Officials at Poland's World War Two Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp say the site hosted a record number of tourists in 2012.

In a statement on the museum's website Friday, officials said more than 1.4 million visitors toured the Holocaust memorial site in southern Poland last year. The visitors came from all over the world, including Poland, Great Britain, the United States, Italy, France, Israel, Spain, the Czech Republic and South Korea.

Director Piotr Cywinski notes that Auschwitz has become a central site of remembrance for all of Europe and underscores “the challenges our societies still face.”

More than one million people, mostly Jews, were murdered by Nazi German soldiers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, before it was liberated by Soviet troops in January, 1945.

Massive efforts are ongoing to preserve the site and the many personal objects, like books, shoes and hair brushes that belonged to the camp's victims, before they were killed in the gas chambers.