Britain's King Charles III stands next to the executive director of the Jewish Community Centre Jonathan Ornstein as he holds a painting in Krakow, Poland. —AFP

Oswiecim (Poland)

The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops is being marked on Monday at the site of the former death camp, a ceremony that is widely being treated as the last major observance that any notable number of survivors will be able to attend.

Nazi German forces murdered some 1.1 million people at the site in southern Poland, which was under German occupation during World War II. Most victims were Jews killed on an industrial scale in gas chambers, but the Germans murdered many Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, gay people and others who were targeted for elimination in the Nazi racial ideology.

Polish president Andrzej Duda, whose nation lost 6 million citizens during the war, placed a candle at the Death Wall, where prisoners were executed, among them Poles who resisted the occupation of their country. He was surrounded by elderly survivors of the camp assisted by family members.

In all, the Germans murdered 6 million Jews from all over Europe, annihilating two-thirds of Europe's Jews and one-third of all Jews worldwide. In 2005, the UN designated Jan 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Among the leaders prsent there were Germany's chancellor Olaf Scholz and president Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Germany has never sent both of its highest state representatives to the observances before, according to German news agency dpa. It is a sign of Germany's continued commitment to take responsibility for the nation's crimes, even amid a growing far-right movement that would like to forget.

French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau also attended, while Britain's King Charles III were also there along with kings and queens from Spain, Denmark and Norway.