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76 Years Later, Powerful Photos from the Liberation of Auschwitz

76 Years Later, Powerful Photos from the Liberation of Auschwitz

"We tell these stories because perhaps we know that not to listen, not to want to know, would lead you to indifference, and indifference is never the answer." — Elie Wiesel, author and Auschwitz survivor

By Andrea Wurzburger

Updated January 27, 2021 10:00 AM

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Auschwitz was a network of concentration camps built and operated in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany during World War II. Auschwitz I and nearby Auschwitz II-Birkenau were extermination camps where an estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews from across Europe, were killed in gas chambers or from systematic starvation, forced labor, disease and medical experiments.

The concentration camp, which was built in March 1942 in the village of Brzezinka, Poland, was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945. Pictured here, the train tracks leading to the camp.

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Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty

An aerial view of the Auschwitz I extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland.

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Credit: Northcliffe Collection/ANL/Shutterstock

Women prisoners are pictured here in their bunks.

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Credit: Votava/Imagno/Getty

Children who survived the death camp are pictured shortly after the liberation.

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Credit: Votava/Imagno/Getty

Seven tons of hair were found after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, in the depots.

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Credit: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty

A photo of 15-year-old Ivan Dudnik being rescued from the camp in February 1945.

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Credit: Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty

Pictured here, a group of women in the barracks, in a photo taken by a Russian photographer shortly after the camp's liberation.

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Credit: Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty

Survivors of Auschwitz leaving the camp at the end of World War II in February 1945.

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Credit: Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty

Crematorium III at Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, taken in January 1945.

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Credit: Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty

SS Heinrich Himmler and Chief Engineer Max Faust during Himmler's visit to Auschwitz in July 1942.

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Credit: STANISLAW MUCHA/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Piles of personal belongings left after mass extermination at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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Credit: Scott Barbour/Getty

A mass of footwear removed from the men, women and children, taken at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Museum.

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Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty

Rose Schindler, a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, walks through the camp with her granddaughter, husband and sons.

Schindler arrived at Auschwitz as a 14-year-old Jewish girl from Czechoslovakia in 1944, and spent three months there, during which time her mother, father and sisters were killed. She met her husband, Max, after the war as refugees in Great Britain, where they married.

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Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty

Romanian-born Jack Rosenthal, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and other concentration camps at 14 years old, stands outside the former Auschwitz I concentration camp as he points to the number tattoo he received from the Nazis.

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Credit: SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP via Getty

Holocaust survivor Moshe Aelion poses holding a flower in front of a train-wagon in the old railway station in Thessaloniki, Greece, during a commemoration marking the departure of the first train from the northern Greek city to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, on March 15, 1943.

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76 Years Later, Powerful Photos from the Liberation of Auschwitz

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