German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made her first ever visit to the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz.
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Merkel also brought a donation of 60 million euros ($A97 million) which will go to a fund to conserve the physical remnants of the site - the barracks, watchtowers and personal items like shoes and suitcases of those killed.
Together, the objects endure as evidence of German atrocities and as one of the world's most recognisable symbols of humanity's capacity for evil. But they also are deteriorating under the strain of time and mass tourism, prompting a long-term conservation effort.
Accompanied by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Merkel began by seeing a crematorium and walking under the gate with the notorious words "Arbeit Macht Frei" - "work will set you free,".
Merkel and Morawiecki went next to the site of executions, where they bowed their heads before two wreaths bearing their nations' colours.
Since becoming chancellor in 2005, Merkel has paid her respects at other Nazi concentration camps and has been five times to Israel's Holocaust museum and memorial Yad Vashem.
"Silence is not the answer", Merkel said, underlining the need to remember that it was the Germans who were culpable.
"It is important to clearly identify the perpetrators, we owe it to the victims and to ourselves."
Merkel also said that there will be no tolerance for anti-Semitism in Germany and Europe.
Morawiecki warned against forgetting the history of Auschwitz, saying it is a duty to remember the atrocities committed there for the sake of the victims.
"If the memory goes away it's like we harmed for the second time the people who went through hell here, who went through unimaginable suffering,' Morawiecki said.
"We need to care about the memory as if we were taking care of the victims. That is what we can do for them," the prime minister said.
Nazi German forces killed an estimated 1.1 million people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex during their occupation of Poland during World War II.
Most of the victims were Jews transported from across Europe to be killed in gas chambers. But tens of thousands of others were killed there too, including Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and Roma, or Gypsies. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on January 27, 1945.
Australian Associated Press
