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King Charles III will be the first British monarch to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. The trip will take place at the end of January to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp.

The King will join other heads of state and prime ministers. On January 27, he will attend a commemoration ceremony at the Museum and Memorial located near the town of Auschwitz, The Telegraph reports.

On January 14, at Buckingham Palace, Charles III hosted an event dedicated to initiatives aimed at ensuring that the horrific experiences of Holocaust survivors are never forgotten. He invited 94-year-old Manfred Goldberg. In his youth, he visited various labor camps, including Stuttgof in Poland. The man told the monarch that he was also going to attend the commemorative events.

“I feel that I have to do this before the 80th anniversary of the liberation,” Goldberg said. “Silence does not help the oppressed. It always helps the oppressors.”

The upcoming trip of Charles III, who is the patron of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, to Auschwitz-Birkenau is historic, as he will be the only monarch to visit this particular “Death Factory.” It is noteworthy that his wife Camilla visited Auschwitz in 2020, arriving at the events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.

Queen Elizabeth II visited Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany in 2015. It was her first and only visit to a concentration camp from the Second World War.

It should be noted that 1.3 million people were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940 and 1945. The victims were Jews, Roma, Poles, and Ukrainians.

After the liberation of the “Death Camp” from the Nazis, it was decided to preserve the site at the insistence of the surviving prisoners. Now there is a memorial museum there, which is visited by about two million people every year.