Duchess of Cambridge

Today, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended the ceremony to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at Central Hall in Westminster, London. January 27, 2020, marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Camp known as Holocaust Memorial Day.

The Holocaust (The Shoah in Hebrew) was the attempt by the Nazis and their collaborators to murder all the Jews in Europe. Holocaust Memorial Day takes place each year on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and honours survivors of the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution, and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. From Holocaust Memorial Day Trust,

With the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 Germany invaded Poland, subjecting around two million Polish Jews to violence and forced labour. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the first months of the occupation. Shortly after the occupation Polish Jews were confined to particular neighbourhoods that came to be known as ‘ghettos’. Living conditions in these ghettos were appalling – a deliberate attempt by the Nazis to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews. This approach was repeated across Eastern Europe in other countries occupied by the Nazis.

In 1941, the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews began – a plan known by the Nazis as ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem’. Death squads called Einsatzgruppen swept Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, killing Jews by firing squad. By the end of 1941 the first extermination camp, Chelmno in Poland, had been established, giving the Nazis their method to continue murdering on a giant scale between 1941 and 1945.

By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had been murdered in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps.

The Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust.

Drone footage captures the sheer size of Auschwitz death camp

Over the course of the war 1.1 million people – more than 90 per cent of them Jews – were murdered at Auschwitzhttps://t.co/g7vXzwqf0E pic.twitter.com/6ffnxMCBsl

— ITV News (@itvnews) January 26, 2020

It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II–Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp built with several gas chambers, Auschwitz III–Monowitz, a labour camp created to staff a factory for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben and dozens of subcamps.

It is estimated that a minimum of 1.4 million people was deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered. Some 900,000 Jews were killed in the gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp and their bodies burned in the crematorium. Approx 30,000 shoes belonging to prisoners who were executed at the camp known as Auschwitz I are part of the Museum exhibition.

William and Catherine were received by the chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust Olivia Marks-Woldman. They also met the survivor and trust honorary president, Sir Ben Helfgott, ahead of the service. Prince William told Olivia and Sir Ben, “We were talking this morning about how you carry on this message for future generations. We will do our best.“

Today’s ceremony was organized by the Holocaust Memorail Day Trust that is a Prince of Wales Charles’ patronage. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) promotes and supports Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). HMD has taken place in the UK since 2001, with a UK event and over 10,000 local activities taking place on or around the 27th January each year. Each year across the UK, thousands of people come together to learn more about the past, honour the survivors and all those whose lives were changed beyond recognition, and take action to create a safer future. The HMDT works in partnership with many organisations to ensure the life stories of survivors are shared with hundreds of thousands of people.

The royal couple was joined by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and leading dignitaries. At the ceremony, Prince William gave a reading that honoured his great-grandmother Princess Alice’s efforts in helping a Jewish family during the Holocaust. The reading was from a letter sent by a friend of his great-grandmother Princess Alice.

From People’s report,

“When the persecution of the Jews by the Germans began, Princess Alice asked to be informed about the fate of the Cohen family. Having been informed by friends and by her lady in waiting about the plight of Mrs. Cohen and her young daughter, the Princess decided to offer her hospitality to the two ladies; in fact to hide them in her home despite the danger this entailed,” the letter began.

“The Princess put a small two-room apartment on the third floor at the disposal of Mrs. Cohen and her daughter. It was thanks to the courageous rescue of Princess Alice that the members of the Cohen family were saved.

“The members of the Cohen family left the residence three weeks after liberation, aware that by virtue of the Princess’s generosity and bravery had spared them from the Nazis.

“The great-granddaughter of Rachel Cohen, Evy Cohen, said this 2 years ago: ‘My family would not exist without the courageous act of Princess Alice. Her story of incredible courage must keep being told in her memory. My generation, the past generation and the future generation are, and will eternally be, grateful to Princess Alice for the great act of bravery, risking her own life to take in a family in need.”

