Oswiecim (dpa) – 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz extermination camp, delegations from 55 countries are commemorating the millions of victims of the Holocaust. The ceremony will be attended by numerous heads of state and government. But it is the survivors of the Nazi murder apparatus who will take centre stage: about 50 former prisoners from Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
The German delegation includes Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Bundesrat President Anke Rehlinger, Bundestag Vice-President Petra Pau and several ministers. In addition to Poland’s head of state Andrzej Duda, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the UK’s King Charles III and Spain’s King Felipe VI will likewise be attending the commemoration.
The former German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland stands as a symbol of the Holocaust and the horrors of National Socialism. Some 1.1 million people were murdered there from 1940 to 1945 – most of them Jews. The camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers on 27 January 1945, with some 7,000 inmates surviving. Other groups of victims of the Nazis will also be commemorated: Sinti/Sintize and Roma/Romnja, homosexuals, the sick, the disabled, political opponents and individuals stigmatised as “asocials”.
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