The solemn commemoration came amid a worldwide spike in antisemitism and new surveys suggesting basic knowledge of the Holocaust is eroding.
Lali Sokolov – better known as the Tattooist of Auschwitz, who was immortalised in the 2018 book that has sold more than 13 million copies in 40 languages – has done more to keep the horrors of the Second World War alive than most in recent memory.
Over 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, including nearly a million Jews. On the day of liberation 80 years ago, only 7,000 were saved.
Ruth Cohen, a 94-year-old American Holocaust survivor, returned to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland for the first time. She recalled seeing family members before they were separated for the last time at the camp.
World leaders rubbed shoulders with 56 survivors of Hitler's death camp as they marked 80 years since its liberation.
The Daily Express and the Daily Mirror both feature a picture of an elderly Holocaust survivor who returned to Auschwitz for Monday's ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of its liberation. The Express captions the image "returning to hell", while the Mirror's headline reads "it is our duty to remember".
During World War II, men, women and children were transported from across Europe to Auschwitz-Birkenau, horrendous journeys in which they were packed into cramped cattle cars.
That creates risks: the Holocaust didn’t begin with mass murder. The dehumanization of Jews progressed gradually from public exclusion to eventual internment to finally extermination. Millions of regular Germans—and Europeans more broadly—facilitated or silently accepted these actions.
The ceremony is widely regarded as the last major observance likely to see a significant number of survivors in attendance.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the families of two survivors who resettled in Pittsburgh shared their stories.
It doesn’t do any good for your heart, for your mind, for anything,” said Holocaust survivor Jona Laks, 94, about her return to Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
In all, the Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews from all over Europe, annihilating two-thirds of Europe’s Jews and one-third of all Jews worldwide. In 2005, the United Nations designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.