January 27 was the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust, dedicated to the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by Soviet troops during the Second World War. From 1940 to 1945, this camp was the largest of the Nazi death camps. About 1.1 million people died within its walls, 90% of whom were Jews.
There is no culture without memory. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future, said the former prisoner of Auschwitz, the writer Elie Wiesel.
Entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp after its liberation in January 1945:
Arrival of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau, June 1944:
Arrival of the deportation train bringing Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, circa 1942:
Promotional video:
Barbed wire at Auschwitz, 1945:
Group of SS officers in Auschwitz, left to right: Karl Hecker, Dr. Josef Mengele, Karl-Friedrich Hecker and Richard Baer, who was the camp commandant from May 1944 to December 1944:
Prisoners of the camp, found fit for work, May 1944:
Women in the barracks, January 1945:
Prisoners of Auschwitz before liberation by the Soviet army in January 1945:
Cremation ovens, February 1945:
Glasses of slain prisoners, 1940:
Photo of child prisoners, taken in the 40s by order of the camp doctor Josef Mengele, who carried out experiments on children and twins:
Seven tons of hair from murdered prisoners found after the liberation of Auschwitz:
15-year-old Russian boy Ivan Dudnik, rescued in 1945:
Jewish boys liberated from Auschwitz display their camp tattoos on board a refugee ship, July 15, 1945:
Years later, former prisoners of Auschwitz found the strength to return there and take photographs in memory of the tragedy:
Jack Rosenthal, born in Romania and imprisoned in a concentration camp at age 14, stands near Auschwitz on January 26, 2015.
93-year-old Miroslav Selka from the Polish city of Sosnowiec visited Auschwitz on January 27, 2017.
Former prisoners of Auschwitz. January 27, 2018.
Former prisoner of the Moshe Elyon concentration camp at the old railway station in Thessaloniki, Greece, March 18, 2018, during a ceremony commemorating the departure of the first train from that city to Auschwitz.
Former prisoners light candles at a monument to the victims in Auschwitz, Poland, on January 27, 2016.
The main entrance to the former Nazi death camp, January 16, 2019.