Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at a far-right campaign event in Germany where he urged supporters to move beyond their “past guilt”.

Speaking via video link to a hall of around 4,500 Alternative for Germany (AfD) supporters in the central city of Halle, the world’s richest man said: “It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”

Mr Musk caused outrage last week after making a gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration which many compared to a Nazi salute.

At the rally on Saturday he made an apparent reference to Germany’s Nazi past, saying “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great grandparents”.

He added: “There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”

Speaking in favour of the far-right party, Mr Musk told the crowd: “I’m very excited for the AfD, I think you’re really the best hope for Germany. Fight for a great future for Germany.”

It was the second time in the last two weeks Mr Musk has publicly spoken in support of the anti-immigration, anti-Islamic party, which has been labelled right-wing-extremist by German security services.

He previously hosted AfD leader Alice Weidel in an interview on X, raising concerns of election meddling.

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Tens of thousands protest against far-right

Meanwhile tens of thousands of anti-far right campaigners protested in Berlin and other German cities on Saturday.

A huge crowd at the capital city’s Brandenburg Gate sang anti-fascist songs and carried banners denouncing the AfD.

It comes after the three-party governing coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed last year.

The opposition centre-right Union bloc is currently at the top of pre-election polls, followed by the AfD – but mainstream parties have declared they will not work with the far-right party.

Mr Musk’s mounting support for the AfD will likely raise further concerns about election meddling and the surging popularity of the far-right in Germany.

It was almost spring, when the Gestapo came for them.

The Gronowskis had planned to escape through the back garden if the worst happened. But they were taken by surprise, sitting at the breakfast table sipping coffee and spreading jam on bread, when the doorbell rang.

“The door opened and two men shouted ‘Gestapo. Papers’,” recalls Simon, who was aged just 11. As the Nazis entered their small flat, his mother, Chana, and older sister, Ita, turned pale and started trembling. After examining Chana’s ID card and passport, he confirmed her fears.

“You have been denounced,” he said, curtly.

It was March 1943, almost three years into the Nazi occupation of Belgium. As Jews, the Gronowskis had left their home six months earlier and gone into hiding in a different part of their home city of Brussels. But the Nazi’s secret police had tracked them down.

Just a child at the time, Simon had no clue his family were to be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau – the notorious death camp where the Third Reich carried out mass murder with brutal efficiency.

As the soldiers shouted at them to pack their bags, Simon grabbed his beloved scout uniform and followed his family into the unknown. Pointing at her young son, Chana asked: “The little one too?”.

“Yes,” they replied. “The little one too.”

After their arrest in Belgium, they were held in a former army barracks in the neighbouring city of Mechelen. This was was Belgium’s only transit camp, a holding place for Jews and Romani before their deportation to the extermination camps.

The living conditions were wretched. A hundred men, women and children were crammed together in each room, forced to sleep on hay mattresses on rickety wooden bunks. Nobody knew what fate awaited them. The word “Auschwitz” was never mentioned, says Simon. “The Nazis told us that Jews must go away to work, in labour camps.”

A month later, Simon and his mother were informed by the SS that they would be leaving the next day by train. Ita, briefly protected by the Belgian citizenship she had proudly claimed on her 16th birthday, wasn’t on the list that day.

The next day, Simon and Chana were loaded on to one of 34 train wagons alongside 1,600 other prisoners. Nobody knew their final destination, they all thought they were going to work.

When the 11-year-old was escorted out of the barracks, he found himself standing “between two rows of soldiers all carrying rifles, leading right up to a train wagon which seemed enormous, as I was very small. I climbed in with my mother and 50 other people”.

Inside the wagon, there was straw on the floor, no seats and barely any light inside. “I was still in my little world of cub scouts,” says Simon. “I didn’t know that I had been condemned to death and that this train was going to transport me to the place of my execution.”

But this was one of the convoys which sent more than 25,000 Jews from Belgium to the death camps between 1942 and 1944.

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During the journey, the train came under attack from the Belgian Resistance. Three young fighters halted the train and managed to help people escape. Cowering in their carriage, Simon and his mother held their breath.

Once the train started moving again, the door of their carriage, possibly damaged in the raid, slid open. As others leapt down, his mother told him to follow.

Jumping down, Simon heard soldiers running in his direction, firing guns and shouting. When he dared to look back, he saw that soldiers had caught his mother before she could jump.

“I jumped from the train to obey my mother. If she had told me to stay then I’d have never left her side and I would have died with her in the gas chamber,” says Simon. “I adored my mother. She sacrificed herself to ensure my escape.”

