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Three quarters of a century ago, Soviet soldiers came upon a horrific scene in Poland, when they liberated the prisoners of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.

The anniversary of this liberation was marked on Monday, not with celebrations, but with sombre and poignant ceremonies, with many survivors of the death camps on hand to share their memories of all the family, neighbours and friends they lost to the gas chambers or firing squads.

For people living today seeing the scratchy old black-and-white photos and film of the camp, it’s surreal and shocking to think that such an incredible atrocity of human cruelty and evil could have been perpetrated to the point of killing six million Jews, along with many thousands of others also persecuted by the Nazis.

What’s more unbelievable is that in spite of the mountains of irrefutable physical and anecdotal evidence of this atrocity, there are people who actually think the Holocaust never happened. This inevitably happens as the years progress, and people who don’t like the historical record try to rewrite it as they feel it should have been set.

This makes it all the more important to have the survivors tell their story, and for the films and photographs to be shown along with the other evidence, if for no other reason that future generations need to know that this happened, and must not happen again.

An old adage says that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it — pray that this will not be the case here. There is a lot of unrest in different areas of the world, including locations in Europe where ultra right wing groups are seeking to resurrect the Nazi ideal in some form. This is not to say they would perpetrate another Holocaust, but the conditions could develop in that direction, which is frightening to think of.

For those who think such a thing could never happen again, think again. The mass murders in Rwanda was not that long ago, and Western nations were extremely slow in reacting to prevent that atrocity, with the result that millions of people died in horrific violence.

In addition, the wars and rumours of wars continue to persist, in Syria, Iran and Afghanistan among many other places, so the spectre of death still lingers in a world that longs for peace and rest from all the hostilities.

There are many books and films that tell some of the stories that came out of the Second World War, like the Diary of Anne Frank and Schindler’s List as just two remarkable examples. The stories of what was done must continue to be told, and we must ever strive to live in peace with each other and never forget what happened.