World

King to visit Poland for Auschwitz commemorations

By AAP Newswire

Jan 14, 2025

King Charles will visit Poland later this month to attend commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp in World War II.

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Buckingham Palace said in a statement on Monday that Charles would attend a commemoration service on January 27 at Poland's Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial, which preserves the death camp set up on Polish soil by Nazi Germany.

More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, perished in gas chambers at the camp or from starvation, cold and disease.

While in Poland, the King will meet members of the local community in Krakow and President Andrzej Duda, Buckingham Palace said.

It will be Charles' fifth visit to the country.

Ahead of that trip, Charles hosted at Buckingham Palace on Monday three organisations dedicated to educating future generations about the Holocaust and to meet a 94-year-old who survived concentration camps.

The King was to light a candle in tribute to those killed in the Holocaust and more recent genocides, and will view a demonstration of a new AI-powered platform that allows students to ask Holocaust survivors about their experiences.

Monday's event will end with a musical performance inspired by the testimony of UK survivors of the Holocaust.

By AAP Newswire

Australian Associated Press