World marks 78 years since liberation of Auschwitz

Holocaust survivors and officials are set to gather for ceremonies in southern Poland on Friday to mark the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

A photo made available by the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum shows the unloading ramp and the "Gate of Death" at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp in southern Poland in the winter of 1945.

Photo: EPA/STANISLAW MUCHA/www.auschwitz.org

January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day as proclaimed by the United Nations in 2005.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the commemoration of the liberation of the Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005. #OTD we honor the victims of the Holocaust and Nazism. #WeRemember pic.twitter.com/9YPzuzHWhX

— Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland (@PremierRP_en) January 27, 2023

US Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, and a group of foreign diplomats posted in Poland are expected to be among those attending the ceremonies at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, together with about 20 surviving former prisoners.

Russian officials have not been invited to take part in the event.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in a tweet: "Today, 78 years after the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the memory of the atrocities of those events is still alive. The result of hatred was a planned, horrific crime. Its traces will forever remain in our minds."

Today, 78 years after the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the memory of the atrocities of those events is still alive. The result of hatred was a planned, horrific crime. Its traces will forever remain in our minds.

— Zbigniew Rau (@RauZbigniew) January 27, 2023

The Polish foreign ministry said that Auschwitz-Birkenau "will forever remain a symbol of the extermination that costed the lives of more than a million victims."

78 years ago the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated.

The place will forever remain a symbol of the extermination that costed the lives of more than a million victims. 🕯️

January 27 marks The International Holocaust Remembrance Day. pic.twitter.com/65hfDOAE4M

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs 🇵🇱 (@PolandMFA) January 27, 2023

The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp operated in German-occupied southern Poland between May 1940 and January 1945. It was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and death camps during World War II.

More than 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, perished there before the camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.

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Source: IAR, PAP