WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Officials say a record number of more than 1.5 million people from around the world visited the grounds of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2014.
The Auschwitz museum said today on its website most visitors came from within Poland, with large numbers of tourists also coming from Britain, the United States, Italy and Germany.
The website didn’t say what the previous record was.
Between 1940 and 1945, about 1.1 million people, mainly Jews but also Poles, Roma (also known as Gypsies) and other nationals, were killed in gas chambers or died from forced labour, hunger and disease in the camp operated by Nazi Germans.
On January 27, ceremonies attended by survivors will mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation by the Soviet army.
