2024-01-27 16:58 update: 2024-01-29, 14:41
Photo PAP/Jarek Praszkiewicz
Observances of the 79th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German death camp liberation in the final months of World War Two commenced on the site of the camp on Saturday afternoon.
A group of 20 survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau laid wreaths and lit candles at the Death Wall in the yard of Block 11 where the Germans shot dead thousands of people.
The main ceremonies, which are part of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, will be held later in the day at one of the preserved prisoner residential barracks on the site of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, today a memorial to the camp's victims.
Former prisoners, the Speaker of the Senate Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, the Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, clergy and members of diplomatic corps accredited in Poland are expected to take part.
Russia's representatives have not been invited to attend following its invasion of Ukraine.
The Germans established the Auschwitz camp in 1940, initially for the imprisonment of Poles. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was opened two years later and became the main site for the mass extermination of Jews. There was also a network of sub-camps in the complex.
The Germans killed at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war.
It was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945. In 1947, the camp was declared a national memorial site. International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by the UN on January 27, the anniversary of the camp's liberation. (PAP)
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