWEbSuJmn

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 25, 2026

Using the memories of those who were murdered in the Holocaust as political talking points is beyond the pale and unequivocally offensive. 

Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges. pic.twitter.com/VVg0Uy7kjR

— US Holocaust Museum (@HolocaustMuseum) January 26, 2026

What is going on in Minnesota bears ZERO resemblance to what Hitler inflicted on Jews all across Europe. Tim Walz stepped WAY out of line on this. Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun bluntly denounced Walz’s remarks. 

“Ignorance like this cheapens the horror of the Holocaust. Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally and abided by Dutch law,” he wrote on X. “She was hauled off to a death camp because of her race and religion. Her story has nothing to do with the illegal immigration, fraud, and lawlessness plaguing Minnesota today.”

Anne Frank’s story and the story of every Holocaust survivor has no bearing on Gaza, on Minnesota, or illegal immigration or any other talking point people can drum up. 

It has everything to do with the fact that Hitler and his regime specifically targeted Jews and did their damndest to kill all of them. 

President Trump issued this statement. 

On January 27, 1945, 81 years ago today, Allied forces liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi Regime’s largest concentration and death camp in World War II, where over one million people were marched to their senseless deaths. Within the camp’s barbed-wire electric fence, those imprisoned there were stripped of their clothing, personal possessions, and God-given dignity. Countless were immediately murdered, and others were subjected to forced labor, starvation, disease, torture, and medical experiments. The barbaric conditions knew no bounds.

The systematic murder of Jewish people across Nazi-occupied Europe remains an indelible blight on mankind. In remembrance of all who perished during the Holocaust and in honor of all those who survived and rebuilt their lives from the ashes, we renew our pledge that such evil will never again attain a stronghold in the West.

For those who survived, this from The Band of Brothers gives you just a small idea of what they endured. 

We NEED to know, attempt to understand, and remember the Holocaust so it will never happen again. And none of us must ever ever use what happened take make any sort of political points against anyone. If you do, you diminish yourself. 

Feature Photo Credit: Holocaust Remembrance photo via Israel in Miami facebook page, cropped and modified