Monday 27 January was Holocaust Memorial Day, and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz in Poland.

The main commemoration began at 4pm in a special tent that was built over the gate to the former death camp. One of the symbols of the commemoration was a freight car that stood directly in front of the gate.

All Auschwitz survivors were invited to the commemoration.  In 2005 the United Nations declared 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Write Out Loud has picked this poem, ‘If I only knew’, by Nelly Sachs, a German Jewish poet and dramatist, who fled from Germany to Sweden in 1940, to share, to mark the moment.

There are a number of poems to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on the National Poetry Day website. You can find them here