Shoes of tiniest Holocaust victims bring horrors of Auschwitz home to King

At the centre of the service was a single train carriage.

It was used, in those unspeakable days, to transport men, women and children to Auschwitz-Birkenau: the end of the line in all senses, as they were split into those going to immediate death, or a life of slave labour that would kill them soon enough.

For the few who survived, it is a symbol of all they endured, and all they are determined to ensure the world never forgets.

At the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, nothing is more important.

One survivor, who was five-and-a-half when she was herded onto a carriage just like it, described how “hot, 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.”

The King, listening intently as survivors relayed their most painful memories, wiped his eyes.

The first British monarch to visit the site of the camp, he placed a lit candle in memory of the 1.1 million people killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau and closed his eyelids in silent prayer.

Earlier in the day, while visiting a Jewish community centre in Krakow, Poland, he urged the world to “remember the depths to which humanity can sink” and warned of a “dangerous re-emergence of anti-Semitism” in a world “full of turmoil and strife”.

“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 said. “And it is a moment when we recall the powerful testimonies of survivors ... who collectively taught us to cherish our freedom, to challenge prejudice and never to be a bystander in the face of violence and hate.”

He added: “As the number of Holocaust survivors regrettably diminishes with the passage of time, the responsibility of remembrance rests far heavier on our shoulders, and on those of generations yet unborn.

“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’s visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau was described as a “deeply personal pilgrimage” for him both as a “man and monarch”.

In London, the Prince and Princess of Wales attended a ceremony at the Guildhall, hugging survivors and paying their own tribute.

“We remember those survivors, who have lived with the scars both mental and physical,” said Prince William.

“Their bravery in sharing with us the most harrowing moments of their lives, are extremely powerful and ensure we never forget. I assure them, we never will.”

At Auschwitz, after the service, the King walked underneath the gate reading Arbeit Macht Frei – that great lie of the Nazi regime – and saw the stacks of shoes and suitcases taken from prisoners as they arrived.

It was, he said as he saw the smallest baby shoes, “just astonishing”.

There was snow on the ground, the briefest glimpse of the conditions faced by prisoners 80 years ago.

On Monday, most of that bleak landscape was hidden from view during the service. Instead, a vast tent had been built over and around the infamous main gate through which trains arrived, keeping the elderly warm and dry for the service which stretched to nearly two hours.

The building was lit up at the end of a carpet designed to look like a single railway track running through the middle of the audience.

Some survivors stared at it lost in thought, while others seemed as though they could not bear to look.

A few blinked back tears from the moment the ceremony opened with music, clutching cardigans around them or holding photographs of loved ones.

As younger generations mingled, the survivors seemed lost in thought, staring at their hands or flatly in front of them as they placed the blue and white striped caps of their old Auschwitz uniform over the headphones through which the service was translated.

One woman wore vivid jewelled earrings in a matching blue; another man a smart red bow tie.

All had lanyards with their numbers and childhood photographs around their necks.

There were prayers, a small orchestra playing over blurred black-and-white photographs of Auschwitz from the archive.

Heads of state and royal families from more than 50 countries watched on, including the Macrons, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, and the Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses of Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

There was no Russian contingent. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, was confirmed as a guest only hours before the service began, listening with a set jaw and occasional pained nod as he heard speeches about not giving into fear, and the need to solve problems between neighbours.

“May the silent emptiness of this wagon be filled today with the memory of all those who perished at Auschwitz,” the audience was told by way of introduction.

Four survivors told their stories.

Marian Turski, speaking slowly and gesticulating with gnarled, sometimes trembling hands, relayed the abject misery of inmates who faced the “four riders of the apocalypse: war, pestilence, hunger and death” and were left “perplexed, paralysed with fear”.

Janina Iwanska, reading from neatly handwritten notes, told of the evolution of the camp, from housing political prisoners to the chillingly efficient “killing machine, the killing factory”.

Tova Friedman, whose birthday it was, spoke as a representative of the children. At the age of five-and-a-half, she watched “all my little friends rounded up and driven to their deaths” as the “heartbreaking cries of their parents fell on deaf ears”.

Loaded into a cattle car with her mother, arriving at Auschwitz “with a sky obscured by smoke and a terrible stink hanging in the air”, she recalled rows of naked women and the “gleam of the German shepherd’s teeth and their eyes”: dogs the same height as her, that fear never forgotten.

Leon Weintraub, 99, told how his mother and aunt were murdered, the men around him stripped, shaved and “reduced to mere disposable items” with “constant black smoke, reeking of burnt flesh, rising from the chimneys”.

No politicians were allowed to speak at the ceremony, but there was politics nonetheless. October 7, the Israeli hostages, Hamas. Most of all, the visceral fear of rising anti-Semitism and history repeating itself.

“Be attentive and be vigilant,” said Mr Weintraub. “We, the survivors, we understand that the consequence of being considered different is active persecution.”

“We have an obligation,” said Mrs Friedman. “Not only to remember, which is very very important. But also to warn and to teach that hatred only begets more hatred. Killing more killing.”

Ronald S. Lauder, speaking on behalf of museum donors, spoke of being haunted by the words: “We don’t want our past to be our children’s future”.

“It’s hard for us to believe that we see today the sudden violence of hatred against Jews, the singling out of the one Jewish state with huge demonstrations shouting anti-Semitic slogans.

“This is hard for us to watch, any of us. But I can’t imagine what it must be like for the 50 survivors here with us today.”

There was a keen sense, at Auschwitz, that this 80th anniversary would be the last major event to have a significant number of Holocaust survivors present.

“The memory of what happened cannot pass away with the living witnesses,” said the service commentary.

Earlier that morning, at 9am, a handful of those nonagenarians gathered at the “Wall of Death” near Block 11 of the former Auschwitz I camp.

Shaky but determined, shuffling with walking sticks, they stepped forward one by one to place a lit candle at the site of so much human misery.

As night fell, the King laid a wreath at that same wall.

Biting his lip as he stood in silent tribute for more than a minute, he turned back twice to take it in as he walked away.

“Remembering what took place here, and those who were so cruelly murdered is a duty; a sacred duty that must be protected,” he wrote in the visitors’ book.

“Being here today, hearing the stories of those who experienced its horrors, seeing the shoes of children whose lives were taken when they’d just begun, and walking the paths upon which such cruelty was inflicted, is something that I will never forget.”