In a speech during a virtual ceremony marking the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German death camp, Duda said: “Today the memory of the six million murdered Jews is honored by the entire international community.”
He added that the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp is “the most important symbol of the Holocaust, because it was the largest Nazi factory of death”.
The ceremony, held by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial, which preserves the site of the camp, included speeches by survivors, Israeli and Russian diplomats, and a debate on the Holocaust's toll on children.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said earlier on Wednesday that remembering the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau is “an important part of our identity.”
He added: "When Poland regained independence in 1918 after 123 years, no one expected that the German Nazis would build the most terrible death machine in world history – Auschwitz-Birkenau – on its territory."
More than 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Sinti, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau before it was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.
It operated in German-occupied southern Poland between May 1940 and January 1945 and was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and death camps.
The suffering of children during the Holocaust was a key focus as the world marked the anniversary.
Meanwhile, a report has warned that attempts to distort historical facts pose a critical threat to Holocaust memory and to fostering a world without genocide.
(jh/pk)
Source: PAP