On January 27, 1945, the Poland-sweeping Soviet soldiers found in Oswiecim of Krakow in the south a concentration camp fenced with wire netting, in which, there were then over 7, 000 people, mostly Jews, languished and emaciated, hence the Auschwitz death camp known to the outside world.

Auschwitz concentration camp was built by German troops in 1939. It is also called "factory of death" as totally over four million people had been massacred till the liberation by the Soviet army. Among the more than 100 camps built by German Nazis during the Second World War, Auschwitz camp was the largest one, which has become the "nightmare" for the Jews, for ever.

The Polish Parliament adopted an act on July 2, 1947 to transform the original site of the camp into a memorial and single out a mourning area around. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) included the Auschwitz death camp into the World Heritage List in 1979.

During his visit in Warsaw on December 17, 1970, Willy Brandt, then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, presented wreath to the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial. Staring at the reliefs on the Jewish victims, Brandt kneeled down all of a sudden, praying for pardon by God and peace for the anguished souls.

In 1985 then German President Richard von Weiszacker gave a well-known speech "German Recognition of War Persecution." In May 1994, German Lower House amended the Criminal Law, stipulating that sentence will be imposed to those who slaughter Jews in any form. In January 1995 at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, then German President Roman Herzog, begged again for pardon by Polish people for the atrocities by German Nazis during his visit to Oswiecim.

Crowded, dirty and supply-insufficient Jewish ghetto.

German officers outside commanding room at the Belzec concentration camp, 1942.

Large number of Jews on their way to death.

Auschwitz I enclosed with electrified wire netting, on which many prisoners driven mad killed themselves.

Mass grave at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

By People's Daily Online