King Charles joined world leaders and other European royalty in marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at the site of the former death camp.
The ceremony is widely being treated as the last major observance any notable number of survivors will be able to attend.
Several survivors spoke of the horrors they lived through, and their fears for the future, to an audience that included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s King Felipe VI.
Auschwitz survivors warned of the rising antisemitism and hatred which they are witnessing in the modern world as they gathered under a huge tent set up over a gate and railway tracks at the site of the former camp.
Nazi German forces murdered 1.1 million people at the site in southern Poland, which was under German occupation during the Second World War. Most of the victims were Jews killed on an industrial scale in gas chambers, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, gay people and others who were targeted for elimination in the Nazi racial ideology.
Tova Friedman was six years old when she was liberated from the Nazi death camp.
Speaking at the commemoration, she described her journey to the concentration camp: “Hungry, thirsty and very terrified I held on tightly to my mother’s hand in the dark cattle car for countless hours while the cries and the prayers of so many desperate women permeated my soul and haunt me to this day.
“Finally, we arrived at Auschwitz, a gloomy Sunday with a sky obscured by smoke and a terrible stink hung in the air, and there were rows and rows of naked women all around me.”
During her time in the camp she thought it was “normal” to die if you were a Jewish child.
She went on to urge the guests: “We all, all of us, must reawaken our collective conscious to transform this violence, anger, hatred and malignancy, that has so powerfully gripped our society, into a humane and just world. Before this terrible, terrible negative forces will destroy us all.”
Earlier on Monday, the King met and heard stories from around 50 survivors of Auschwitz and other concentration camps at the Jewish Community Centre (JCC) Krakow he opened in 2008.
His Majesty described the meeting as “a solemn and indeed a sacred moment,” as he becomes the first British monarch to visit Auschwitz.
“The act of remembering the evils of the past remains a vital task, and in so doing, we inform our present and shape our future,” the King said in a speech.
“It is a moment when we recall the depths to which humanity can sink when evil is allowed to flourish, ignored for too long by the world.”
He also used the speech to highlight that the world today is still “full of turmoil and strife”.
He emphasised the “sacred task” of ensuring future generations remember the Holocaust, as the ageing survivors know they will soon no longer be here to share their stories.
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