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge along with attendees at the ceremony were the first to see the national exhibition of Memorial Flames made by community groups and organisations across the UK for 75 Memorial Flames project. About Memorial Flames, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust said,

From art groups to faith groups and charities to schools, groups of all kinds have come together to make their own Memorial Flames. Each one commemorates 75 years since the end of the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews in Europe.

In November a panel of experts met to review the artworks submitted, and 75 Memorial Flame artworks have now been selected to form a national exhibition that will be launched at the UK Commemorative Ceremony for HMD 2020. You can see the list of selected groups and some example artworks here.

Today’s event is one of the series of events taking place across Europe to mark the solemn anniversary, including at the death camp itself in Poland where Duchess of Cornwall is representing the UK. The survivors shared their experiences and horrors they faced in the camps. People Reported,

Ian Forsyth, who was a wireless operator, told movingly how there were “bodies lying everywhere.” With his voice breaking, he said, “I don’t think anybody who didn’t see the place would understand what it as like. I get emotional when I think of that 11-year-old boy taken away from his mother and sleeping on the top bunk and who died during the night.”

“I hope people can realize how far mankind can sink if they are not careful. We are not all the same but that should be celebrated.”

A short film Nazi Boots created by director Debs Paterson in response to meeting the Holocaust.

After the ceremony, William and Catherine also took part in a candle-lighting ceremony on the stage, along with survivors. After 6 candles were lit to honour the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazi, each candle representing 1 million Jews, 75 candles were lit to mark the 75th liberation anniversary. Continuing from People,

Prince Philip‘s late mother, Princess Alice, who set up a nursing home under a monastic Christian sisterhood in Athens, Greece, has been celebrated for her role in helping save a Jewish family during the Holocaust. She is buried Jerusalem and is considered a hero of the Holocaust. Her grandson Prince Charles, 71, spoke of her and his father Philip at a recent palace reception.

“I am immensely proud that my dear grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, is buried in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives,” Charles said. “She is counted one of the Righteous among the Nations for her actions in 1943 when, in Nazi-occupied Athens, she saved a Jewish family by taking them into her home and hiding them.  My grandmother was a formidable lady.”

After the event, William and Catherine met with the attendees, Holocaust survivors and their families. From Hello’s report,

William and Kate met 12 survivors of genocide, including those persecuted by the Nazis and others from Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur after joining them to light the first of 75 candles on stage to represent 75 years since Auschwitz was liberated. “It was so emotional, so many moving stories,” the Duchess told a group, including Mala, who had spoken on stage of her experience of surviving Bergen-Belsen.

“You were fantastic,” she added, putting a hand on Mala’s arm, before asking about how she tells her story to schoolchildren. “Do your experiences resonate with them?” she asked. “Do they feel they can do something for their generation?” “So many families are totally torn apart by the trauma and how that plays out over the generations,” said the Duchess.

Mala, 89, said afterwards: “I said I speak about it in schools and she was asking what impact it has. It brings them closer to the history. “I told her I follow her and her lovely children in the news and she said ‘I have told the children’. They have made them aware of it (the Holocaust). I suppose she tells it in the measure that it’s applicable to that age.” Mala said of the ceremony: “I found it very emotional. The reason I am able to speak about it all is that I’m able to control my emotions, but lately it has become more difficult. It [the music] went right into my bones.”

Duchess of Cambridge shares a joke with Holocaust survivor Yvonne Bernstein after the UK Holocaust Memorial Day.  Yvonne Bernstein is one of the survivors Catherine photographed yesterday. Continuing from Hello!

Meanwhile William spoke to a group including Daniela Abraham, a Roma activist who had been overcome by emotion after speaking on stage about how her relatives were murdered by the Nazis. “You spoke very well,” he told her. “Thank you so much.” Kate told the same group: “It’s so humbling to hear the gratitude from people, despite what you have gone through. It’s heartbreaking to hear.” Manfred Goldberg, 89, a survivor of the Stutthof camp, told the Duchess people found it hard to comprehend how six million Jewish people were killed. “When you hear the stories of an individual it becomes easier to understand this better. And it has taken a while for everybody to be able to speak,” said Kate. “It’s hard to stand up there and do that. “I’m really interested in intergenerational trauma and how it affects a family. It’s so important.”

