Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025 – in pictures

Eighty years on from the day Soviet troops arrived at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, survivors, international heads of state and dignitaries gathered at the site in Poland where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked around the world on 27 January

Main image: Holocaust survivors and their relatives lay wreaths and light candles at the Death Wall at the former Auschwitz I Nazi concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland. Photograph: Wojtek Radwański/AFP/Getty Images

  • King Charles III lays a candle during commemorations at Auschwitz-Birkenau
    King Charles III lays a candle during commemorations at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  • People arrive with candles at the former Nazi concentration camp in Terezín, Czech Republic
    People arrive with candles at the former Nazi concentration camp in Terezin, Czech Republic

  • Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales talks with Yvonne Bernstein at a ceremony in London
    Britain’s Kate, Princess of Wales talks with Yvonne Bernstein at a ceremony in London

  • The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, speaks during a ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the UN headquarters in New York City
    Isaac Herzog speaks from a dais to rows of people sitting in the UN headquarters

  • A visitor stands at the main gate of the former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau, near Munich
    A visitor stands at a metal gate bearing the words: ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’

  • People take part in a ceremony at the Shoah memorial in Drancy, Paris, next to a wagon used to transport people to the concentration camps
    A crowd of people stand outside next to an old freight wagon

  • Representatives of the Jewish faith attend a ceremony at the Keneseth Eliyahoo synagogue, in Mumbai, India
    A group of people stand on the other side of a patterned screen

  • People applaud the Holocaust survivor David Mandel as he arrives to attend the commemoration ceremony in Oświęcim, Poland
    David Mandel holds his hands up in greeting as a crowd of people applaud him

  • Front row, from left to right: King Philippe of Belgium, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, and King Frederik X of Denmark attend a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, in Oświęcim, Poland
    King Philippe of Belgium, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, King Charles III of Great Britain and King Frederik X of Denmark sit in the front row of a group of dignitaries

  • The president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, Silviu Vexler, lays a wreath during a ceremony at Coral Jewish Temple in Bucharest. Romania is commemorating the Holocaust as it comes to terms with its past and recognises the murder of thousands of Jews at Romanian hands during the second world war. In October 2023, Romania adopted a law making the teaching of the history of the Holocaust mandatory in state schools
    People lay a wreath during a ceremony in Bucharest

  • People visit the site of the former Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany
    People at the gates of the former Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany

  • Emmanuel Macron, the French president, signs a book after laying a wreath of flowers during a ceremony at the Memorial de la Shoah Holocaust Museum in Paris
    Emmanuel Macron signs a book

  • The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, speaks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi death camp in Oświęcim, Poland
    The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, speaks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi death camp in Oświęcim, Poland

  • The Israeli ambassador to Russia, Simona Halperin, lays flowers at the memorial to the heroes of resistance in concentration camps at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre in Moscow, Russia
    The Israeli ambassador to Russia, Simona Halperin, lays flowers at a memorial

  • Janine Webber, a Holocaust survivor, and Evie Robinson, a Holocaust Educational Trust young ambassador, light candles during an event at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Westminster, London
    Janine Webber, a Holocaust survivor, and Evie Robinson, a Holocaust Educational Trust young ambassador, light candles

  • Naki Bega, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, pays tribute at a memorial to victims in Athens, Greece
    Naki Bega, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, is aided at a memorial to Holocaust victims in Athens, Greece

  • A person in Berlin riding a bicycle passes in front of an LCD banner of German Bundestag’s speaker, Bärbel Bas, holding a sign reading #WeRemember
    A person riding a bicycle passes in front of an LCD banner of German Bundestag’s Speaker Bärbel Bas holding a sign reading #WeRemember in Berlin

  • Rainwater runs down on the stelae at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in Berlin, Germany
    A flower sit on stone slab as rainwater runs down on stelae at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in Berlin, Germany

  • Survivors and relatives walk by the Death Wall at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp
    Survivors and relatives walk by the Death Wall at the Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi concentration and extermination camp

  • The Italian senator for life Liliana Segre is accompanied by Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, at a wreath-laying ceremony at the tombstone of the deportees at the Synagogue of Rome, Italy
    Italian senator for life Liliana Segre is accompanied by Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities at the Synagogue of Rome, Italy

  • Ukrainian officials attend a ceremony at the monument to Jewish victims of Nazi massacres at Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine
    People attend a ceremony at the monument to Jewish victims of Nazi massacres at Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine

  • Survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp and their families arrive to lay candles at the Death Wall
    Survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp and their families arrive to lay candles at the Death Wall

  • A journalist works in an outdoor TV studio in front of barracks at the former Auschwitz camp
    A journalist works in an outdoor TV studio in front of barracks at the former Auschwitz camp

  • People arrive for a memorial in the Auschwitz I former concentration camp site on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp
    A person draped in the Israeli flag touches a wall as another watches

  • View of the gate at Auschwitz that reads ‘Work Sets You Free’ in German
    View of the gate at Auschwitz that reads ‘Work Sets You Free’ in German

  • Workers make final preparations before the commemorations at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp
    Workers make final preparations before the commemorations at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp
Topics