Auschwitz The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp for the first time today, accompanied by the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks.

They will be joined by leaders of the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths for the day-long visit as guests of the Holocaust Education Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project.

A group of 180 students aged 16 and over will accompany the faith leaders around the site of one of the worst mass exterminations carried out by the Nazis. Over the past 12 months the trust has taken more than 2,000 students on visits to Auschwitz to emphasise the lessons of the Holocaust.

The group will be shown barracks at Auschwitz 1, where they will see piles of hair, shoes, clothes and other items seized from the prisoners as they entered the camps. They will then be taken to Birkenau, where the majority of victims were murdered. The visit will end with the placing of memorial candles in the remains of the crematoria.