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, one of the last such gatherings of those who experienced its horrors.
The anniversary at the site of the camp, which Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland during World War Two, was being attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain's King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda and a host of other leaders.
They were not due to make speeches, but rather to listen for perhaps the last time to those who suffered and witnessed at first hand one of humanity's greatest atrocities.
Israel, the country founded for Jews in the shadow of the Holocaust, sent Education Minister Yoav Kisch.
A source at Buckingham Palace said King Charles would be paying tribute "both as man and monarch":