King and Queen meet Holocaust survivors at Buckingham Palace

King Charles III and Queen Camilla met with Holocaust survivors at Buckingham Palace and lit memorial candles to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Survivors were welcomed to the Palace, including 100-year-old Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and 98-year-old Helen Aronson, who were honored with a series of portraits commissioned by the King for their service to genocide awareness.

King Charles said survivors also attended the reception to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day “in spirit”.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mala Tribich gave a cabinet address as the first survivor of the genocide and called on the government to “do what needs to be done” to combat antisemitism.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is celebrated annually on January 27 and commemorates the six million Jews killed during World War II.

It also commemorates the millions of people outside the Jewish faith killed through Nazi persecution and those targeted in more recent genocides.

Survivors and their families were invited to the Palace to mark the anniversary on Tuesday, including the daughter and two-year-old grandson of Zigi Shipper, who died in 2023 aged 93.

Shipper survived two concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, a death march, and the Lodz ghetto established by the Nazis, a Jewish ghetto plagued by disease, starvation, and forced labor.

His daughter, Lu Lawrence, told the King she wished he had been there to see his father’s “magnificent” portrait. King Charles said he was there “in spirit”.

Last year King He became the first British head of state to visit AuschwitzHe also told 100-year-old survivor Lasker-Wallfish that it was “wonderful” to have him attend the reception.

“It goes back a long way since I first met you, it must have been 20 years,” he told her.

Later, Rachel Levy, a survivor of both the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, had the King and Queen Camilla light the candles.

They spoke to youth ambassadors and philanthropists, including the chief executive of the Holocaust Remembrance Day Foundation, and viewed a painting featuring quotes from Anne Frank’s diary.

Meanwhile, Mala Tribich, 95, was welcomed to Downing Street by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as the first genocide survivor to “give a cabinet address”.

Tribich, who survived Bergen-Belsen at the age of 14 and was made an MBE in 2012 for his services to education, asked ministers not just to listen but also to “witness” in a five-minute speech.

“We survivors would never have imagined that we would witness this level of antisemitism today,” he told ministers; some became visibly emotional during the conversation.

He said survivors were “shaken to their core” by the latest deadly attacks on Jewish people at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish religious calendar, and at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia.

Tribich asked: “How can these people be targeted in this way once again, 81 years after the genocide?

“It is no longer enough to remember the past. I speak to you, the leaders of this country that I proudly call home, and I implore you to do what must be done.”

His words received a standing ovation.

Sir Keir thanked Tribich for his “strong words” and said his government would “do everything to combat antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head”.

Holocaust Remembrance Day sees people across the UK invited to light a candle in their window to remember those killed and stand against prejudice and hatred.

Landmarks, buildings and monuments will be illuminated in purple as part of the national Light Into Darkness moment on Tuesday evening.

The Holocaust Remembrance Day Foundation said the day was more important than ever “at a time when prejudice is increasing at an alarming rate in our societies”.

Dr Marcel Ladenheim, who was hidden by a French family during the Holocaust after his father was killed at Auschwitz, said he was now “worried” about his children and grandchildren.

The 86-year-old man said the venue for the event he planned to attend on Tuesday was not announced “until very late for fear of backlash, gangs making noise and making life very difficult for us.”

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It makes me sad that we need security when I go to the synagogue, for example. It makes me sad to see and hear that there is security outside Jewish schools. We don’t feel safe.”