Don’t be neutral, especially towards human suffering, insists Holocaust survivor
Nazi death camp survivor Ivan Lefkovits shared harrowing testimony of his experiences on Monday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day at UN Geneva, with a timeless message for present and future generations: “Don't be neutral, especially not towards human suffering.”
Recalling the murder of his father and brother, both victims of Hitler’s efforts to wipe out Jews, 88-year-old Mr. Lefkovits noted that many European countries subscribed to his views and supported them materially. Slovakia had paid the Nazi authorities to take away Jewish citizens from his home country to concentration camps, he told assembled representatives from UN Member States at the ceremony.
Europe “was already a landscape of atrocities” in the 1920s, Mr. Lefkovits continued. “Antisemitism was not just in Germany; it was in many, many places in Europe, in many places of the countries who are represented here.”
If the root cause of the Holocaust lies with Hitler, it should be attributed to the fascist leader not when he attained power, but much earlier, when he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Mr. Lefkovits insisted. “Nobody believed in it, but he said what he wanted to do and he did it and people helped him to get the power.”
Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025 comes 80 years to the day since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp in occupied Poland. Hardened Red Army soldiers reportedly broke down in tears at what they found inside the grounds of the prison, where one million people were murdered.
Every year on 27 January, the world unites to honor the memory of the six million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators, a commemoration that also extends to the Roma and Sinti communities, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ individuals and all others who suffered from the systemic violence, torture, and genocide of the Nazi regime.
As significant as the day is in serving as a reminder of the horrors of the Nazis’ Final Solution, the ordeal for many other concentration camp survivors did not end for many more months.
This included Mr. Lefkovits, his mother and older brother Paul – “Palko” – who were deported to Ravensbruck women’s concentration camp in northern Germany in November 1944. Older boys were grouped with the men, while seven-year-old Ivan stayed with his mother, Elisabeth.
“Unfortunately, that came the worst moment in life of my mother when our “Palko”, my brother, was separated into the men's camp which was built rapidly in the back of the Ravensbruck and we have never seen him again.”
It was to be another 50 years before Mr. Lefkovits learned that his brother had likely died an agonising death after being crammed into a makeshift execution cabin at Ravensbruck with other male prisoners and gassed.
Shortly after arriving at Ravensbruck, young Ivan explained how his mother kept him fed by volunteering for heavy work which earned her extra rations, giving them to him.
“It became clear that there is no chance to survive on these food rations. She volunteered to (the) so- called Aussenkommandos, doing heavy work, and obtaining an extra bowl of soup – for me. When returning from work her only concern was me. Back in 1943 I would have started school - Jews were not allowed to. In Ravensbrück she taught me to write and maths. Interestingly, when you are doing mental activity, you do not feel hunger.”
After being moved from Ravensbrück, Ivan and his mother were sent to Bergen-Belsen camp in the last months of the war. Piles of dead bodies lay everywhere and starvation had set in after the camp guards had left, leaving the detainees with nothing, Mr. Lefkovits noted, recalling his mother’s memoirs.
“I am not going to describe that situation, since towards the end I was almost clinically dead,” he insisted. “I remember clearly the huge fire extinguishing basin, full of water, but bodies floating there…My mother told me, ‘We do not drink from that, who does, dies.’… (The) suffering of one person, one family, is meaningless, it's only a small mosaic stone of suffering of millions.”
Once liberated, it took many months before young Ivan recovered enough to go return to Slovakia, full of hatred for the Nazis.
“On the way home, we have seen the destroyed Germany. We have seen that the country, by the way, the people, the shouting, you have seen it in films: “Wollen Sie den totalen Krieg” and they were shouting, ‘Yes, we want a total war.’ They got a total war and they were totally destroyed…I hated the German(s). There was nothing worse for me than German. We travelled through Germany, arrived to Presov and I have seen all this distressing (scenes) and I realized I do not hate anymore the German.”
Urging today’s younger generations to study history “not necessarily to learn, but to understand”, Mr. Lefkovits quoted Dante as he insisted that neutrality should not be employed when human suffering is involved. “Remember that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
ends
Story: “Holocaust remembrance day – 27 January 2025
Speaker:
TRT: 04’46”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS / German
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 27 January 2025 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
UN Geneva Room XVIII
RESTRICTIONS: None
SHOTLIST
1
1
1
Edited News | UNWOMEN
Aid agencies echoed wider warnings of growing signs of widespread starvation in Gaza on Tuesday, as UN-partnered international food security experts released their most dire assessment yet of the situation in the wartorn enclave.
1
1
1
Edited News | IOM , UNDP , UNHCR
Sudan: urgent help needed as more than 1.3 million war-displaced people begin to return home
As conflict rages on across parts of Sudan, pockets of relative safety have emerged in the past four month, spurring more than one million internally displaced Sudanese to make their way home, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A further 320,000 cross-border refugees have come back to Sudan since last year, mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, to assess the current situation before deciding to return to their country for good.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA , WHO
Gaza: SOS messages describe people fainting from hunger; UN health worker detained
Worrying alerts from United Nations staff in Gaza who have been fainting from hunger and exhaustion over the past 48 hours have increased fears for people’s survival in the devastated enclave, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNHCR , UNOG
Over 11.6 million refugees risk losing aid access due to funding cuts, says UNHCR
Approximately one in three refugees and other vulnerable individuals normally supported by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) are expected to lose out from funding cuts, it said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the following announcement on the Office’s opening of a new mission in Bangladesh.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
“The surge in the number of Afghans forced or compelled to return to Afghanistan this year is creating a multi-layered human rights crisis requiring the urgent attention of the international community,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Friday called for accountability and justice for the killings and other gross human rights violations and abuses in the southern city of Suweida.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNHCR
Syria: hundreds killed in Sweida, ‘widespread’ violations as civilians flee for their lives
Amid violent clashes in southern Syria’s Sweida governorate, a picture of grave human rights abuses and rising humanitarian needs is emerging by the hour, the UN said on Friday.
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
At the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva the UN Human Rights Spokesperson Liz Throssell made the following statement on the latest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called for investigations into hundreds of killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces and settlers, warning against ongoing forced mass displacement of the Palestinian population.
1
1
2
Edited News | OHCHR , UNRWA
Nearly 900 people have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks trying to fetch food, with most deaths linked to private aid hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the UN Human Rights Office have today released a report detailing the evolution of violent gang incidents beyond the capital Port-au-Prince since October 2024 up to June 2025, and the resulting loss of life and mass displacement.