Prince Charles to visit Auschwitz to mark 80th anniversary of liberation

The King is set to visit Poland to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former Nazi concentration camp.

King Charles will join other dignitaries and Holocaust survivors at a service held at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum and memorial. Prior to the event next Monday, he will meet with members of the local community in Krakow, as confirmed by Buckingham Palace. During his brief visit, the King will also have a meeting with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda.

This marks the King's fifth visit to Poland, with previous trips including one in 2008 with the Queen, and another in 2010 as part of a wider European tour that included Hungary and the Czech Republic. The announcement comes ahead of a reception Charles is hosting at Buckingham Palace to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27.

The event will highlight projects aimed at educating future generations about the Holocaust, and the King will meet 94 year old Manfred Goldberg, a survivor of concentration camps, including Stutthof, and a death march. Over 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, which saw six million Jewish men, women and children killed.

The camp was liberated by soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front who opened the gates on January 27 1945.