{"id":114121,"date":"2026-01-27T18:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/114121\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T18:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:54:24","slug":"king-and-queen-meet-holocaust-survivors-at-buckingham-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/114121\/","title":{"rendered":"King and Queen meet Holocaust survivors at Buckingham Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/c795d570-fba0-11f0-a47f-d352a7d9988a.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"PA Media King Charles greets Helen Aronson. He wears a navy jacket and bends to shake her hand. Aronson wears a purple jacket, has short grey hair, and smiles at the King.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>PA Media<\/p>\n<p>King Charles III met Helen Aronson, who survived the Nazis&#8217; Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland as a child<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">King Charles III and Queen Camilla have met Holocaust survivors and lit candles of remembrance at Buckingham Palace to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Survivors honoured for their services to holocaust awareness in a series of portraits commissioned by the King were welcomed to the Palace, including 100-year-old Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and 98-year-old Helen Aronson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">King Charles said survivors who had died were also present &#8220;in spirit&#8221; at the reception to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Earlier on Tuesday, Mala Tribich became the first holocaust survivor to address the cabinet &#8211; where she urged the government to &#8220;do what needs to be done&#8221; to tackle antisemitism today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27 January each year and remembers the six million Jewish people murdered during World War Two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">It also commemorates the millions of people outside the Jewish faith who were murdered through Nazi persecution, and those targeted in more recent genocides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Survivors and their families were invited to the Palace on Tuesday to mark the anniversary, including the daughter and two-year-old grandson of Zigi Shipper, who died in 2023 aged 93.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Shipper survived two concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, a death march, and the Lodz ghetto &#8211; a Jewish ghetto established by the Nazis which was plagued by disease, starvation and forced labour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">His daughter Lu Lawrence told the King she wished her father could have been present to see his &#8220;magnificent&#8221; portrait. King Charles responded that he was there &#8220;in spirit&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The King, who last year <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c2egn0gw4zeo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">became the first British head of state to visit Auschwitz<\/a>, also told 100-year-old survivor Lasker-Wallfish that it was &#8220;wonderful&#8221; to have her join the reception.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It goes back a long way since I first met you, it must be 20 years,&#8221; he told her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The King and Queen Camilla were later handed candles to light by Rachel Levy, who survived both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">They spoke to youth ambassadors and charity workers, including the chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and viewed a painting featuring excerpts from Anne Frank&#8217;s diary.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/f90f1620-fba0-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"PA Media Sir Keir Starmer, Mala Tribich, and David Lammy, sit alongside each other at a green table in front of a union jack flag and a marble fireplace. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>PA Media<\/p>\n<p>Mala Tribich survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, where tens of thousands of people were killed<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Meanwhile, 95-year-old Mala Tribich was welcomed to Downing Street by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as the first holocaust survivor &#8220;ever to address the cabinet&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Tribich, who survived Bergen-Belsen as a 14-year-old and was made an MBE in 2012 for services to education, asked ministers in a five-minute speech not just to listen, but to become her &#8220;witnesses&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;We survivors never imagined we would witness antisemitism at the level it is today,&#8221; she told ministers, some of whom became visibly emotional during the address.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">She said survivors had been &#8220;shaken to the core&#8221; by recent deadly attacks on Jewish people at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Tribich asked: &#8220;How, 81 years after the holocaust, can these people once again be targeted in this way?<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Remembering the past is no longer enough. I speak to you, leaders of this country I proudly call home, and I plead that you do what needs to be done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Her remarks received a standing ovation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Sir Keir thanked Tribich for her &#8220;powerful words&#8221; and said his government would do &#8220;everything to tackle antisemitism wherever it reared its ugly head&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Holocaust Memorial Day sees people around the UK invited to light a candle in their windows to remember those who were killed and to stand against prejudice and hatred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Landmarks, buildings and monuments are set to be lit up in purple as part of the national Light the Darkness moment on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust said the day mattered more than ever &#8220;in a time when prejudice is alarmingly rising across our communities&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Dr Marcel Ladenheim, who was hidden by a French family during the Holocaust after his father was killed at Auschwitz, said he now felt &#8220;worried&#8221; for his children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The 86-year-old said the venue of an event he planned to attend on Tuesday had not been disclosed &#8220;until very late for fear of a reaction, of mobs making a noise and making life very difficult for us&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He told BBC Radio 5 Live: &#8220;It upsets me, for example, if I go to the synagogue&#8230; that we need security. It upsets me to see and hear that outside Jewish schools, there is security. We don&#8217;t feel safe.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PA Media King Charles III met Helen Aronson, who survived the Nazis&#8217; Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-114121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}