In pictures: Holocaust Memorial Day

Remembrance ceremonies for victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution during World War II have been held around the world during the annual Holocaust Memorial Day.

At a gathering at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, north of the German capital, Berlin, camp survivor Helga Luther, 85, relived the horrors of the war.

In Serbia, members of the Jewish community laid a wreath at a monument at the Topovske Supe Nazi death camp in Belgrade.

Among the visitors was Eva Djordjevic, who last saw her father at the Topovske Supe camp during the war.

Israel's Yad Vashem official memorial hosted an exhibition, featuring portraits of Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews from the Nazis and were later recognised as Righteous Among the Nations.

In London, a selection of "Czech Scrolls" was on display in Westminster Synagogue. More than 1,500 Jewish scrolls were hidden in Prague during the war. They were given to the British synagogue in 1964.

The UN designated 27 January as Holocaust Memorial Day to mark the 1945 liberation by Soviet troops of Auschwitz-Birkenau - the largest Nazi death camp, located in Poland.

It is believed that a total of 15 million people perished during the Holocaust. Among the victims were some six million Jews and many other peoples killed by the Nazis for racial or political reasons.