Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent said we must not repeat the past of the Holocaust. Photo: Screenshot.

Holocaust survivors do not want the atrocities they faced to be repeated in future generations, Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent said in an emotional speech on Tuesday at a memorial marking 70 years since the concentration camp’s liberation.

“We do not want our past to be our children’s future,” Kent explained, holding back tears before being cut off by applause from the audience. Wanting to reiterate the importance of what he said even though he was interrupted, he continued, “I will still repeat it because that’s the key to my existence.

“We survivors do not want our past to be our children’s future. I hope and believe that this generation will build on mankind’s great traditions and understanding that these traditions must embrace pluralism and tolerance; decency and human rights for all people. And must include opposition to antisemitism and to racism of any sort. It should be commonplace rather than exceptions.”

The memorial was held at the entrance of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, which is now a museum and historic landmark. More than 300 Holocaust survivors along with world leaders gathered at the site to commemorate the 1.1 million people killed at the Nazi death camp, as well as the millions of other victims killed during the Holocaust, as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.