OSWIECIM – DIRECTOR Â Steven Spielberg (C) and World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder attend a ceremony on the site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau near Oswiecim January 27, 2015.
Ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp take place on January 27, with some 300 former Auschwitz prisoners taking part in the commemoration event. Nazi Germany built the Auschwitz camp in 1940 as a place of incarceration for the Poles.
From 1942, it became the largest site of extermination of the Jews from Europe. In Auschwitz, Nazis killed at least 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of other ethnicities.
On January 27, 1945 the camp was liberated by the Red Army soldiers. – Reuters
