World leaders and survivors of the Nazi Holocaust are gathering Thursday at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops.

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski will attend the ceremony, with his counterparts Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, Jacques Chirac of France and Moshe Katsav of Israel as well as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and several other foreign dignitaries.

More than one million people, most of them Jews, died at Auschwitz - which the retreating Nazis evacuated in January, 1945, shortly before the arrival of Soviet troops.

Death camp survivors and Holocaust remembrance groups say it is more important than ever to teach younger generations about the Nazi mass killings. They cite the advanced age of survivors and what they call a rising tide of anti-semitism worldwide.