Nadia Ragozhina
Reporting from Auschwitz

There are no resting places for the 1.1 million people who lost their lives at Auschwitz-Birkenau; nowhere for their descendants and survivors to bring flowers, or a gravestone to claim one’s own.

As I slowly made my way around Birkenau amid hundreds of tourists who were squeezing in a visit before the site closed its doors ahead of today’s commemorations, I saw people carrying red roses.

Approaching the site of one of the crematoria, two young Jewish men from an American group said the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

But there was a memorial that’s become a pivotal point of the camp. Between the remnants of the crematoria, at the end of the railway platform known as the "death road" which was the last path of those who were marched straight to the gas chambers, stands a monument.

The top blocks represent the chimneys that no longer stand. The rest is piled up stone blocks, for all the different ways in which men, women and children were murdered in the camp.

It is completed by bronze plaques with the same inscription in 23 different languages, spoken by the people from 28 different countries who were transported here to meet their death.

“Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity,” it begins.

The roses were laid on the plaques and the words of the Kaddish hang in the crisp winter air, as one attempts to process this place, that is impossible to describe.

Daniela Relph
Senior royal correspondent, reporting from Auschwitz

The King is on his way to Poland for the Auschwitz commemorations.

During his visit, he will make a speech at a Jewish charity event.

Buckingham Palace says the King will focus on the testimony of survivors, and stress that they teach us "to cherish our freedom, to challenge prejudice and never to be a bystander in the face of violence and hate".

He will say it is our collective duty, in a world filled with "turmoil and strife," to learn the lessons of history and that "the act of remembering the evils of the past remains a vital task. In so doing, we inform our present and shape our future".

Renee Salt had been living a normal life with her mother and father in Poland when Nazi Germany invaded in 1939.

As the Nazi Germans began rounding up Jews, Renee found herself on a train headed for Auschwitz II -Birkenau.

"We were packed very tightly. They shut and bolted the doors, without any food," she tells the BBC's Jordan Dunbar. "They didn’t give us any food – no bread, no water, nothing. Not even any air, no windows – they only have a few slats on top."

When the train arrived at its destination in southern Poland, Renee made to follow her father off the car - but immediately lost track of him.

"My father jumped off first and I jumped after him. When I jumped off I didn’t see him anymore – he disappeared, like into thin air," she says.

"They took them away, we didn’t know where to, without a kiss, without a goodbye, he disappeared, like into thin air. I never saw him again."

• Renee was ultimately rescued from Bergen-Belsen, where she had been moved as Nazi officials relocated surviving prisoners out of Auschwitz as the Soviets approached. She made her way to Paris, where she met a British military policeman - they later married and had two children. You can learn more about Renee's story in What Happened at Auschwitz on BBC iPlayer

A few hours ago, Holocaust survivors laid flowers and candles at Auschwitz's "death wall", where the SS executed thousands of prisoners.

About 50 survivors have returned to the camp to pay tribute. There was silence, apart from the sound of photographers' cameras clicking, as each took their turn to mark the moment.

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

Image source, Frank Gardner

Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1990 was practically deserted.

For 45 years since its liberation from the Nazis there had been no mass tourism since Poland, as one of the Warsaw Pact countries in the Soviet sphere, had been largely cut off from much of the world.

On a cold, bleak February afternoon I walked alone through the empty, silent huts, with their triple tiers of wooden pallet bunks, past the signs in Gothic German script reading: ‘One louse : Your Death’. No tourists, no buses, no guides that day. Just the ghosts of those that perished in that terrible place.

Years later I interviewed Iby Knill, a Hungarian-Slovak woman who survived Auschwitz by volunteering to work in the hospital where they were given better rations.

We returned to the Hungarian railway siding at Szekesfehervar where she had been loaded onto a cattle truck, bound for an unknown fate. Asked if she wanted to return to Auschwitz she shuddered. “That was the place,” she said, “that God deserted”.

Image source, Frank Gardner

German ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, says they have to put "more emphasis into education" in Germany, so people continue to learn about the Holocaust.

Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, he says "it's the responsibility of Germany, of the German government, to always invest in young people, in education so that the Holocaust and all the horror that came with it is not forgotten".

It is not about the guilt, he says, which there is, but it's about "learning from history" and keeping the memory alive, and that they have to "stand up for rule of law against populism, against extremism," Berger adds.

Paul Kirby
Reporting from Auschwitz

“We are the guardians of memory,” Andrzej Duda told Poland and the wider world in his speech a few moments ago.

It was a very solemn address, and the only one you’ll hear during the day from a head of state at today’s ceremonies, first at Auschwitz and later today at the death camp at Birkenau.

His message was that Poland could be entrusted to keep the memory of the six death camps built and operated to such devastating effect during the Nazi occupation of his country.

Because while the Auschwitz site was by far the biggest, the others were no less significant.

At Treblinka, an estimated 850,000 Jews were murdered, and Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek and Chelmno made up the network of camps built purely for extermination.

Since the end of World War Two, Poland has often struggled to explain that while six million Poles died between 1939 and 1945, half of them were Jews.

And before Auschwitz evolved into the slaughter of Jews, Roma and other groups the Nazis wanted to destroy, the biggest number of victims here were Polish prisoners.

During the communist era the emphasis was very much on the fight against fascism, not the loss of its Jewish population. Visiting the museum here in 1995 it was striking how many photos there were of Polish political prisoners, not Jews.

That’s one reason why Duda singled out the bravery of Polish Cavalry Captain Witold Pilecki, who led a resistance movement at Auschwitz and escaped in 1943, only to be executed by Poland’s post-war communist authorities.

We've received some more photos from this morning's wreath-laying ceremony at Auschwitz I, which officially started today's commemorations.

Some survivors were pictured wearing blue and white striped hats or scarfs, in reference to the clothing worn by prisoners of the camps.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

President Duda says Poland conserves sites like Auschwitz "in order to preserve the memory, in order to keep it alive, so that people always remember".

He says this is so the "world never again lets such dramatic human catastrophe happen".

It caused "such horrible, unimaginable pain and harm upon other nations," he says.

"It is something unprecedented in human history," Duda says, and they preserve the memory "in order to never let it happen again."

"May the memory of all the murdered live on, may the memory of all the dead live on, may the memory of all those who are suffering live on."

After he and the survivors laid wreaths and candles, Poland's President Andrzej Duda just gave a speech.

"We are at a special place on a special day," he says, according to a translation.

"This is also a day which, 20 years ago, was declared by the United Nations as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, because as we know very well, concentration camps... were built in order to implement the extermination of the Jewish nation," he says.

He says "we Poles are the guardians of memory today" and have a "mission" to preserve the testimony.

Image source, Reuters

After the survivors, Polish President Andrzej Duda takes his turn to lay a candle at the base of the "death wall", which we've written about here.

He walks up to a wreath and bows his head.

Survivors are taking turns, laying candles at the base of what is known as the death wall in Auschwitz I.

There is silence - it's a solemn affair.

Camera clicks are the only noise that can be heard.

You can follow by pressing Watch Live above.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Survivors from Auschwitz have begun today's commemorations.

They walked up to the wall of death in Auschwitz I, where hundreds were executed by firing squad, and laid candles and wreaths at its base.

One man at the front wears a cap from the uniform given to concentration camp prisoners.

The President, Andrzej Duda, is at the back of the group.

Paul Kirby
Reporting from Auschwitz

Kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers are taking part in today’s commemorations in impressive numbers, but the Polish organisers have made clear they want to focus on the dwindling number of survivors.

“I remember 20 years ago there were 1,500 at such a ceremony. Ten years ago there were 300. We expect 55, perhaps 60 persons this year. They are very old,” says the head of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, Piotr Cywinski.

This is probably the last “round anniversary” with a substantial group of survivors, he has told Polish TV. In other words, it is hard to imagine this kind of even in 10 years’ time.

Survivors are present throughout the day, both at the wreath-laying ceremony at the wall where thousands of prisoners were executed, and later under an enormous, white tent that covers the “Death Gate” that marks the entrance to the Birkenau death camp.

