"I made marks under my bedstead [showing] how many days I had to live." Gita Carthagena, a young Czech woman, spoke to the BBC's Patrick Gordon Walker in Bergen-Belsen soon after liberation about the horrors she witnessed at Auschwitz.
He was announcing that Britain is joining several other European countries in declaring a Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, the day in 1945 when Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Russians.
BBC News Online presents interviews and archive about this defining moment in 20th century history [Images courtesy of The Imperial War Museum].
1945 - Jewish survivor tells her story
"I made marks under my bedstead [showing] how many days I had to live." Gita Carthagena, a young Czech woman, spoke to the BBC's Patrick Gordon Walker in Bergen-Belsen soon after liberation about the horrors she witnessed at Auschwitz.
1995 - Fifty years since the horror of Auschwitz
Death camp survivors, priests, rabbis and political leaders gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the world's most infamous death camp. The BBC's David Sells reported for Newsnight on January 27 1995.
"It's not enough just to remember" - Helen Bamber, founder of the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture, talks to News Online about her experience counselling survivors in Belsen just after its liberation and of the importance of a Holocaust Memorial Day. [Colour pic courtesy of Rod Shone]
Remembrance evening in London
A service of remembrance is held on January 27 at Methodist Central Hall in London. Prince Charles, the Prime Minister, religious leaders and survivors of the Holocaust and other atrocities attend. The BBC's Duncan Kennedy reports from the service, which had the theme: "Confronting the past by remembering it in the present."
