Auschwitz survivors mark 76 years since liberation, online amid pandemic Holocaust survivors will commemorate their lost loved ones on Wednesday, as the world marks 76 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Author: VANESSA GERA Associated Press Published: 5:16 AM EST January 27, 2021 Updated: 7:27 AM EST January 27, 2021 WARSAW, Poland — Tova Friedman hid among corpses at Auschwitz amid the chaos of the extermination camp's final days. Just 6 years old at the time, the Poland-born Friedman was instructed by her mother to lie absolutely still in a bed at a camp hospital, next to the body of a young woman who had just died. As German forces preparing to flee the scene of their genocide went from bed to bed shooting anyone still alive, Friedman barely breathed under a blanket and went unnoticed.