78 years ago, the Red Army liberated the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, fully exposing the magnitude of the Nazis' crimes to the world.

The soldiers who opened the camp gates in January 1945 were only able to find 7,000 survivors, including 500 children. Most of them were famished or terminally ill.

In an attempt to cover their tracks, the Nazis had cleared the camp before the allied forces arrived. Gas chambers were blown up, documents incinerated, and some 58,000 prisoners were sent on a death march.

RTL

© afp

In total, it is estimated that around 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of them Jews. Among the Nazis' victims were also 1,300 Luxembourgish Jews.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on 27 January, the day of liberation. The MPs of the Chamber of Deputies marked the occasion by participating in the #WeRemember campaign.

On Monday, another memorial day will be observed in remembrance of the massacre at the Sonnenburg camp in modern-day Poland, during which SS troops killed 819 prisoners on the night of 30 to 31 January 1945. Among the victims were also 91 forcibly recruited Luxembourgers, who had refused to serve in the German army.