Record number of visitors flock to Auschwitz

According to a spokesman for the Auschwitz Museum, 2016 will see an all-time record. The number of people who visited the site in the first ten months of this year was the roughly same as for the whole of 2015.

In a single week – the last days of July and the first days of August –Auschwitz was visited by over 155,000 pilgrims from across the world who participated in World Youth Days with Pope Francis in the nearby city of Kraków.

Last year, foreigners from over 100 countries came to Auschwitz, with those from Britain, the United States, Germany and Italy at the top of the list.

Over 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, perished in Auschwitz at the hands of Poland’s German Nazi occupiers during World War II. (mk/pk)