Holocaust Memorial Day commemorated

Source: CCTV.com | 01-28-2008 09:55

The people of Poland and Israel have marked a Memorial Day to remember the end of the Holocaust. It's been 63 years since the liberation of the death camp in Auschwitz.

On Sunday, survivors gathered at the former death camp in Auschwitz to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of its liberation.

Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland was the largest of all Nazi extermination camps in Europe. At least 1.1 million Jews were killed there before its liberation by the Soviet Red Army on 27th January, 1945.

About 200,000 wartime inmates survived. This man is among the group of survivors here for a ceremony of remembrance.

Former Camp inmate Tadeusz Smerczynski said, "Those terrible crimes committed here, by the German Nazis, the memory of them, is a warning against it being repeated."

In Israel, scores of young people from all over the world, members of the International Youth Congress on Holocaust visited the Yad Vasem museum on the day of the anniversary.

The group toured the museum and attended a memorial service in the Hall of Remembrance where they read out the names of the Jews who perished.

The International Holocaust Memorial Day was declared by the United Nations in 2006, to commemorate those murdered by the Nazis.

Editor:Zhang Ning