More than 1.5 million people visited the former Auschwitz concentration camp in 2014.
It was the highest attendance ever at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial in Poland, according to its museum.
Poland, with 398,000 visitors recorded, led the list, followed by Britain (199,000), the US (92,000), Italy (84,000), Germany (75,000), Israel (62,000), Spain (55,000) France (54,000), Czech Republic (52,000) and South Korea (41,000).
“These visits are often made possible thanks to special programs underwritten by governments, regions, or non-profit organizations that appreciate the value of this kind of education on the road to adulthood,” said Andrzej Kacorzyk, the director of the International Center for education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
“The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial has become the world’s symbol of the Holocaust and the crimes of World War II,” said Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz Memorial. “Without the reference to the history of this place, it would be hard for new generations to understand our reality and challenges of the contemporary world.”
More than 307,000 individuals visited the museum with an educator in 2014, and more than 10,000 people from all around the world participated in different educational projects, seminars, conferences or study visits at the center in 2014, museum officials said.
Additionally, several hundred journalists and 180 professional film crews from over 30 countries broadcast and prepared media reports at the Memorial.
The majority of the visitors are guided in one of 19 languages by specially trained educators, the center said, pointing out that “no other museum in the world offers such an opportunity.’’
Some 1.3 million people, mostly European Jews, but also Poles, Soviet POWs, Roma and Sinti, as well as people of other nationalities perished in the camp set up by the Nazis in 1940. It was liberated by the Soviet Army on 27 January 1945.