Holocaust Survivors Return To Auschwitz For Tributes

Dozens of Auschwitz survivors have returned to Auschwitz to pay tribute to the victims of the Nazi regime.

Soviet soldiers stormed the death camp in German-occupied Poland to liberate its occupants on 27^th January 1945 - the date now recognised as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Elderly survivors returned to the execution wall in the camp to lay flowers, light candles and say prayers for those who did not survive.

To mark the anniversary of their liberation they also walked slowly beneath the gate at the entrance of the camp that bears one of the most infamous phrases from the war, “Arbeit Macht Frei” ("Work Will Set You Free").

Poland’s prime minister, Beata Szydlo, who comes from the Polish town where the Auschwitz memorial and museum are located, recalled the “destruction of humanity” carried out by the Nazis.

He went on to say the holocaust is “an open wound that may close sometimes but it shall never be fully healed and it must not be forgotten”.

The Nazis murdered about 1.1 million people in Auschwitz during World War Two - mostly Jews from across Europe, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others.