Thousands gather to remember Holocaust victims

More than a million people disappeared through the gates of Auschwitz never to leave.

ITV News Presenter Mark Austin remembers some of those victims:

Actor Sir John Hurt read a poem by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi during a commemoration ceremony in Central Hall, Westminster today:

• British liberator of Bergen-Belsen returns 'to say goodbye'

In Auschwitz in southern Poland - where darkness has fallen but where on this special day a light has been shone on the unspeakable horrors that unfolded here. Some 70 years ago tonight this most notorious of Nazi death camps was liberated.

For more than a million, mainly Jews, it was too late. But some survived this killing factory, and some survive still. 300 returned here for a special service of commemoration. Some were coming back for the first time - but in the dusk here all managed a slow walk along the railway track that delivered them to their ghastly fate .

ITV News Correspondent Paul Davies reports on a day of remembrance:

President Obama pay tribute to those who where killed by the Nazi regime in a statement released by the White House today.

He said remembering the past required courage to stand up to bigotry and prejudice in the present, saying the Paris attacks showed the need to condemn rising anti-Semitism in all its forms.

Early this morning the first of almost 300 survivors of Auschwitz arrived to commemorate 70 years since the Nazi-run death camp was liberated by Russian troops.

Emotions ran high as the survivors, now in their eighties and nineties, lay wreaths and lit candles in a dignified tribute to the million people who died within the walls of the camp. Paul Davies reports.