Buckingham Palace announced this Monday that King Charles III will join the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, near Krakow, Poland.
This will be the first visit of the British monarch to the Auschwitz concentration camp, although it will be the fifth time he visits Poland, as stated by his press office in the announcement.
When will King Charles III visit the Auschwitz concentration camp?
The visit will take place on the anniversary, this coming January 27: "The king will attend the commemorations at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the former German Nazi concentration camp, which occurred on January 27, 1945," according to a statement from the palace.
The now monarch's two previous trips to Polish lands occurred in 2008, before becoming king, when he traveled with Queen Camilla, when she was the Duchess of Cornwall, and in 2010, as part of a broader European tour that also included Hungary and the Czech Republic.
According to the statement from Buckingham Palace, Charles III will also take advantage of the visit to meet with the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda.
The former monarch of the United Kingdom, the mother of Charles III, Queen Elizabeth II, visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in June 2015.
These ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of the extermination camp by the Soviet army will be attended by delegations from various countries, as well as the presence of the British king.
Built in Poland during World War II, Auschwitz-Birkenau is the symbol of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against six million European Jews, with over a million perishing between 1940 and 1945 in this camp. Additionally, more than 100,000 non-Jewish individuals also died at this site.
Around 80,000 non-Jewish Poles, 25,000 Roma, and 20,000 Soviet soldiers were also killed by the Nazis.