Thousands from across the globe marched Thursday between the former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in honour of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust during World War II. 

Millions of Israelis on Thursday stood silently and all road traffic stopped as sirens wailed for two minutes to remember the six million Jews who were killed during the Nazi Holocaust.

Israeli leaders have attended opening ceremonies for Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

In 2012, Belgium assumes the presidency of the "International Task Force for Holocaust Remembrance, Education and Research", which defends democratic values through educational efforts against racism and anti-Semitism.

One in five young Germans has no idea that Auschwitz was a Nazi death camp, a poll released Wednesday showed, ahead of Holocaust memorial day. 

The newly elected President of the European Parliament, German Martin Schulz, paid tribute to the memory of the six millions Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, during a special ceremony at the seat of the EU institution in Brussels.

Across Europe and around the world we are surrounded by the images of the Holocaust. Museums, memorials, resolutions, literature and movies, are meant to educate, stimulate reflection, memorialize the millions who were murdered, and serve as lasting reminders of the brutality and destructiveness of which humans are capable. But increasingly, the images that have defined the memory of the Holocaust for decades are being stripped of their original meanings and misused to communicate a very different message.

US President Barack Obama paid homage to victims to the Holocaust on Monday, saying it underscores the need for "standing up against intolerance and injustice."