AP Photos: Silence pervades Auschwitz on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the camp's liberation

AP Photos: Silence pervades Auschwitz on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation

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A man walks past the ''Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free) gate at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Snow covers railroad tracks once used to transport Jews from across Europe to Auschwitz, the Nazi German extermination and labor camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, early Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Visitors look at the remains of a gas chamber and crematorium at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 25. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A visitor enters a gas chamber and crematorium at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Visitors look at the Gestapo office at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Shoes that were taken from prisoners are displayed at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A view of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A visitor reflects in a window of a room with clothing representing the undressing of prisoners before the shooting execution at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Visitors walk through the ''Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free) gate at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 25. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A visitor walks past a gas chamber and crematorium, where someone has left a rose, at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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View of a wall inside gas chamber one at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A view from a guard tower at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit inside the prisoner barracks at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 25. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit a surviving gas chamber and crematorium at the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 25. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Old railroad tracks once used to transport Jews from across Europe to Auschwitz, the Nazi German extermination and labor camp, cuts through a field in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit railroad tracks and a carriage used for prisoner transports in WWII, just outside the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 25. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Flowers lie next to the old railroad tracks once used to transport Jews from across Europe to Auschwitz, at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Saturday, Jan. 25. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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People visit the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A visitor walks by the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, Jan. 24. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Snow blankets railroad tracks once used to transport Jews from across Europe to Auschwitz, the Nazi German extermination and labor camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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A wooden sign with the word STOP stands in front of what was an electric barbed wire fence inside the former Nazi German extermination and labor camp Auschwitz I, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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Visitors walk along the old railroad tracks once used to transport Jews from across Europe to Auschwitz, at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23. 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

By ODED BALILTY

OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) — Silence pervades the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau today.

Sometimes the only sounds are the soft footsteps of visitors, people who come from all over the world to mourn and to learn, and the voices of their guides speaking in hushed tones into microphones trying to explain the ungraspable.

It can feel that time has stood still at the place where Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people, most of them Jews.

Some objects look just as they did when the camp was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945, an anniversary being marked at the site on Monday.

There are the barracks which housed prisoners, a wall where the Nazi German forces shot prisoners to death, the gas chambers and crematoria where they were gassed to death and cremated.

Encircling the vast site are barbed wire fences, which even today look as they did in wartime images.

And there are still the railway tracks leading from the camp into the surrounding rural area, the same tracks used to transport people to the killing site in the center of Europe.

Trees and other vegetation have grown over them in some places, a reminder that they were abandoned long ago.

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A single woman’s shoe in a huge pile of footwear taken from the prisoners on arrival still has such a vibrant red hue that it seems as if someone might have walked or danced in it not too long ago. But it sits amid a heap of other shoes dark with age and decay.

Then there are simply the ruins — the ruins of gas chambers and crematoria, which the Germans themselves tried to destroy in an effort to hide their horrific crimes from posterity.

On Monday, the world will mark the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, with about 50 survivors of Nazi atrocities gathering with state leaders and royalty.