Though Kate Middleton has not yet returned to a regular working schedule, on Monday, she made a surprise public appearance for Holocaust Remembrance Day alongside Prince William at London’s Guildhall. This week marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and during an event, the princess reunited with Steven Frank and Yvonne Bernstein, two survivors whom Kate photographed for the 75th anniversary.
“I want to give you a big cuddle,” the Princess said to Frank, according to the Daily Mail, before she embraced the 89-year-old. Kate took photos of the survivor, who settled in Britain after World War II, and his grandchildren for the Royal Photographic Society exhibition Generations: Portrait of Holocaust Survivors in 2020. When the princess saw Bernstein, she said it was “such a treat for me [to see] an old friend.”
The Mail reports that William spoke with a group of survivors about educating his son, Prince George, about the Holocaust and the events of World War II. “George is getting to the age where he’s starting to understand things. So it’s getting interesting to talk to him about what happened,” he said. “There is a lot of history at this table, we need to hear it all.”
While Kate and William attended the London gathering, which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer later joined, King Charles III marked the day by traveling to Poland to meet a handful of survivors at a Jewish Community Center before attending a ceremony at Auschwitz.
In remarks during the ceremony, the king commented on the importance of continuing to remember the “violence and hatred” that the Nazis inflicted. “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,” Charles said. “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.”