Charles wipes away tears during Auschwitz liberation service after paying a heartfelt Holocaust Memorial Day tribute

27 January 2025, 16:24 | Updated: 27 January 2025, 18:49

Emotional King Charles III appeared to shed a tear as he listened intently to survivors stories on his historic visit to Auschwitz

Charles has become the first British head of state to visit the former Nazi concentration camp where he he sat with other world leaders to mark 80 years since its liberation.

Survivors were applauded as the entered the ceremony before addressing invited guests including France's President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Spain's King Philip VI and Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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The King has warned of what happens when "evil is allowed to flourish" after arriving in Poland to pay tribute to Holocaust survivors on 80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation.

The royal was greeted on the runway by Colonel Byliniax, as he arrived at Krakow Airport, in Balice, Poland, on Monday, ahead of the main commemoration event attended by world leaders.

The King made history, as he attended commemorations at Auschwitz-Birkenau, marking 80 years since the liberation of the concentration camp.

It's a journey Charles has described as a "deeply personal pilgrimage" according to officials.

The commemorations are taking place at the notorious former death camp, where 1.1 million people were murdered during the Second World War.

Speaking from a Jewish community centre in Kracow, the King said: "The act of remembering the evils of the past remains a vital task, and in so doing, we inform our present and shape our future."

"Here in Krakow, from the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish community has been reborn."

Charles added that there was "no greater symbol" of that rebirth than the community centre within which he speaks.

"In a post-Holocaust world projects such as this, this centre is how we recover our faith in humanity," he told a captive audience.

"They also show us there is much work still to be done," he added.

Charles opened the centre in 2008, greeting dozens of well-wishers outside the building on Monday.

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."

The King continued that the public should use history "to inspire us to build a kinder and more compassionate world for future generations". 

"This remains the sacred task of us all."

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.This is a developing story.