BREZEZINKA, POLAND.- The Sixtieth Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp will be commemorated at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site at 2:30 PM on January 27, 2005. As the Red Army approached, the SS evacuated the camp on January 17 and 18, 1945. Tens of thousands of prisoners were marched through the freezing cold in the direction of Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and other concentration camps in Germany. Uncounted numbers of prisoners lost their lives during this march.

On January 27, 1945, soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front, under the command of Field Marshall Ivan Konev, reached Oświęcim. Over 230 Soviet soldiers fell during the fighting to liberate the city and nearby areas.

About 7,000 prisoners awaited liberation in the Auschwitz I, Birkenau, and Monowitz camps. Some 500 prisoners were liberated before or shortly after January 27 in the Stara Kuźnia, Blachownia Śląska, Świętochłowice, Wesoła, Libiąż, Jawiszowice, and Jaworzno sub-camps.

From 1940 to 1945, the Nazis deported over a million Jews, almost 150,000 Poles, 23,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and over 10,000 prisoners of other nationalities to Auschwitz. The overwhelming majority of them died in the camp.