January 27, 2023
Worldwide and Online

Details of the commemoration event and organizational information can be found at 78.auschwitz.org.

Learn about the history of Auschwitz in online lessons,
and in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum podcast “On Auschwitz.”

Learn more about Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum from Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human, a book by Piotr Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim since 2006.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum:
On 27 January 2023 we will commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. The event will be held under the honorary patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda. The entire event will be streamed live online.

The main theme of the 78th anniversary will be the process of planning, creating and expanding the system of dehumanisation and genocide at Auschwitz, which was particularly strongly defined by the words of survivor Marian Turski “Auschwitz did not fall from the sky”.

While the function of Auschwitz as an extermination center was taking shape in 1942, in 1943 the scale of operation became industrial. In the spring of that year, the Germans completed the construction of four installations at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which included gas chambers and modern facilities for cremating corpses.

‘Today visitors to the Memorial can see the ruins of buildings that become a symbol of the extermination of Jews, but also of other crimes committed at Auschwitz against Poles, Roma, Russians and people of other nationalities. However, architectural and construction plans survived, which clearly shows what a human being, even a well-educated one, is capable of doing on behalf of an ideology. All these remains are an eloquent warning to mankind, how eloquent today in light of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine,’ said Museum Director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywinski.

All Auschwitz Survivors are invited to the commemoration event, each with one accompanying person.

Until the liberation of some 7 thousand prisoners remaining at the site of the camp by soldiers of the Red Army, the German Nazis murdered approx. 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, mostly Jews, but also Poles, the Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and people of other nationalities.

For the world today, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Holocaust and the atrocities of World War II. In 2005 the United Nations declared 27 January as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

January 27 – on that day the International Holocaust Remembrance Day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly resolution on 1 November 2005 to commemorate the tragedy of 6 million Jews murdered during the Second World War by the German Nazi regime. The UN calls for this time to be a warning to all people against hatred, racism and prejudice. The main event commemorating the Holocaust Remembrance Day every year takes place the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial on January 27, since on that day the concentration camp was liberated by Red Army soldiers in 1945. Auschwitz-Birkenau is one of the many German concentration and death camps set up during WWII on occupied Polish lands. It’s the most recognizable symbol and place of genocide in the world. State Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau was set up on its former prisoners’ initiative. It has been operating uninterruptedly since 1947.

Learn more: UN Outreach Program on the Holocaust

About the Podcast

Listen to On Auschwitz Podcast

The official podcast of the Auschwitz Memorial. The history of Auschwitz is exceptionally complex. It combined two functions: a concentration camp and an extermination center. Nazi Germany persecuted various groups of people there, and the camp complex continually expanded and transformed itself. In the podcast “On Auschwitz,” we discuss the details of the history of the camp as well as our contemporary memory of this important and special place.

Virtual visit of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum: www.panorama.auschwitz.org
More photos: www.auschwitz.org/en/gallery