King Charles will make his first overseas trip of 2024 to attend the 80th anniversary commemoration of the Auschwitz concentration camp’s liberation, Buckingham Palace has announced. The King will travel to Poland on January 27 for the historic event, which comes at a time of renewed focus on combating antisemitism.
The announcement follows a significant meeting at Buckingham Palace where the King hosted an event focusing on Holocaust education projects. During the gathering, he met with 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, who has been working to preserve survivors’ testimonies through interactive lessons for schools.
Goldberg, who survived slave labour in Riga and imprisonment in the Stutthof concentration camp, praised the King’s dedication to Holocaust remembrance, calling it “an antidote against it ever possibly happening again.” However, he expressed concern about the influence of social media on young people and the persistent threat of antisemitism.
The commemoration in Poland will center on a symbolic ceremony at the camp’s entrance, where a freight carriage will stand as a reminder of how victims were transported to their deaths. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum reports that 1.1 million people, predominantly Jewish, were killed at the camp. When Soviet forces liberated it in January 1945, only 7,000 prisoners remained alive.
During his visit, King Charles will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda and join other international leaders for Holocaust Memorial Day observations. The event holds particular significance as the number of surviving witnesses continues to decline.
The King’s participation reflects his long-standing commitment to interfaith dialogue and opposition to religious intolerance. In 2022, he commissioned portraits of seven Holocaust survivors, including Goldberg, as part of his efforts to ensure their stories endure for future generations.
This visit comes at a crucial moment when Holocaust education and awareness remain vital tools in combating contemporary antisemitism and religious persecution.
