BRZEZINKA, Poland -- A Jewish leader stood before 300 survivors of the Nazis' most notorious death camp Tuesday and asked world leaders to prevent another Auschwitz, warning of a rise of anti-Semitism that has made many Jews fearful of walking the streets and is causing many to flee Europe.
Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, made his bleak assessment on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, speaking next to the gate and the railroad tracks that marked the last journey for more than a million people murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
He said his speech was shaped by recent terrorist attacks in France that targeted a kosher grocery and employees of a satirical newspaper.
"For a time, we thought that the hatred of Jews had finally been eradicated. But slowly the demonization of Jews started to come back," Lauder said. "Once again, young Jewish boys are afraid to wear yarmulkes on the streets of Paris and Budapest and London. Once again, Jewish businesses are targeted. And once again, Jewish families are fleeing Europe."
The attack on the Paris market, in which four Jews were killed, is not the first deadly attack on Jews in recent years. Last May, a shooting killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. In 2012, a rabbi and three children were murdered in the French city of Toulouse.
Europe also saw a spasm of anti-Semitism over the summer during the war in Gaza, with protests in Paris turning violent and other hostility across the continent.
"This vilification of Israel, the only Jewish state on earth, quickly became an opportunity to attack Jews," Lauder said. "Much of this came from the Middle East, but it has found fertile ground throughout the world."
One Holocaust survivor, Roman Kent, became emotional as he issued a plea to world leaders to remember the atrocities and fight for tolerance.
"We do not want our past to be our children's future," the 85-year-old said to applause, fighting back tears and repeating those words a second time.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who was in Saudi Arabia to pay respects after the death of King Abdullah, issued a statement paying tribute to the 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazis.
"The recent terrorist attacks in Paris serve as a painful reminder of our obligation to condemn and combat rising anti-Semitism in all its forms, including the denial or trivialization of the Holocaust," Obama said. A U.S. delegation to the ceremony was led by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, where he said: "My job as prime minister of Israel is to make sure that there won't be any more threats of destruction against the state of Israel. My job is to ensure that there won't be any reasons to establish any more memorial sites like Yad Vashem."
The commemorations in Poland, which during World War II was under Nazi occupation, also were marked by a melancholy awareness that many of the aging survivors would not be strong enough to attend future ceremonies.
Politics also cast a shadow on the event, with Russian President Vladimir Putin absent, even though the Soviet Red Army liberated the camp. His absence was the result of a chill in relations between the West and Russia because of Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and its support for rebel forces battling Kiev's troops in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was there in a sign of Poland's strong support for Ukraine.
The organizers of the event, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the International Auschwitz Council, opted for a form of protocol this year that avoided direct invitations by Poland's president to his foreign counterparts. The organizers instead asked countries that are donors to Auschwitz whom they planned to send to the ceremony.
The Russian delegation was led by Sergei Ivanov, Putin's chief of staff. Poland's Foreign Ministry said Putin could have attended if he wished.
Some of the survivors said they thought Putin should have been there since Soviet soldiers fought and died to liberate the camp, and Russia is the successor state to the Soviet Union.
"They lost their lives, and we should honor them," said Natan Grossmann, a survivor who now lives in Munich.
Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov and Ian Deitch of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/28/2015