Yesterday, Kensington Palace released two portraits of Holocaust Survivors taken by the Duchess as part of the project of pictures of the survivors marking the 75th Anniversary.

A video of today’s event.

The today’s event reminded us the horrors of the past and tells us how a human mind can be source of brutal killing of humanity. It is our responsibilities to make sure that the coming generation must be aware of the past horrors so that they must not be repeated ever. You can read all about the Holocaust here.

Ahead of 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, the Duchess of Cambridge became the part of a very special project to mark the Holocaust Memorial Day. Yesterday, Kensington Palace released two moving portraits taken by Duchess of Cambridge that features Two Holocaust survivors – Steven Frank BEM and Yvonne Bernstein.

The project that came alive with a collaboration of Holocaust Memorial Trust UK, Jewish Newspaper and The Royal Photography Society, aims to honour the victims of the Holocaust and to celebrate the full lives that survivors have built in the UK. The photographs will form part of an exhibition opening later this year, bringing together 75 powerful images of survivors and their family members to mark 75 years since the end of the Holocaust. Today 4 portraits in total were released. About the project Holocaust Memorial trust Said,

We are pleased to have worked in partnership with Jewish News and the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) on this exciting project. The project aims to honour the victims of the Holocaust and to celebrate the full lives that survivors have built in the UK, and was originally conceived by Justin Cohen of the Jewish News.

Each of the portraits depicts the special connection between a survivor and younger generations of their family, who over the coming years will carry the legacy of their grandparents. However, the project also aims to inspire people across the UK to consider their own responsibility to remember and share the stories of those who endured persecution at the hands of the Nazis.

Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said of the project: ‘We are so pleased to be part of this project, as people from across the UK come together to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The exhibition will be a fitting way to mark 75 years since the world was left scarred by the Holocaust. The survivors featured in these portraits all have very different stories, but each of their lives has been fundamentally changed by the trauma and loss they experienced. What connects these individuals is that, after systematic persecution, they all made the UK their home and the country has been enriched by them and their families.

Each portrait depicts the special connection between a survivor and younger generations of their family, who will carry the legacy of their grandparents in the coming years. About the project and her experience of photographing the survivors, Duchess said,

“The harrowing atrocities of the Holocaust, which were caused by the most unthinkable evil, will forever lay heavy in our hearts. Yet it is so often through the most unimaginable adversity that the most remarkable people flourish. Despite unbelievable trauma at the start of their lives, Yvonne Bernstein and Steven Frank are two of the most life-affirming people that I have had the privilege to meet. They look back on their experiences with sadness but also with gratitude that they were some of the lucky few to make it through. Their stories will stay with me forever.”

The Duchess of Cambridge took an image of Steven Frank BEM, now 84, who was originally from Amsterdam survived multiple concentration camps as a child. He was joined by his two granddaughters Trixie and Maggie in the picture.

Steven and his grandchildren included meaningful items in the portraits – including a pan that his mother kept with them throughout their time in the camps and tomatoes from his garden. When Steven was in the Theresienstadt camp as a child, he helped another prisoner grow tomatoes.  About this pictures Steven said,

I would hope that the people who look at these pictures not only look at the beauty of the photography, but they will also think of the people and their families that they lost in the Holocaust.

Steven was sent to Westerbork transit camp and then on to Theresienstadt. Steven and his brothers were 3 of only 93 children who survived the camp, out of 15,000 children sent there.

The Duchess also photographed a German survivor Yvonne Bernstein with her granddaughter Chloe. Yvonne was hidden as a child in France, travelling in the care of her aunt and uncle, frequently changing homes and names. Yvonne holds her ID card from Germany, dated 3 March 1939. It has the letter ‘J’ stamped on it – one of the many ways Jewish people were singled out and separated from the rest of the population.

