King Charles is to lead Britain’s commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust.
They will go to the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland on January 27, when the 80th anniversary of its liberation is celebrated.
The date that Allied troops entered Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camp is also a day used around the world to honor those who died in the Holocaust. As Prince of Wales, King Charles became Patron of the Foundation for Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017.
Charles, 76, who is still undergoing treatment for an unknown cancer, will travel to Poland along with leaders from around the world. He is expected to meet with the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda. It will be Charles’ fifth visit to Poland — he last traveled there in 2008 with Camilla when she was the Duchess of Cornwall.
King Charles at Sandringham on January 5, 2025.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty
The Holocaust Remembrance Day Foundation promotes and supports Holocaust Remembrance Day, which has been observed in the United Kingdom since 2001.
The royal family has a tradition of celebrating Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 2020, on the 75th anniversary, Kate Middleton and Prince William paid a touching tribute by lighting candles at the United Kingdom’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. They were joined on the day by survivors including Yvonne Bernstein, 82, who was one of those featured in the striking portraits taken by Princess Kate to mark the occasion.
Kate Middleton got behind the camera to photograph Holocaust survivors: see the striking images
News of his visit came ahead of Charles hosting an event on the Holocaust at Buckingham Palace on Monday, January 13. He is scheduled to meet Manfred Goldberg, 94, a survivor of concentration camps, including Stutthof.
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King Charles and Queen Camilla at the Holocaust commemoration in January 2023. VICTORIA JONES/POOL/AFP via Getty
One is ‘Testimony 360: People and Places of the Holocaust’, a new digital educational program in schools of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and candlesticks created as part of the ’80 Candles for 80 Years’ project will also be exhibited.
Charles also enjoyed a close friendship with survivor Lily Ebert, whom he honored in 2023 for her services to Holocaust education at Windsor Castle. When she died in October 2024, Charles paid her a heartfelt tribute, saying: “It was with the greatest sadness that I heard this morning of the death of Lily Ebert,” King Charles wrote.
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“As a survivor of the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, I am so proud that she later found a home in Britain where she continued to tell the world about the horrific crimes she witnessed, as a lasting reminder to our generation – and indeed, to future generations – of the depths the corruptions and evils into which mankind can fall, when reason, compassion and truth are abandoned.”
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“Along with other Holocaust survivors,” the monarch continued, “she has become an integral part of the fabric of our nation; her extraordinary resilience and courage are an example to us all that will never be forgotten.”
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Source: HIS Education