King Charles III is already making plans for his first overseas trip of the New Year, visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland for a solemn commemoration.
The visit, on January 27th, will take place on the 80th anniversary of when the concentration camp was liberated.
The King will join leaders from around the world at the commemoration.
On January 27th 1945, Allied troops entered the largest Nazi concentration camp. The day is now marked globally as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
King Charles has been Patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust since 2017. The Trust helps support and promote Holocaust Memorial Day which has been marked in the United Kingdom since 2001.
King Charles will meet with other world leaders including the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda.
This will be The King’s fifth visit to the European country. The news of the upcoming overseas trip came during a Holocaust Education event hosted by His Majesty at Buckingham Palace.
The King lit a candle as part of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s ‘80 Candles for 80 Years’ project. His Majesty also saw how new technology is being used to educate future generations about the Holocaust. He was shown AI and virtual reality tools that now bring survivor testimonies and knowledge of the concentration camps to students.
His Majesty was joined by Manfred Goldberg, 94, who survived the Holocaust. Also at the Palace were representatives from organisations working to educate others about the Holocaust. The afternoon ended with a performance from Echo Eternal, part of a group of young people creating art reflecting and responding to testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust.
King Charles has been dedicated to supporting these organisations and survivors for many years. He has commissioned portraits of Holocaust survivors and heard and shared their testimonies many times.
In 2023, he honoured one survivor, Lily Ebert, at a ceremony at Windsor Castle for her work on Holocaust education. Following her death in October 2024, The King said ”“As a survivor of the unmentionable horrors of the Holocaust, I am so proud that she later found a home in Britain where she continued to tell the world of the horrendous atrocities she had witnessed, as a permanent reminder for our generation — and, indeed, for future generations — of the depths of depravity and evil to which humankind can fall, when reason, compassion and truth are abandoned. Alongside other Holocaust survivors, she became an integral part of the fabric of our nation; her extraordinary resilience and courage an example to us all, which will never be forgotten.”
