King and Prince William to commemorate horror of the Holocaust

The King will travel to Auschwitz tomorrow to join other heads of state commemorating the 80th anniversary of its liberation.

While Charles is in Poland, his son Prince William will be in London meeting Holocaust survivors and the heads of Jewish organisations.

Elsewhere, tens of thousands of people will attend hundreds of events across the UK to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

King Charles will hold a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda before travelling to the southern Polish town of Oswiecim to visit the former Nazi death camp.

Survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau will address a service to be held outside the camp’s ‘Gate of Death’, before placing a light in front of a freight train carriage, to mark the way Jews from all over occupied Europe were freighted to almost certain extermination in the 40 concentration camps which made up the sprawling complex.

His Majesty will join other heads of state to lay a light in memory of the millions who lost their lives during the Holocaust, before passing through the ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ gate to view the permanent collection of personal items confiscated from victims when they entered the camp.

The King will then view tributes laid by survivors earlier in the day, before laying a wreath in commemoration.

More than a million Jewish men, women and children were systematically exterminated at the complex during the Second World War under Adolf Hitler’s ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ plan.

While most were killed by Zyklon B gas, some died during the psychotic medical experiments conducted by “Angel of Death” Dr Josef Mengele.

Sam Pivnik was just 14 when, in 1943, he, his parents, three brothers and two sisters were transported to the camp from the Jewish ghetto in Bedzin in Western Poland.

Speaking to the Sunday express in 2013 Sam, then 85, recalled how he survived extermination.

“We were formed into two columns,” he said.

“My column was full of families; the old, young children with tears running down their faces. The other column was all men, anxiously looking across at us.

“Suddenly I heard my mother’s voice in Yiddish, saying ‘Szlamek, save yourself’. She pushed me hard into the other line.”

He would never see his family again.

Describing how Mengele would choose his death lists, he added: “Mengele would stand, immaculately dressed, his boots shiny; he wouldn’t speak, unless it was to ask whether there were any twins. He was very interested in twins for his medical experiments.

“For the rest it was just a flick of the deerskin gloves he carried in his hand. To the right meant life, to the left meant death.

“Toddlers were clinging to their mothers, crying; women were clutching their children, and Orthodox elders continued to think they could try to make some sense of it by asking questions.”

When Auschwitz was librated by Soviet forces on January 27, 1945, they found that most prisoners – around 56,000 – had already left, forced on a death march to a railway station at Wodzisław, 35 miles away. Some 7,000, mostly too ill to walk, remained.

Hundreds of corpses lay piled up around them, shot by German guards before they fled.

Despite the Auschwitz anniversary, however, tomorrow’s Holocaust commemorations will also remember victims of five more recent genocides officially recognised by the UK; in Cambodia, where than two million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975-79; Rwanda, where one million Tutsis were killed by Hutis in the 1994 Civil War; Srebrenica. Bosnia, where 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995; Sudan, where 250,000 Darfuris were killed between 2003-05, and Iraq, where in 2014 Islamic State jihadists exterminated 400,000 Yazidis.

The Prince of Wales will be in central London, where he will meet with survivors of the genocide in Srebrenica 30 years ago, in which ago 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces, along with others from Auschwitz.

After listening to their stories, Prince William will attend a televised ceremony where he will give a reading and light a candle alongside young representatives from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and other partner organisations.

The ceremony will be broadcast live on BBC1 at 7pm.

Other survivors from Auschwitz and Bosnia will be giving talks tomorrow and throughout the week as part of a nationwide programme of remembrance in more than 700 towns and cities in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The programme, organised by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust charity, will range from ceremonies to film showings, school talks, performances and even sporting events.

Olivia Marks-Woldman OBE, ceo of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said, “This year’s UK Ceremony, where we welcome Holocaust and genocide survivors alongside the nation’s political, faith and civic leadership. provides a focal point for the nation’s commemorations.

“Eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, it’s our responsibility to carry forward the legacy of the survivors, honour the memory of those who were murdered, and stand resolutely against those who deny the truth or fuel prejudice and intolerance today.

“In a world increasingly vulnerable to division and bias, HMD calls on us all to reflect and learn lessons that inspire action towards a better future.”