Russia will not be invited to 80th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp

The representatives of Russia will not be invited to the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp which will be celebrated on 27 January 2025.

As reported by the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, Piotr Cywiński, the director of the museum, stressed that the memory of the camp’s victims will be honoured at the anniversary celebration but this is also the "anniversary of liberation".

"It is hard to imagine the presence of Russia, which clearly does not understand the value of freedom. Such presence would be cynical. I would like it to be possible again someday, but let's be serious – it certainly won't be in the next four months," he said.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, located in the southern Polish city of Oświęcim, decided not to invite Russian representatives for the third time since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Before that Russia always participated in the ceremony dedicated to the liberation of Auschwitz, held every year on 27 January. On the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine the museum condemned the Russian offensive as a "barbaric act".

In June 2022 the museum reported that it became an object of Russian propaganda which was trying to use it to prove an alleged Russophobia in the West.

Nazi Germany built the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp after invading Poland during WW2. The German Nazis killed about 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, mostly Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and people of other nationalities.