Feature: Auschwitz concentration camp survivor calls for lasting peace

Seventy years have passed since Elzbieta Sobczynska were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, but that part of her memory has not faded away and continue to haunt the 81-year-old.

"The war has taken my childhood, but it has also changed my whole life. I want to say, let there be no war anymore!"

On the International Holocaust Memorial Day, also the 70th anniversary of the liberation of KL Auschwitz concentration camp, Sobczynska looks back on the tragic events at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, the "Death Factory".

On Aug. 1, 1944, more than 50,000 citizens of Warsaw, both civilians and soldiers held a large-scale armed uprising against the German Nazis.

When the uprising failed, Sobczynska, who was a 10-year-old at the time, together with her brother and mother, were banished from Warsaw. They were sent into Auschwitz on Aug. 12, 1944.

Sobczynska, whose number in the concentration camp was 85536, recalled the hardships the three of them had suffered.

Compared to physical destruction, mental torments were more cruel and brutal. The gas chambers, the crematoria and constant presence of death were all tremendously traumatic experiences for a 10-year-old child, Sobczynska said.

Because of the war, a radical change happened to a happy family, whose dreams and life were instantly shattered, she said.

The impact of war on people's life is multifaceted. To heal the spiritual wounds it causes, it needs the efforts of even several generations, she said.

Sobczynska is one of the survivors of the camp and the Second World War. After the war, she has been continuously introducing her life in prison to the outside world, incessantly calling for peace.

"Everyone should be conscious of the fact that as long as there is no war, even if there is only bread to eat and water to drink, it is happiness," she said.

For many years, Sobczynska and other elderly survivors of the camp gather in the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the Auschwitz Museum, schools and other places to talk about their experiences. She hoped her experience could increase the awareness of Holocaust among students and tourists.

"When the speaker's voice trembles with emotions, young people are still sitting in silence, reflecting, the whole audience is extremely silent...," said Sobczynska, when recalling the strength of survivors' speeches.

She says through holding various forms of commemoration events, survivors want to spread the message of "no more war. ever"!

She hopes that by reminding young people about the past and letting them know the dangers of war, including how many lives it has taken and how many families it has destroyed, they might experience themselves the horror of a ruined country and suffering people.

Sobczynska has written a memoir, which is more than 100 pages in length and has been published.

She said the book is a description of changes that happened to her and her family since 1939.

"After the war, my mind was still within the concentration camp, I couldn't get rid of it. I couldn't free myself," she said. Enditem