Concentration camp survivors mark 60th anniversary of evacuation

Survivors of a Nazi concentration camp gathered outside the southern Polish city of Krakow on Saturday, commemorating the 60th anniversary of its evacuation, the Polish News Agency reported.

At the site of the Plaszow camp, where Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist, saved more than 1,000 Jews from gas chambers,the survivors prayed for the victims and laid flowers at a memorial to the dead.

Between 1942 and 1945, about 150,000 prisoners, including Jews,Gypsies and non-Jewish Poles, were imprisoned at the camp, and at least 80,000 people died of hunger and exhaustion.

When Soviet troops advanced westward, the prisoners were evacuated in "death marches" during which thousands of people died or were shot by Germans.

On Jan. 19, 1945, Soviet troops arrived at the camp and liberated all prisoners. During World War II, about 6 million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

The Plaszow camp is well-known due to Steven Spielberg's 1993 Oscar-winning movie "Schindler's List."

Source: Xinhua