Warsaw, 27 January 2025 (dpa/MIA) - Polish President Andrzej Duda remembered the victims of the Nazis at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site, as 80th anniversary commemorations got under way on Monday.

"We Poles, on whose land occupied by Nazi Germany this extermination industry and this concentration camp were built, are today the guardians of memory," Duda said.

At the start of the ceremony marking 80 years since the liberation of the former concentration camp towards the end of World War II, Duda laid a wreath at the Death Wall, accompanied by former prisoners.

Thousands of prisoners were shot in front of the wall by Nazi SS soldiers.

More than 50 former prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps are taking part in the ceremonies. Four of them are to give a main speech in the afternoon.

Given their advanced age, it may be one of the last large ceremonies at which survivors can take part.

Delegations from 55 countries are attending the commemoration. Germany is represented by it's two top politicians, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Photo: EPA