It has been 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, one of the most notorious death camps run by the Nazi regime during World War II. Survivors of the camp gathered Monday, Jan. 27, to commemorate the somber anniversary in a special ceremony.
Nazi forces murdered around 1.1 million people at the site in southern Poland. The region was under German occupation during World War II.
Most of the victims were Jews, but the Nazis also killed many Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, gay people and others targeted for elimination in Nazi racial ideology.
Survivors described Auschwitz as “hell on Earth.”
Among those at Monday’s ceremony were presidents, prime ministers and royalty from Poland, Germany, France, Canada, Britain, Spain, Denmark and Norway.
U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnic represented the U.S.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, also traveled to Poland for the memorial.
Politicians were not asked to speak this year by the event’s organizers since the survivors are all elderly. The youngest survivor was 80 years old. Instead, they made the survivors the center of the observances.
