Holocaust survivor Marian Turski, who became a journalist in Poland and headed an international committee of Auschwitz survivors, has died at the age of 98, said the Polish weekly magazine Polityka, where he worked as a columnist. In an article on Tuesday announcing Turski's death, Polityka described him as "an exceptional guardian of memory, an outstanding man whose voice was heard all over the world. He was sent to the Lodz ghetto at the age of 14 and in 1944 he was transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where both his father and brother died. In 1945 he survived two death marches, first from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, Buchenwald to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by the Soviet Red Army. After World War II Turski lived in Lower Silesia, southern Poland, before moving to Warsaw, where he worked as a historian and journalist. He started working at Polityka in 1958 and was the author of several books. In January, Turski gave a speech at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in which he warned against rising antisemitism.
"Let us not be afraid to convince ourselves that we can solve problems between neighbours."
Over 3 million of Poland's 3.3 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
In all, between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically killed 6 million Jews across German-occupied Europe, along with gypsies, sexual minorities, disabled people and others who offended Nazi ideas of racial superiority.