Our past must not become the future for our children: A deeply moving plea from one survivor as victims return to Auschwitz 70 years after they were liberated Around 300 people who survived Auschwitz paid their respects at the former Nazi death camp yesterday

• It came on the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation by the Soviet Army near the end of the Second World War
• Hollywood director Steven Spielberg also joined world leaders at the camp to condemn rise in anti-Semitism
• Survivors and their families gathered to lay wreaths at the camp's 'wall of death' and lit candles
• Heads of state and European royalty attended the service at the camp in Poland for poignant commemorations

They are the dwindling few who know, truly, what it is to go to hell and back. Seventy years on, they were there again yesterday.

On this very spot, they had seen their loved ones for the last time.

Next to this bleakest of buildings, millions of families had been torn apart forever in a hysterical bedlam of beating, whipping, attack dogs and random execution. Has anywhere else endured such misery?

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Auschwitz survivors and their families visit the Birkenau Memorial as more than 300 attended the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation

Attending dignitaries and survivors of the Holocaust walk past the train tracks once used to ferry people into the death camp

Those attending the anniversary carry candles which were later placed at a memorial to remember the millions killed in the Holocaust

The ceremony last night was expected to be the last major anniversary of the death camp's liberation for many of the survivors

When the original Auschwitz concentration camp could not cope with the slaughter expected of it, the Nazis created an even larger, industrial death plant and railway yard next door here at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Its pointed, red-brick watch tower, beneath which every cattle wagon hauled its tragic cargo to the end of the line and the ‘selection’ ramps, is now a global symbol of genocide.

Yesterday, it was the dramatic backdrop to the desperately poignant, emotionally-charged international ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

That event is now enshrined as Holocaust Memorial Day in honour not only of the 1.1 million Jews murdered here but of all six million Jews and five million others executed at all those synonyms for cruelty – Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Sobibor, Buchenwald…

Neither the passage of time nor the erection of a gigantic marquee over the entire tower and the temporary arena for 2,000 people – including 250 survivors and dozens of world leaders – could diminish the ghastliness of the ‘Death Gate’ of Birkenau. Its brief transformation into theatrical scenery made no difference.

A train carriage once used to carry people into Auschwitz sits dormant as those attending the ceremony wander through the snow

The delegation of international dignitaries and survivors make their way to lay candles at the Birkenau Memorial

A floodlight illuminates the snow-covered area where more than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed during the Second World War

Candles are laid in a row at the Birkenau Memorial by 300 survivors, their families, and visiting heads of state

The camp's huge fences offer a poignant reminder of the harrowing conditions under which those imprisoned in the camp were kept

The Netherlands' King Wilem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and Prime Minister Mark Rutte stand before a memorial plaque

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands (left) and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway pay their respects to those murdered at the concentration camp

Roses left by mourners lie next to one of the many plaques detailing transports of Jews who were taken to the concentration camps

Given the fresh snow and sub-zero temperatures here in southern Poland, this ceremony had to be staged under cover. Ten years ago, returning survivors were left freezing in the open for hours at the 60th anniversary commemorations (while the politicians had heated seats and a tent). That could not happen again, given the advancing years of yesterday’s most exalted guests. Sitting in the front row were four British survivors, including a sprightly 84-year-old Hampstead grandmother who, until yesterday, had been unable to face coming back. Widowed earlier this month, she is profoundly glad she came.

‘I felt such turmoil, such anger seeing this place again,’ Susan Pollack told me last night.

‘But this ceremony was so uplifting that it will be one of the defining memories of my life.’ 

A man places a candle on the monument to pay tribute to those who were murdered at the camp prior to its 1945 liberation

Guests carrying lit candles walk from the 'Death Gate' to the Auschwitz monument as part of the 70th anniversary commemorations

A guard tower remains standing on the grounds of Auschwitz, which remains the most notorious concentration camp to be run by the Nazis

Events at the camp yesterday included a service inside a tent erected at the front of Auschwitz, as well as the laying of wreaths and candles

American film director Steven Spielberg arrived at Auschwitz to unveil a memorial plaque. In 1993, the directed the film Schindler's List, about a German who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust

Mr Spielberg reflects as he looks on the the memorial plaque in Auschwitz. He met Holocaust survivors in Krakow ahead of yesterday's main event

Mr Spielberg, third from right, listens as Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, left, speaks at the unveiling of a memorial plaque inside Auschwitz