Scenes from Flöha Camp near Chemnitz in Saxony after the liberation in 1945. Picture supplied by the Wiener Library.

It has been 61 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the Nazi concentration camps where so many Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners and others ended their days in unimaginable circumstances.

The United Kingdom has been marking the anniversary since 2001. Now January 27 has been formally recognised by the United Nations as the annual Holocaust Memorial Day when the world reflects on the suffering and cruelty inflicted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

This year, for the first time, the launch event for the Memorial Day was held on Thursday 26 as a mark of respect for the Jewish Sabbath.

Cardiff Millennium Stadium provided the backdrop for the occasion, which was jointly hosted by the Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister for Wales, Rodney Berman, Leader of Cardiff Council, and Dr Stephen Smith, Chair of The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Picture supplied by the Wiener Library.

“This year's theme, ‘One Person Can Make Difference’, is designed to signpost the responsibility which each and every one of us has to oppose racism, xenophobia and discrimination in all their forms,” said Dr Stephen Smith.

“We all share a responsibility to speak up for the oppressed and to find ways to continue to educate and inform our children about the Holocaust,” he added.

“This is a precious responsibility, not just as a commemoration for all those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, but also as a reminder that the lessons of the Holocaust - to challenge racism and intolerance head on - are as relevant today as ever.”

Between 1942 and 1944 some 15,000 children passed through the gates of Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechosolvakia.

Less than 100 survived.

Starving children in the Warsaw ghetto. Picture supplied by the Wiener Library.

More than sixty years on, artwork created by those children is being displayed at public venues around northeast London.

The exhibition, entitled ‘I Never Saw Another Butterfly’, will visit Bruce Castle Museum between January 25 and February 5 2006, Hornsey Central Library from February 8-25 and Wood Green Central Library between February 28 and March 17.

In Southsea, Portsmouth, an exhibition of photographs sheds light on the secret underground weapons factory at Dora-Mittelbau. Concentration camp inmates were forced to dig the underground bunker and work in the V-2 rocket manufactory.

The photographs, on display at the D-day Museum until January 30, were the property of the late Squadron Leader Joe Duckworth, who was part of a team examining the weapons factory after the war ended.

Double fence at Auschwitz. Picture supplied by the Wiener Library.

Huddersfield Art Gallery is hosting a moving installation made from six million buttons – one for each of the estimated six million victims of the Holocaust.

Thousands of people from West Yorkshire have donated buttons for the exhibition, which remains on display until March 4.

The buttons were collected by young people from across Kirklees who also gathered tales of the Holocaust from as far away as Zimbabwe and Bhutan, which they recounted at a memorial event at Huddersfield Town Hall on Wednesday, January 25.

The exhibition, '6 million +', also features filmed testimonies of twelve Holocaust survivors displayed on screens that are surrounded by paper buttons made by local secondary school students.

Gate tower, ramp and railway line at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Picture supplied by the Wiener Library.

Throughout January an exhibition at Enniskillen Museum tells the story of the Kindertransport, which saw 10,000, mostly Jewish, children evacuated to Britain from Austria, Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia to escape Nazi persecution.

Gallery Oldham is hosting a touring exhibition, 'Anne Frank [+ You}', from February 2-26.

Besides considering the questions raised in Anne Frank’s diary about persecution and prejudice, the exhibition takes a look at modern-day social problems such as racism in football, the right to wear religious symbols, bullying and the plight of child soldiers.

The exhibition will continue its tour throughout the year, when it will visit Taunton, St Paul’s Cathedral in London, Sutton, Barnsley, St Helen’s and Haywards Heath.

Hundreds more events and displays are being held across the country. Full listings can be found at the Holocaust Memorial Day website at www.hmd.org.uk.