Auschwitz survivors, world leaders mark 80 years since death camp’s liberation

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Auschwitz survivors were being joined by world leaders on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945.

The event is widely seen as the last major observance that any notable number of survivors are able to attend.

Leaders due to attend included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s King Charles, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish President Andrzej Duda, whose country was occupied by the Nazis during the war.

They were not expected to make speeches but rather to listen for perhaps the last time to those who suffered and witnessed at first hand one of humanity’s greatest atrocities.

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Most of the victims at Auschwitz-Birkenau were Jews killed on an industrial scale in gas chambers but the Germans also murdered many Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, gay people and others who were targeted for elimination in the Nazi racial ideology.

Russian representatives, who were in the past central guests at such ceremonies in recognition of the Soviet liberation of the camp, have not been welcome since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Read moreThe liberation of Auschwitz: What the Soviets discovered on January 27, 1945

France24