Holocaust Memorial Day 27th january 2011

27/01/1945: Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27 January 1945. They found several thousand emaciated survivors and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria – the Nazi attempt to destroy evidence of their Crimes Against Humanity. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi killing camp, where approximately 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered.

Auschwitz-Birkenau has become a symbol of the horror of industrialised murder, and what can happen when hatred is left unchecked.

The Holocaust Memorial Trust are asking everyone across the UK to pause for a few moments to remember the victims of Nazi persecution and those who were murdered under exclusionary policies in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur.