In all, 56 survivors gathered under a huge tent on Monday set up over a gate and railway tracks at the site of the former camp.

Over 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, including nearly a million Jews. On the day of liberation 80 years ago, only 7,000 were saved.

Silence pervades the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau today. Sometimes the only sounds are the soft footsteps of visitors, people who come from all over the world to mourn and to learn, and the voices of their guides speaking in hushed tones into microphones trying to explain the ungraspable.

By Barbara Erling and Kuba Stezycki OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) -Auschwitz survivors were being joined by world leaders on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops,

In just over four-and-a-half years, Nazi Germany systematically murdered at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, built in the south of occupied Poland near the town of Oswiecim. Auschwitz was at the centre of the Nazi campaign to eradicate Europe's Jewish population, and almost one million of those who died there were Jews.

This is a collection of photos chosen by AP photo editors.

It doesn’t do any good for your heart, for your mind, for anything,” said Holocaust survivor Jona Laks, 94, about her return to Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.