King visits Jewish community in Krakow ahead of Auschwitz commemorations
Heads of state and world leaders were gathering to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi death camp.
The King visited the heart of Krakow’s Jewish community as commemorations began marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Heads of state and world leaders will gather at the site later to remember those who perished at the hands of the Nazi regime.
Ahead of the ceremony, Charles met Holocaust survivors at the Jewish Community Centre (JCC) Krakow he opened in 2008 and greeted dozens of well-wishers outside the building.
Some people held out their hands for the King to shake, while others held up their smartphones to capture his visit.
During a Buckingham Palace event earlier this month to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, held annually on the day Auschwitz – which was in German-occupied Poland – was liberated, the King said: “I feel I must go for the 80th anniversary, (it’s) so important.”
Commemorations at the former death camp began earlier when Poland’s president Andrzej Duda joined Auschwitz survivors laying wreaths and candles at the site.
Their tributes were left at a reconstruction of the Death Wall, the site where several thousand people, mainly Polish political prisoners, were executed.
In a speech, Mr Duda said “we Poles are the guardians of memory today” and had a duty to maintain the life stories of the survivors.
More than a million people, mostly Jews but also Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and other nationalities, were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Second World War as part of the Holocaust in which six million Jewish men, women and children were killed.
The camp was liberated by soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front who opened the gates on January 27 1945.
The ceremony will be held in front of the gates of the former Nazi death camp which had the words Arbeit Macht Frei – work sets you free – above it.
Auschwitz survivors will address the invited guests who are expected to include France’s president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and Spain’s King Philip VI and Queen Letizia.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has also been confirmed as attending.
