It is 60 years since Anatoli Shapiro, a Soviet army officer, and his batallion arrived at Auschwitz to discover 7,000 starved and emaciated prisoners left behind when more than 50,000 were marched out into the snow and almost certain death. The horror of what he saw then has stained the conscience of Europe for more than half a century. Yesterday, as world leaders gathered at the site of mankind’s most terrible atrocity to reflect on the bestial evil that still passes comprehension, the frail voice of the 92-year-old officer, recorded in New York where he now lives, recalled that day when humanity hung its head in shame: “I want to say to all people around the world: this should not happen again.”

In 60 years, two generations of Europeans have grown up in peace. But Auschwitz, and the many other camps where extermination was perfected with an aseptic mechanisation that was peculiar to the Nazis, still blights European politics and civilisation. No nation feels that more keenly than Germany, where the Holocaust was planned and implemented. Almost every aspect of life in Germany is still burdened by the terrible legacy. Reluctance to deploy troops in action, pacificsm, environmental engagement, opposition to stem-cell research, linguistic taboos and consensus politics are all linked to the huge effort made to overcome the past.

Largely, these efforts have succeeded, and for their reparations, spiritual and material, the Germans must be applauded. The country knows that it is held to a higher accountability on such issues as democracy and political extremism; and when a solemn confrontation with the past is required, its leaders have risen to the occasion. Nevertheless, there is a danger that diurnal repetition of such horrors dulls the senses and trivialisies the enormity of what happened. The psyche closes itself against pain and guilt, and a younger generation, weary of hearing the old story again, may react in anger or denial. That, at least, must be part of the explanation for the sickening walkout by far-right NDP politicians in Saxony from the silent commemoration of Holocaust Day.

Auschwitz should never be forgotten. But it must not be invoked too often. To link this mass extermination with other, lesser conflicts and cruelties, or even to raise the spectre of Auschwitz in the cut and thrust of democratic debate — as has happened in Britain — is to demean the victims and negate the unique horror. This does not mean that mankind should not bear in mind the depths that Auschwitz revealed or ignore its lessons. We know now, as we did not in 1939, where political extremism and racial incitement can lead. We know why the world must still react swiftly to fanaticism; when it did not, the results have been shocking. Srebrenica and atrocities in Bosnia, the genocide in Rwanda, Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds and the continuing killings in Darfur are reminders that people and nations can still be guided by evil.

Attempts to relativise Auschwitz — was it worse than Stalin’s gulags? — are also misplaced. Even worse is the playing-down of its significance in an attempt to tap indignation for other causes: the Palestinians, Chechnya or Kashmir. The Muslim Council of Britain’s decision to boycott commemorations here was reprehensible. Britons, like all Europeans, must share the legacy of such evil. The watchword must remain: never again.