Sir Keir Starmer has called his visit to Auschwitz “utterly harrowing” and said he was determined to fight the “poison of antisemitism”.

The prime minister visited the former Nazi concentration camp where he laid a wreath ahead of the 80th anniversary of its liberation, during a trip to Poland to meet its political leaders.

After he and his wife Victoria, who is Jewish, visited the site, Sir Keir said: “Nothing could prepare me for the sheer horror of what I have seen in this place. It is utterly harrowing. The mounds of hair, the shoes, the suitcases, the names and details, everything that was so meticulously kept, except for human life.

“As I stood by the train tracks at Birkenau, looking across that cold, vast expanse, I felt a sickness, an air of desolation, as I tried to comprehend the enormity of this barbarous, planned, industrialised murder: a million people killed here for one reason, simply because they were Jewish.”

Politics latest: PM talks on new pact to ‘protect national security’

Historians estimate about 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in Auschwitz over less than five years as part of the Nazi’s extermination plan. The camp was liberated by the Soviet army on 27 January 1945.

Sir Keir, who was on his first trip there, said it was Lady Starmer’s second visit but it was “no less harrowing than the first time she stepped through that gate and witnessed the depravity of what happened here”.

He added that their visit truly showed him how “this was not the evil deeds of a few bad individuals, it took a collective endeavour by thousands of ordinary people… in the hatred of difference”.

“The lessons of this darkest of crimes are the ultimate warning to humanity of where prejudice can lead,” he said.

The prime minister warned of the rising threat of antisemitism in recent years, including in the UK.

“The truth that I have seen here today will stay with me for the rest of my life,” he said.

“So too, will my determination to defend that truth, to fight the poison of antisemitism and hatred in all its forms, and to do everything I can to make ‘never again’ mean what it says, and what it must truly mean: never again.”

Read more:
Starmer is warned British Army too small to deploy troops for Ukraine peacekeeping
No phones, a drone threat and strict rules: What it’s like to join the PM in Ukraine

Sir Keir travelled to Poland from Kyiv after meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy there in his first trip to Ukraine since becoming prime minister.

He told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, in Kyiv, the UK will play its “full part” in peacekeeping in Ukraine, including sending troops.

However, former senior military leaders have warned this may not be possible due to the army being at its smallest size for 200 years.

In Poland, he is expected to discuss the new UK-Poland treaty with his counterpart Donald Tusk, which will support both countries working together to protect Europe from Russian aggression and work together to tackle people smuggling gangs.

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said the charity was “grateful to Sir Keir for leading the way in ensuring that the horrors of the past are always remembered”.