Too bewildered and dehumanised to show any emotion, a dozen young faces peer out from a world beyond comprehension. Witnesses to unfathomable depths of human savagery, these are among the last occupants of history’s most infamous slaughterhouse. To stand in the Arctic chill of Auschwitz today, it seems extraordinary that anyone survived what unfolded here. Yet, astonishingly, most of the people in this photograph – taken exactly 70 years ago today – are still alive. What’s more, four of them – including a victim of the abominable human vivisectionist, Dr Josef Mengele – have returned to Auschwitz to mark the 70th anniversary of the day that Soviet troops liberated this place.
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Auschwitz survivors visited the Nazi concentration camp today ahead of the 70th anniversary of its liberation
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Four of the survivors were pictured with an image taken exactly 70 years ago when the camp was freed
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They travelled from all over the world for the visit with many returning to the camp for the first time to pay respects
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Several gathered together entering the camp to say a prayer underneath the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign
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The camp in Nazi-occupied Poland was liberated at the end of the Second World War by the Soviet army in 1945
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Tomorrow survivors will join heads of state for official commemorations to mark the liberation's 70th anniversary
For many others, this dismal railway town in southern @placeholder was an horrific transit point on the way to being murdered somewhere else – in a labour camp or on a ‘death march’ to another prison-mortuary.