THREE hundred Auschwitz survivors returned to the nazis’ largest death camp yesterday to mark 70 years since its liberation by the Red Army.

Politicians from around the world marked Holocaust Memorial Day in memory of the six million Jews who were slaughtered by the nazi regime alongside Roma, gay and disabled people, Polish and Soviet prisoners of war and others.

But campaigners warned that fascism was once again on the rise in Europe — increasingly backed by the same Western states who sent representatives to Auschwitz yesterday.

French President Francois Hollande made an emotional plea for Jews to regard France as their homeland — but said nothing of his Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s public call for all French Roma to be deported.

And Britain was represented at the ceremony by Eric Pickles, who was condemned by the High Court this month for illegally discriminating against Roma and travellers.

Camp survivors expressed dismay at Poland’s decision not to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin when it was the Soviet Union that freed them seven decades ago.

Eighty-one-year-old Paula Lebovics remembered being a starving 11-year-old who was hugged and rocked by a Russian soldier “with tears in his eyes” as Soviet troops uncovered the horrific complex, where over a million Jews were gassed to death.

“Putin should be here,” she said. “They were our liberators.”

Fellow survivor Eva Mozes Kor agreed, saying that she had no sympathy with Mr Putin’s politics but “from a moral and historical perspective he should be here.”

Munich resident Natan Grossmann, another Auschwitz survivor, said: “They put their lives on the line to free us. They lost their lives and we should honour them.”

The failure to invite the Russian leader follows a concerted effort to rewrite the history of the second world war and as the European Union backs fascist militias in Ukraine.

Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna sparked outrage when he claimed “the Ukrainians” liberated the camp in a bid to minimise Russia’s role.

Ukraine’s current government has armed and deployed openly neonazi units like the Azov battalion, which claims to be on a “crusade of the white races” against “semite-led subhumanity,” in an attempt to crush the anti-fascist resistance forces in the country’s east.

Communist Party of the Russian Federation vice-chair Il Melnikov said a new generation of nazis “cleverly played on liberal phraseology to get the support of Europe — and Europe is turning a blind eye.”

He said: “The Baltic states regularly encourage parades of Waffen SS veterans and raise monuments to them.

“In Ukraine punitive battalions use nazi symbols and openly use racist language.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk — who has previously referred to Russians as “subhuman” — claimed in Germany earlier this month that Russia had “invaded Ukraine and Germany” in the second world war, while the far-right parties of the Euromaidan movement openly revere nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists murdered thousands of Jews and Poles during the Holocaust.

British Young Communist League general secretary Zoe Hennessy said the anniversary should be “a time to reflect on this dark period in history and vow for it never to happen again.

“Yet Western leaders recently funded and used fascist parties in Ukraine to overthrow a government, attacking trade unionists, communists and anti-fascists.

“The left must deepen its resolve to fight the rise of fascism across Europe.”

A spokesman for anti-racist group Hope Not Hate told the Star: “Seventy years on from the liberation of Auschwitz and the horrendous images of the dead and dying in the camps seem hard to erase.

“Our recent report State of Hate revealed that organised far-right groups in the UK are having a hard time of things at the moment, suffering splits, defections and losing electoral support to Ukip.

“That said, the conditions have been fertile for populist and racist parties for some time, so it is wise we remain vigilant to that threat.”

But Communist Party leader Robert Griffiths warned that “70 years on we have self-proclaimed fascists in a government welcomed by Britain, the United States and Nato.

“Neonazi militias are integrated into the Ukrainian army. The people of eastern Ukraine are paying a terrible price for Western duplicity.
“It seems the lessons of the Holocaust need to be learned over again.”