World remembers Holocaust

WARSAW - Elderly survivors gathered on Saturday at the former Auschwitz death camp and political leaders warned that the Nazi genocide must continue to serve as a warning as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The United Nations recognised January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005.

In Warsaw, Poland, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson paid his respects in a solemn ceremony at a memorial to the Jews who died revolting against German forces in the doomed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

Tillerson trailed two uniformed Polish military officers and readjusted a wreath underneath the monument, a hulking structure located in what was once the Warsaw Ghetto.

The head of Warsaw's Jewish community read a prayer and Tillerson made brief remarks about the importance of not forgetting the horrors of the Holocaust.

"On this occasion it reminds us that we can never, we can never, be indifferent to the face of evil," Tillerson said.

"The western alliance which emerged from World War II has committed itself to the assuring the security of all, that this would never happen again," he said. "As we mark this day in solemn remembrance, let us repeat the words of our own commitment: Never again. Never again."

His words came amid signs in Europe and beyond that ultranationalism and extreme rightwing groups are on the rise.

In Germany and Austria, the nations that perpetrated the killing of 6 million Jews and millions of others during World War II, far-right parties with their roots in the Nazi era are gaining strength.