Survivors gather at Auschwitz to mark 75th anniversary of its liberation

On Monday, 200 survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau came together to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nazi death camp's liberation.

On Jan. 27, 1945, the camp was liberated by the Soviet army. Most of the estimated 1.1 million people who were murdered there were Jews, with Poles, Roma, and Russians among the victims. The camp is in Oswiecim, Poland, and survivors came from as far away as the United States, Australia, and Peru to attend the anniversary. "We have with us the last living survivors, the last among those who saw the Holocaust with their own eyes," Polish President Andrzej Duda said. "The magnitude of the crime perpetrated in this place is terrifying, but we must not look away from it and we must never forget it."

There has been an increase in anti-Semitic attacks around the globe, and Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said he is astounded by "the open and brazen spread of anti-Jewish hatred. Do not be silent. Do not be complacent. Do not let this ever happen again, to any people."

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Survivor Marian Turski, 93, recalled the Nazis starting small by banning Jews from sitting on benches in Berlin, and those actions led to the rise of ghettos and death camps. "Auschwitz did not descend from the sky," Turski said. If people become "indifferent, you will not even notice it when upon your own heads, and upon the heads of your descendants, another Auschwitz descends from the sky."