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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jon Henley Europe correspondent

Among monarchs and presidents, focus of Auschwitz anniversary is on 50 survivors

A survivor attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Death Wall during the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland.
A survivor attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Death Wall during the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland. Photograph: Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters

Kings and queens, presidents, prime ministers and dignitaries from 54 countries will assemble at Auschwitz on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation, but the world’s focus will be firmly on its few remaining survivors.

About 50 former inmates are expected to attend the ceremony at the complex in southern Poland where Nazi Germany murdered more than a million people, most of them Jews, but also Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and gay people.

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