In Poland, heads of state honored the memory of the victims of Auschwitz.

At the ceremony, heads and high-ranking representatives from over 50 countries were present. Among them were the President of Poland Andrzej Duda, the President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, the President of France Emmanuel Macron, the King of the United Kingdom Charles III, the King of Spain Felipe VI, the King of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander, and the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.

Representatives from Russia were not invited due to the ongoing aggression against Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to those gathered, emphasizing the importance of preserving the historical memory of the feats of Soviet soldiers. According to Putin, Russia "will do everything to defend people's rights to ethnic, linguistic, and spiritual identity, and to prevent the spread of anti-Semitism, Russophobia, and other racist ideologies."

Among the guests at the ceremony were over 50 former inmates of the death camp.

The ceremony began with a moment of silence. Footage from Auschwitz was projected on the screen accompanied by music from German-Jewish composer James Simon, who was murdered in a gas chamber in 1944.

The first word was given to 98-year-old Marian Turski. As a teenager, he was deported to Auschwitz from the Jewish ghetto in Łódź. His father and brother perished in the camp. Turski survived until liberation. He made significant contributions to the establishment of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and is a member of the International Auschwitz Council – a memorial organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the inmates.

Marian Turski spoke about the necessity of remembering the atrocities of Nazism to prevent its recurrence in the future. He expressed concern over the rise of anti-Semitic sentiments in the modern world.

Another Auschwitz survivor, Janina Iwańska, reminded that among the victims, besides Jews, there were also Catholics like herself, captured after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, as well as thousands of anti-fascist resistance fighters from various European countries and Soviet prisoners of war. Iwańska described the camp as a "ruthless machine of death."

Representatives of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as well as the rabbinical authorities, participated in a joint memorial prayer.

On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released data from a study on the state of anti-Semitism worldwide (The ADL Global 100: Index of Antisemitism). The research covers over 100 countries and territories, with a total of 58,000 people surveyed.

According to the report, 46% of adult residents of the planet hold expressed anti-Semitic beliefs (which amounts to over two billion people). In the Middle East and North Africa, this figure is significantly higher, reaching 70-80%.

23% of respondents sympathize with the Palestinian group Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and the European Union. Among respondents under 35, this figure rises to 29%.

The overall level of anti-Semitism in Russia, according to the report, is 30%. In Ukraine, this figure is 32%, while among Belarusians, it stands at 37%.

Among the countries of the former USSR, the highest level of anti-Semitism was recorded in Armenia (58%), while the lowest was in Estonia (22%).

• The camp was established by Germany in the occupied part of Poland in 1940, where Polish prisoners were held. Two years later, a concentration camp for Jews was founded nearby. In Auschwitz, which Poland and many other countries refer to by its German name, Auschwitz, Jews, Soviet prisoners, Poles, Roma, and people of other nationalities were killed.
• The gas chamber in the camp was last used in November 1944, as reported by the PAP agency. Before the advancing Soviet troops, Germany began evacuating the camp's inmates deeper into Reich territory. By the end of the year, the Germans burned documents and attempted to erase evidence of their crimes. When the Soviet troops arrived, seven thousand people remained in the camp, including 500 children.
• Victims of the Holocaust – the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people – numbered around six million Jews, primarily residents of Poland and the former Soviet Union. Auschwitz, as the largest death camp, became one of the symbols of the Holocaust.