More than 50 former prisoners and survivors took part in the event in the southern Polish city of Oświęcim on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, alongside senior officials from 53 countries and seven international organisations.
The commemorative event at the site of the former camp, which the Nazi Germans set up in occupied Poland during World War II, featured leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky.
The presidents of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Finland were also among those taking part, together with the prime ministers of Canada, Croatia, Ireland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.
The list of guests included royalty and dignitaries such as Britain's King Charles, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, and John Dunlap, the head of the lay Catholic order of the Knights of Malta.
Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Howard Lutnick, the nominee for commerce secretary, led the US delegation, while Israel was represented by Education Minister Yoav Kisch.
Russia was not invited due to its invasion of Ukraine.
The main commemorative event was held in the afternoon in front of the gate to the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, with survivors, official delegations and other participants gathered together under a large tent.
World Jewish Congress leader Ron Lauder, who also chairs the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation, addressed the gathering, alongside Auschwitz survivors and Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
World Jewish Congress Ron Lauder leader speaks during a ceremony in Oświęcim, southern Poland, on Monday, 80 years since Soviet Red Army soldiers liberated the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Photo: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski
Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, addresses the gathering. Photo: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski
The remembrance ceremony paid tribute to the victims, emphasised the critical importance of Holocaust education, and reaffirmed the global commitment to combat antisemitism and hatred, according to the World Jewish Congress.
'It is our duty to always remember': Polish president
Earlier in the day, Polish President Andrzej Duda and a group of survivors and officials laid wreaths at the Death Wall, where thousands of prisoners were executed during WWII in the former German concentration and extermination camp.
In a statement to the media, Duda said: "Today, delegations from all over the world are arriving here. We, Poles—on whose occupied land the Germans built this extermination industry—are now the guardians of the memory of Auschwitz ... We are the custodians of this site, ensuring that the memory does not fade. It is our duty to always remember, so that through this memory, the world may never allow such a tragic event to befall humanity again."
Photo: PAP/Jarek Praszkiewicz
The Polish president added: "The fact that representatives of one nation inflicted such unimaginable harm on other nations—particularly the Jewish nation—is unprecedented in human history. This memory is preserved so that such a tragedy will never happen again. Thank you to everyone who has come here and to those who will continue to visit. Honour the memory of all who were murdered. Honour the memory of all who died. Honour the memory of all who suffered."
Polish President Andrzej Duda attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Death Wall in the former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in southern Poland on Monday morning. Photo: PAP/Jarek Praszkiewicz
'We must not forget the tragic lesson of our past': Polish PM
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X: "On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the whole world should hear once more those words: Never Again! We must not forget the tragic lesson of our past. Evil, violence and contempt cannot triumph anew. Under any circumstances!"
The Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp operated in German-occupied southern Poland between May 1940 and January 1945. It was the largest of the Nazi German concentration and extermination camps during the war.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and prisoners of many other nationalities, perished at the camp before it was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.
Today, Auschwitz stands as a powerful symbol of the Holocaust and the atrocities of World War II. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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Source: IAR, PAP, auschwitz.org