On January 27, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a harrowing Nazi extermination camp where more than a million people, mainly Jews, perished. The Soviet Red Army's arrival exposed the atrocities of the camp, though Allied intelligence had prior knowledge. Established by the Nazis as part of a larger network of over 44,000 camps, Auschwitz was not only a site of extermination but also a symbol of racial supremacy impacting numerous marginalized groups during and after World War II. Today, we remember the victims and survivors by reflecting on their stories and the ideology that fueled such hatred.
Eighty years ago, the Soviet Red Army liberated survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi extermination camp in the Silesian region of southern Poland. The arrival of the Allies gave the world its first real glimpse of the horrors of the camp, even though there is evidence that British and American intelligence agencies knew of the industrial-scale killings in Auschwitz concentration and extermination camps.
More than one million people, the vast majority of them Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz camp, which operated from May 1940 until its liberation on January 27, 1945, now observed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in honour of the victims.
The Nazis, driven by their ideology of racial supremacy and territorial expansion, established more than 44,000 camps that served a range of purposes across Germany and its occupied territories from 1939 to 1945.
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