Terrified, Simon ran for his life. He spent the night in the woods before a local Belgian family gave him refuge. Eventually he was reunited with his father, Leon, who was in hospital at the time of their arrest having suffered a breakdown. On his release, he was sheltered by friends.

Three days later, Chana was dead. Murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the camp where the Third Reich perfected its methods of mass murder.

By the end of the Nazis’ four and half years in control of the camp, they had killed more than a million people – the majority of whom were Jews.

Six months later, Simon’s sister, Ita, also lost her life at Auschwitz.

On Monday, around 50 survivors will join an array of international dignitaries including King Charles, France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Polish President Andrzej Duda to remember the day Soviet soldiers liberated the camp 80 years ago.

In total, an estimated 6 million lost their lives in the Holocaust, one of the greatest crimes in history. Today, Simon is concerned by what he sees as rising antisemitism and the growing popularity of far-right parties and populism in the US and Europe.

“I fight against the extreme right and antisemitism, because I was a victim of it. The extreme right is a pathway to hatred,” he says.

America, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands are just some of the countries which reported a rise in antisemitic incidents in the year following the October 7 2023 attack.

A “disregard or disrespect for democracy” is fuelling the popularity of “antisemitism, racism and other forms of hostilities” in Europe, says Professor Stefanie Schuler-Springorum from the Centre for Research on Antisemitism in Berlin.

“We have to be on the alert,” she warns.

The 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation will be for some the final time they attend a major anniversary event and bear witness to the crimes committed.

It’s for this reason, Simon wants to share his memories of the horror he witnessed.

“My mother gave me life twice. When I was born, and the day of my escape,” he says. “I want young people to know about the cruelty of yesterday, to help defend our democracy today.”

Siobhan Robbins reports from Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland with Sophie Garratt, Europe news editor, and Serena Kutchinsky, assistant editor for premium content

Four Israeli soldiers held by Hamas have been released as part of a ceasefire deal that has brought an end to 15 months of brutal fighting in Gaza.

Hostages Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, all aged 20, and 19-year-old Liri Albag, were all serving with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) when they were captured.

Surrounded by armed Hamas fighters, the women waved and smiled as they were led on to a podium in Gaza City before being guided to Red Cross vehicles waiting to take them to a border point to be handed to the IDF.

Gaza ceasefire live updates

“The four returning hostages are currently being accompanied by IDF special forces and ISA forces on their return to Israeli territory, where they will undergo an initial medical assessment,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The commanders and soldiers of the Israel Defence Forces salute and embrace the returning hostages as they make their way home to the state of Israel.”

As they crossed into Israeli territory, the military said the women would be taken to an “initial reception point” where they will be “reunited with their parents”.

They are being freed by Hamas in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners, including 120 who are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis.

The ceasefire allows for thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their communities.

However, not long after the soldiers were released, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza until hostage Arbel Yehud was released.

“Israel today received four female soldiers kidnapped from the Hamas terrorist organisation, and in exchange will release security prisoners…” his office said in a statement.

“In accordance with the agreement, Israel will not allow Gazans to cross into the northern Gaza Strip – until the release of civilian Arbel Yehud, who was supposed to be released today, is arranged.”

A Hamas official told the Reuters news agency she was alive and well and would be released next Saturday.

Israel had reportedly demanded she be on the list of the hostages released today. However, she was not included.

It is thought she might be held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group in the Gaza Strip.

The multi-stage fragile ceasefire deal – mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt – has so far held, winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the militant group.

Its first six-week phase includes the release of 33 out of 94 hostages – women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded – in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Among the roughly 250 people taken from Israel during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack which ignited the conflict, some have died in captivity in Gaza, while others have been released or rescued.

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“The Israeli government is committed to the return of all abducted and missing persons,” Mr Netanyahu’s office said in a statement shortly after the soldiers’ release.

In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, a big screen showed the faces of the women.

“We are overjoyed and moved to see Naama standing strong and returning to us,” the family of Naama Levy said in a statement.

“We will not rest until the last hostage returns,” they added.

The pause in fighting – which started last Sunday and saw three hostages released in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners – is also supposed to enable humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged territory.

What happens after the initial stage of the deal is uncertain.

In Gaza, Palestinians have been both celebrating the relief from the bombing and grieving the loss of loved ones and livelihoods.

Two-thirds of all structures in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or obliterated.

Thousands of returning displaced Palestinians have found their homes reduced to rubble.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to Hamas-run authorities in Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.