King Charles and Camilla light candles to remember horrors of the Holocaust

2023-01-27

King Charles andQueen Consort Camilla met two genocide survivors at Buckingham Palace as they marked Holocaust Memorial Day.

Theroyal couple were solemn as they spoke with Dr Martin Stern and Amouna Adam, before lighting candles in a powerful gesture of remembrance of the victims of genocide.

Afterwards, the King said: "I hope this will be one way of trying to remember all those poor people who had to suffer such horrors for so many years – and still do."

King Charles, 74, and the Queen Consort, 75, were pictured talking with Holocaust survivor Dr Martin Stern and a survivor of the Darfur genocide Amouna Adam during the event.

Dr Stern, who was born to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, said they spoke about the importance of education about the Holocaust and other genocides.

He said: "The King was very insistent on inquiring about other genocides as well, and so was the Queen Consort."

The Holocaust survivor, who was sent to the Westerbork transit camp and Theresienstadt ghetto in Nazi-occupied Netherlands after being taken away by officers at the age of five, said the lighting of the candle was "immensely important".

Dr Stern added: "The perpetrators would like that we would just forget about it, move on to other things so they get on quietly with doing more of their horrific crimes.

"Lighting a candle publicly is a marker that makes it hard for tyrants and state criminals to perpetuate their mass crimes quietly."

Charles and Camilla also spoke with Amouna Adam, from the persecuted Fur tribe, who survived genocide in Darfur in western Sudan, as well as representatives of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust.

They discussed ongoing work to ensure the lessons learned during genocides are not forgotten.

Laura Marks, chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust, said: “What the King was able to offer us, to share with us, was his interest in both in the Holocaust, but also, in the other genocides and the work that he's doing.

“And he's been the patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust for many, many years as Prince of Wales, and we were talking to him about how important that is for us as a charity because it adds so much credibility and so much weight when a charity has as a patron like that.”

She added: “The King is so powerful, so important in being able to bring attention, focus attention on the dangers of hate speech, hatred today and he was just magnificent on that one.”

Victims of the Holocaust are remembered each year on January 27 – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

The day is also used to remember the millions killed in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

The King has been pictured on a number of royal engagements recently –travelling by Royal Train to Manchester last week andvisiting a community group in Aberdeenshire earlier in the month.

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