The wreath laying is expected to begin in a few minutes - you can press Watch Live above.

Marta Newman
Reporting from Auschwitz

As we wait for the first wreath-laying ceremony to get under way shortly, this is the scene in Auschwitz this morning.

There's a distinct calm and quietness in the air ahead of the commemorations.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has just arrived now.

Arek Hersh was born in the Polish city of Sieradz in 1928 and up until the Nazi German invasion, he spent his days playing football and hockey with his friends.

When he arrived to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1942, he was deemed old enough to work and was spared the gas chamber.

"I was selected to go into the camp," he tells BBC documentary What Happened at Auschwitz. "The people who were selected to go in the gas chamber were sent to the left side."

As he followed others picked to do hard labour, he noticed other prisoners all had tattoos on their left forearms.

"I noticed some men that had a tattoo so I said: ‘Do I need to?’ They said: ‘Yes. Oh, very much so. Yes.’" he says.

"So I went there and they did mine - I had B7608. I lost my name altogether."

• Arek was rescued from Theresienstadt after being moved from Auschwitz as the Soviets approached. He was selected for a British government scheme designed to help survivors recover and was brought to Lake Windermere. You can learn more about Arek's story in What Happened at Auschwitz on BBC iPlayer

Paul Kirby
Reporting from Auschwitz

Only 7,000 prisoners remained at the three big sites that made up Auschwitz on 27 January 1945, when the Soviets liberated the camp complex.

These were too sick and weak to go on the Nazis’ notorious death marches.

The Nazis had not just tried to destroy the evidence of what they had done, they forced 56,000 to walk on foot in the days leading to liberation.

“Going out from Auschwitz was bitterly cold, and the Germans were constantly shouting ‘quick, quick, quick!’,” says survivor Jona Laks.

Many who became too exhausted were shot by the Nazi SS, and historians believe as many as 15,000 never made it.

“They pushed people to run, and whoever couldn’t follow they would shoot immediately," says Jona. The white snow became red from the blood of the people they killed."

Jona finally made it with her twin sister to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück in Germany. But the camp was quickly filling up, so they were sent on another march to a sub-camp at Malchow, where eventually they were liberated.

Image source, Getty Images

Auschwitz was originally a Polish army barracks in southern Poland before the Nazis invaded and occupied the country in September 1939, later turning it into a jail for political prisoners.

As the war and the Holocaust progressed, the Nazi regime greatly expanded the site.

The first people to be gassed were a group of Polish and Soviet prisoners in September 1941. Work began on a new camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the following month.

This became the site of the huge gas chambers where hundreds of thousands were murdered prior to November 1944, and the crematoria where their bodies were burned.

Birkenau was to become the biggest of six Nazi death camps. Three others, at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, were also completed in 1942.

The first transport of Jews to Auschwitz II-Birkenau was 999 women and girls from Slovakia in March 1942, immediately followed by deportations from France, and later the Netherlands and Belgium. By 1944, 12,000 Jews were being murdered every day.

When Auschwitz was eventually liberated by Soviet troops, it had more than 40 camps and sub-camps.

In addition to the threat of the gas chambers and physical punishment - including flogging - prisoners kept at Auschwitz I, the first camp, also faced the possibility of executions by firing squad.

Several hundred people, primarily Polish political prisoners and members of clandestine organisations, were killed with a single shot at the back of the head in the walled-off yard on the side of block 11.

Most of those executed at this location, known as the death wall, were not added to the camp's official records, according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.

It's estimated that almost 1,000 prisoners detained in block 11 as well as 4,500 of so-called "police prisoners" were killed at the death wall.

And it's at this wall this morning that Polish President Andrzej Duda will deliver a speech, and survivors will lay wreaths and candles. We're expecting that to start at about 08:00 GMT.

Image source, Getty Images

Paul Kirby
Reporting from Auschwitz

This was the setting at dawn ahead of a difficult day for survivors returning to the Auschwitz concentration and death camps.

The message over the entrance reads "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free).

It was the idea of camp commandant Rudolf Höss who had seen it at the concentration camp at Dachau in Germany. For most prisoners who entered this camp there would be no freedom