Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer warns of democracy's fragility

Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer has warned of growing threats to democracy as the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp approaches.

"The essential thing is that democracy remains, which unfortunately is unstable in many countries," the 103-year-old said in an interview with dpa in Berlin.

Friedländer voiced concern over the growing influence of far-right parties in Europe.

"I don't understand much about politics." she said. "But I always say: That's how it started back then. Be careful. Don't do it. Respect people, that's what's essential."

She emphasized that Jews are an integral part of Germany's society, just like everyone else.

"My message is: Be human," Friedländer said. "Accept others, no matter what skin colour and what religion especially. We all come into the world in the same way."

Friedländer, who was born in Berlin in 1921, went into hiding in the city and was eventually sent to the Theriesenstadt concentration camp in 1944, in what was then Czechoslovakia. Her father, mother and brother were killed in Auschwitz.

She and her husband, whom she met in Theresienstadt, emigrated to the United States in 1946. After he died, she started to visit Berlin in the 2000s and moved back permanently in 2010 at age 88. She has been telling young people in Germany about the Nazi time ever since.

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the survivors of the Nazi's Auschwitz extermination camp in German-occupied Poland.

At the Auschwitz camp alone, the Germany murdered more than 1 million people, most of them Jews. January 27 has been observed as Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany since 1996.