President Rosen Plevneliev attended a commemorative ceremony and a silence march in Oswiencim, the Republic of Poland, which commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Bulgarian President, as well as many European state and government leaders, paid tribute to and placed a lit candle in front of the Memorial of the Holocaust victims near the former concentration camp.

Before the participants in the ceremony the Polish Head of State Bronislaw Komorowski emphasized that the memory about the tragedy in Auschwitz commits us to promoting freedom, justice and tolerance as fundamental values of contemporary democratic societies.   

Three former prisoners in the concentration camp, survivors of the horrors of Auschwitz told their stories and memories about the time they were imprisoned in the camp. Their message to all people today is that the survivors’ past should not become the next generations’ future.

Survivors of the Nazi concentration camps took part in the commemorative ceremony. More than one million people were killed only on the territory of Auschwitz.

The commemorative ceremony was attended by the Federal President of Austria Dr. Heintz Fischer, the King of Belgium Philip, the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany Joachim Gauck, the President of France Fracois Hollande, the President of Lithuania Dalia Gribauskaite, the President of Slovakia Andrej Kiska, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko  as well as other European state and government leaders.