Marian Turski was a Holocaust survivor who became an historian devoted to ensuring the world’s collective memory of the genocide does not fade.
- Died: February 18, 2025 (Who else died on February 18?)
- Details of death: Died in Warsaw, Poland at the age of 98.
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Marian Turski’s legacy
Born Moshe Turbowicz, Turski was barely a teenager when his family was forced into the Lodz Ghetto during World War II. His father and brother were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, and Turski himself was forced to go on two long death marches.
Turski survived. He then devoted the rest of his life to ensuring the world knew what happened, and to ensuring it never happened again.
He remained in Poland after the war, studying at the University of Wrocław and becoming a journalist. He did press for the Polish United Workers’ Party, worked with the weekly magazine Polityka, and more. By the 1960s, he’d become an activist, journeying to the United States to march with Martin Luther King Jr. and beginning work to better document the harsh realities of the Holocaust.
To further those efforts, Turski was vice president of Poland’s Jewish Historical Institute Association; was on the International Auschwitz Council; served on the board of the Association of Jews, War Veterans and Other Victims of the Second World War II; and held other notable positions. He also helped co-found the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
His work never ended. In 2020, at a ceremony recognizing the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Turski warned that events like the Holocaust could happen again if people turn a blind eye towards hate and tyranny. He urged Facebook/Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg to remove Holocaust denial from the platform and was a longtime advocate of the Never Again Association, which fights racism and hate speech.
His many honors include receiving the Silver Cross of Merit, Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, a Merit for the Protection of Human Rights award, and other prizes.
Notable quote
“Do not be indifferent.”— Turski’s proposed 11th Commandment, January 2025
Tributes to Marian Turski
Full obituary: The Washington Post
