Auschwitz concentration camp survivor calls for lasting peace

Auschwitz death camp survivor Elzbieta Sobczynska (maiden name Gremblicka), 80, who was registered with camp number 85536, gestures as she poses for a portrait in Warsaw January 7, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

WARSAW - 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.