German Chancellor Angela Merkel has visited Auschwitz, Poland for the first time in 14 years, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has reported.
About 1.1 million people of Jewish descent were murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in shocking atrocities that were committed by the Hitler-led Nazi regime.
The high profile visit comes in the context of widespread concern over the rise of anti-semitic sentiments in Germany and ahead of the 75 anniversary of the liberation of the camp.
Cable News Network (CNN) reported that the German leader was the third chancellor to pay the death camp a visit.
"Merkel went commemorate the victims of the National Socialist crimes and remember Germany's everlasting responsibility for the Shoah," a German government spokesman said as quoted by CNN.
Merkel was scheduled to observe a one-minute silence in honour of the victims of the atrocities of the Nazi regime.
She is expected later in the day to deliver an address at the Birkenau extermination camp.
The chancellor was accompanied by the president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, and the head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose.
The Guardian newspaper reported that she pledged a donation of €60m (£51m) towards a fund to preserve what remains of the site barracks.