Germany marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald as one of the country's former presidents warned of "radicalisation and a global shift to the right", reports Euronews.

Thuringia Governor Mario Voigt and former German President Christian Wolff delivered speeches at a ceremony in the town of Weimar, near Buchenwald, attended by dozens of people, including several Holocaust survivors from across Europe.

Voigt, in whose province Buchenwald is located, called it "a place of systematic depopulation" and said everything that happened in the death camp was "designed to break the human spirit and dignity."

The Buchenwald concentration camp was established in 1937. More than 55,000 of the nearly 300,000 prisoners held in the camp and its satellites were killed by the Nazis or died as a result of starvation or medical experimentation before the camp was liberated on April 11, 1945.

On the eve of the commemorative event, Israeli officials objected to a planned commemorative speech by philosopher Omri Boehm, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and a prominent critic of the Israeli government and its actions in Gaza, prompting organizers to withdraw the invitation.

Wulff issued a stark warning about the current global political situation and the right-wing political course that is sweeping Europe and much of the world, comparing it to the Nazi era. "Because of the brutalization, radicalization and global shift to the right, I can now - and this makes me worry - imagine more clearly how this could have happened then," Wolff said, referring to the events that led to the consolidation of Nazi power.

He called for an active commitment to democracy and the preservation of humanity. "We bear a permanent, ongoing, eternal responsibility from this because evil must never again be allowed to prevail."

The former German president criticised the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment supported by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

He noted that those who "belittle" the party "ignore the fact that the ideology of Alternative for Germany creates a fertile ground for people to feel uncomfortable in Germany and that they are in fact in real danger."

Naftali Fürst, a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor, gave a speech at the wreath-laying ceremony, which was held at the camp's former assembly point. He spent ages 9-12 in four different concentration camps, including the infamous Auschwitz.

"There are very few of us left now. Soon we will pass the baton of memory to you forever. In doing so, we entrust you with a historic responsibility," Fuerst addressed the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors.

"Remember on our behalf what you learned from us. For you are the witnesses of the witnesses," he added.

"Keep coming back to this place, to Buchenwald, where civilization was reduced to nothing. Remain vigilant in our name and in our memory," he added. | BGNES