Survivors and leaders mark Holocaust Memorial Day
Survivors and world leaders are marking Holocaust Memorial Day with remembrance services and events.
It honours the six million Jewish people murdered, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi persecution of other groups.
The day also marks the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, in what was then Nazi-occupied Poland.
Set up in 1940, Auschwitz was initially intended to house Polish political prisoners – but it eventually became the largest of the Nazis’ extermination camps, where Adolf Hitler’s plan to kill all Jewish people – the “Final Solution” – was put in to practice.
About 1.1 million people were murdered there, mostly Jewish.
Here are some of the memorial events that took place during this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day.
(Above and below) King Charles III and the Queen Consort lit candles at Buckingham Palace, London, alongside Holocaust survivor Dr Martin Stern and a survivor of the Darfur genocide, Amouna Adam.
In a statement, the King said: “Over many years, I have been deeply touched to have met so many Holocaust survivors, all of them extraordinary people who faced unimaginable horror.
“Their strength and determination to share their testimonies is an inspiration to us all.
“The theme for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day – Ordinary People – reminds us how it was ordinary people who were the perpetrators, bystanders, rescuers, and witnesses to the Holocaust, and its victims.”
Dame Joanna Lumley also met Dr Stern at Piccadilly Circus, London.
The British actress was handing out memorial candles, alongside Holocaust survivor Joan Salter (below, left) and Rwandan genocide survivor Antoinette Mutabazi (below, right).
In Berlin, Klaus Schirdewahn (above and below), a representative of the LGBTQ+ community, spoke during a memorial ceremony commemorating the victims of the Holocaust at the lower house of the parliament or Bundestag.
Rozette Kats, an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor whose parents were murdered in Auschwitz, also spoke at the Bundestag.
The German national flag flew at half mast outside the Bundestag.
Musician Carmelo Leotta played an improvisational piece on a contrabass at the Gleis 17 memorial in Berlin.
The Gleis 17 memorial is located at the train platform from which the Nazis deported thousands of Berlin Jews by rail to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps.
US Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Michael Murphy laid flowers at the Memorial to the victims of Nazi persecution at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Sarajevo.
A member of the guard of honour of the Serbian Army stood at attention during a memorial service at the monument of victims of the Nazi concentration camp Sajmiste, in Belgrade, Serbia.
In Oswiecim, Poland, Second Gentleman of the US Douglas Emhoff (below, left) walked through the main gates of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris also laid a wreath at the “death wall”, where Nazi SS soldiers shot and killed several thousands.
On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, visitors toured the Auschwitz II-Birkenau former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.
Young visitors were also seen at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem.
Holocaust survivor Vera Schaufeld was photographed at her home in north London (below).
Ms Schaufeld was born in Prague in 1930 and transported via the Kindertransport to the UK in 1939 where she lived with a family in Bury St Edmunds.
None of her family who remained in central Europe survived the war.
On Wednesday, 600 candles were laid out in the shape of the Star of David in York Minster’s Chapter House.
