The victims

About 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz, according to Franciszek Piper, chief historian at the Auschwitz State Museum. About 90 per cent of the dead were Jews, including 438,000 from Hungary, 300,000 from Poland, 69,000 from France, 60,000 from the Netherlands, 55,000 from Greece, 46,000 from Czechoslovakia.

The remaining victims included about 75,000 Poles, more than 20,000 Gypsies, 15,000 Soviet PoWs, 25,000 people of other nationalities.

About 200,000 people survived, most of them being sent to other camps.