Paula, 81, recalls day soldiers liberated camp

When the Soviet army entered Auschwitz 70 years ago, finding piles of corpses and prisoners close to death, a Russian soldier took a small and hungry 11-year-old girl into his arms and rocked her tenderly, tears coming to his eyes.

Today, that girl, 81-year-old Paula Lebovics, doesn’t know who that soldier was, but she still feels enormous gratitude to him and the other Soviet soldiers who liberated the camp on January 27, 1945.

To her, it is a shame that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not among other European leaders on the anniversary of the death camp’s liberation, his absence coming amid a deep chill between Russia and the West over the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine.