King and Queen meet Holocaust survivors on memorial day
Buckingham Palace hosted Holocaust survivors at a remembrance day event
The King and Queen met Holocaust survivors and lit candles of remembrance to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945.
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Charles viewed portraits of seven Holocaust survivors including one of Helen Aronson, 98, who was one of only around 750 people to be liberated from the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, out of 250,000 people sent there.
Ms Aronson told Charles her portrait, by Paul Benney and commissioned by the King when he was the Prince of Wales, was “wonderful”.
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The 98-year-old was just 12 when the German army arrived at her home.
Her mother and brother survived with her, but her father was murdered at the Chelmno extermination camp in Poland.
The chairwoman of the Anne Frank Trust UK, Nicola Cobbold, showed the King and Queen a painting called Anne Frank: Resistance, a collage picture which featured excerpts from her diary.
Lu Lawrence, the daughter of survivor Zigi Shipper, said she wished her father, who died in 2023, could be at the reception to see his portrait on Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday.
“They are in spirit,” Charles said of the survivors who have died.
The King and Queen were then handed taper candles by survivor Rachel Levy to light candles from the Holocaust Memorial Trust, as an act of remembrance and a symbol of hope for the future.
At a reception, Charles and Camilla spoke to youth ambassadors and charity workers including Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman and its chairman Sir Sajid Javid.