Ukrainian Holocaust survivor Igor Malitski walks past a picture in one of the barracks at the former Auschwitz concentration camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, on Monday. Around 300 survivors of the Auschwitz death camp were gathering on Tuesday to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp on Holocaust Memorial Day, joined by world leaders for a commemoration held in the shadow of war in Ukraine and a rise in anti-Semitism and extremism in Europe.

A Holocaust survivor pays tribute to fallen comrades by putting her hand on the "death wall" execution spot in the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp on Tuesday.

A wall with historic photos is pictured at the memorial site in Auschwitz on Sunday. Around 1.5 million people, mainly European Jews, but also homosexuals, the disabled and political prisoners were gassed, shot, hanged and burned at the camp in southern Poland during World War II, before the Red Army of the former Soviet Union entered its gates in winter 1945. It has become probably the most poignant symbol of a Holocaust that claimed 6 million Jewish lives across Europe.

A visitor walks past prisoners' shoes on display at the memorial site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim on Monday. The Holocaust killed around 5,000 and 15,000 gay men in the concentration camp under the Nazi regime.

A watch tower stands along a barbed wire fence at the memorial site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp on Monday. Photos: AFP