Towards the end of the Second World War, the Nazis had taken many Auschwitz inmates on 'death marches' through the Polish winter. No food, no water; slowing down meant bullets.

When the Soviet army reached Auschwitz in January 1945 it found only about 7,000 inmates. What the saw was beyond words -- living skeletons, lice-infested human forms with just skin and bones, barely able to stand, greeted them.

A pile of human bones and skulls in the camp.

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images