Zelenskyy commemorates Holocaust, warns against fading memory - Photos

"On Jan. 27, the world remembers the victims of the Holocaust. It was a deliberate attempt by the Nazis to wipe out an entire nation - to kill all its people, to destroy everything that reminded them of the Jews. Six million victims," he wrote, posting photos from the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv.

Expressing concern that the memory of the Holocaust is fading, he stressed the need to prevent such atrocities from happening again and to remember that "indifference is fertilizer for evil."

"The evil that seeks to destroy the lives of entire nations still exists in the world. We must overcome the hatred that leads to abuse and murder. We must prevent oblivion. And that is the mission of each one of us - to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning."

As part of the commemoration, Zelenskyy installed a lamp at the Menorah memorial sign.

80 years ago, on Jan. 27, 1945, Auschwitz, one of the largest German Nazi concentration camps that operated in Poland for nearly five years during World War II, was liberated. Since then, this date has been observed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

During World War II, approximately 1.3 million people were sent to the Auschwitz camps, 1.1 million of whom were killed. Another 74,000 of those who died in the Auschwitz camps were Poles of non-Jewish origin, and the Germans also killed 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 people of other nationalities.