The whole project was proposed by Justin Cohen, who shared how this whole idea became a reality on a post he wrote for Jewish Newspaper. Read the full text here.

Having approached the Palace six months ago with the seeds of an idea for a photography project involving the Duchess to mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, I was delighted (not to mention surprised given the weight of requests the Royals receive) to receive a call asking for more details. Further calls followed and it wasn’t long before Palace aides suggested bringing in the Royal Photographic Society, where she is a patron, to help make my vision of 75 images a reality, and involving the families of survivors to highlight their fortitude in building full lives after the horrors.

But I didn’t dare believe this project would happen until I learnt how much time and thought the Duchess was personally putting into it. The fine art graduate spent several days researching what she could bring to the table in order to best capture these individuals for the future. She was at pains to ensure the survivors were comfortable with the vision and that the spotlight was on the heroes to be pictured and not the Duchess herself. The idea of an exhibition bringing together all 75 images – most of which will be taken over the coming months by fellows of the RPS – followed.

Last month, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust came on board to support the initiative and spoke in strict confidence to survivors to be photographed both by The Duchess and by RPS. We are also honoured to reveal the first cohort of these images today. Before meeting Steven Frank and Yvonne Bernstein, The Duchess spent significant time preparing for the photography session, and once they had arrived she spent nearly two and a half hours with them, getting to know them and their stories, and taking their photographs. Why give you all this background? It’s crucial because it shows that our Royal Family are determined to follow up oft-repeated words of remembrance with practical steps as, day by day, we bid farewell to more survivors. It shows they are personally ready to take on the message of the survivor generation to challenge all forms of hatred wherever it rears its ugly head. As the Duchess and Prince William wrote in the visitor’s book at Stutthof concentration camp two years ago: “All of us have an overwhelming responsibility to make sure that we learn the lessons and that the horror of what happened is never forgotten and never repeated.” In other words, the message is about the here and now at least as much as about the past.

Palace also released some behind the scene pictures when Catherine met with the survivors.  Photographs were taken at Kensington Palace earlier this month, and because both survivors have strong links to the Netherlands, Catherine was inspired by 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, who specialised in interior domestic scenes. The pictures were taken next to a window that brought in light from the east, the direction of Jerusalem. Duchess of Cambridge continued,

While I have been lucky enough to meet two of the now very few survivors, I recognise not everyone in the future will be able to hear these stories first hand. It is vital that their memories are preserved and passed on to future generations so that what they went through will never be forgotten. I recall reading the Diary of Anne Frank as a young girl. Her sensitive and intimate interpretation of the horrors of the time was one of the underlying inspirations behind the images. I wanted to make the portraits deeply personal to Yvonne and Steven – a celebration of family and the life that they have built since they both arrived in Britain in the 1940s.

The other two portraits include a picture of John Hajdu, who survived the Budapest Ghetto, with his grandson Zac taken by South African photographer Jillian Edelstein. John said, “When I give my talks I show family photos because I think it’s so important for them to see us as human beings, especially if they have just seen images of people in camps. I think the fact that the exhibition will include so many different experiences is so important – it will give a much broader idea of what it was like during the Holocaust rather than just hearing from one survivor.”

While Joan Salter with her husband Martin and daughter Shelley were photographed by a Swiss photographer Frederic Aranda.

You might remember that Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met with Holocaust survivors during their Poland tour in July 2017. The couple visited Stutthof – that was amongst the worst in the Nazi concentration camps causing the deaths of tens of thousands.

That day, William and Catherine met two survivors Zigi Shipper and Manfred Goldberg who shared their harrowing stories. Thanking the Survivors, Catherine said “What you have been through and you still hold in your memories must be extremely difficult to speak about. Thank you very much for meeting us.”

On Monday, the Duke and Duchess will attend the UK Holocaust Memorial Day Commemorative Ceremony in Westminster.