Princess Kate will accompany Prince William at a significant event in London on Monday to honor Holocaust Memorial Day and mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Kate, 43, made the decision to join Prince William, 42, for the occasion, which follows her emotional visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital in London on January 14, where she previously received cancer treatment. The royal mother-of-three is gradually resuming her public engagements as she continues her recovery.
The royal couple has a history of supporting Holocaust remembrance efforts. They attended the 75th-anniversary commemoration in 2020, where Kate photographed Holocaust survivors Yvonne Bernstein and Steven Frank at Kensington Palace. These poignant images were later featured in a photography exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Kate was also deeply moved during a visit to Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk during her 2017 tour of Poland with William, highlighting her long-standing commitment to Holocaust education and remembrance.
Meanwhile, King Charles will make history on Monday as the first British head of state to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. The King will join foreign monarchs, presidents, prime ministers, and Holocaust survivors at the former Nazi concentration camp to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
At a Buckingham Palace reception held ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, observed annually on January 27, Charles expressed the importance of his visit, saying, “I feel I must go for the 80th anniversary, (it’s) so important.”
Auschwitz-Birkenau, where over a million people—primarily Jews but also Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and others—were murdered during the Holocaust, was liberated by soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front on January 27, 1945. The Holocaust claimed the lives of six million Jewish men, women, and children during the Second World War.
