Auschwitz Mem. Has 2012 Record No. of Visitors; Was Nazi Death Camp Where Over 1M Jews Died

The Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site in southern Poland -- a Nazi death camp used during World War II -- registered 1.43 million visitors in 2012, a record number in its 65-year history as a place of Holocaust remembrance, the Haaretz (Israeli) website reports today (January 6, 2013).

In a statement announcing the new figure, director Piotr Cywinski said that in the last decade Auschwitz has become a "fundamental memorial" for all of Europe.

The largest group of visitors -- 446,000 -- was from Poland, followed by large numbers from Britain, the United States, Italy,  Germany, and Israel respectively.

Nazi Germany murdered over 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau -- the vast majority of whom were Jews.