Prince Charles has warned that the lessons of the Holocaust remain “searingly relevant to this day” as he addressed world leaders in Jerusalem on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
In a speech at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide, he said: “Hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart.”
He told the World Holocaust Forum: “We must be fearless in confronting falsehoods and resolute in resisting words and acts of violence.”
Charles is on a two-day visit to the Holy Land, visiting Jerusalem then travelling to Bethlehem in the occupied Palestinian territories. It is his first official visit to the area, though he attended the funerals of the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and of the president Shimon Peres in 2016.
Addressing about 40 international leaders, including the US vice-president Mike Pence, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Charles warned the world must remain vigilant.
“The lessons of the Holocaust are searingly relevant to this day. Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart, still tell new lies, adopt new disguises, and still seek new victims.
“All too often, language is used which turns disagreement into dehumanisation. Words are used as badges of shame to mark others as enemies, to brand those who are different as somehow deviant. All too often, virtue seems to be sought through verbal violence.
“All too often, real violence ensures, and acts of unspeakable cruelty are still perpetrated around the world against people for reasons of their religion, their race or their beliefs.
“Knowing, as we do, the darkness to which such behaviour leads, we must be vigilant in discerning these ever-changing threats; we must be fearless in confronting falsehoods and resolute in resisting words and acts of violence. And we must never rest in seeking to create mutual understanding and respect.”
He is the most senior royal to visit Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The Queen has never visited during her 68-year reign. As the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, welcomed Charles to his official residence, he said: “We are still expecting your mother to come.” Given the Queen, 93, has not undertaken a long-haul flight from some time, it seems a vain hope.
Video footage of Charles greeting world leaders after his speech showed him walking past Pence without shaking his hand, leading to speculation he had in some way snubbed the US politician. But aides said the two men had enjoyed a “warm and friendly chat” just before the event began, hence the lack of greeting in the room.
Earlier, Rivlin told the prince that Israel “deeply appreciates” his attendance at the World Holocaust Forum gathering, which he said was aimed at fighting racism and fascism today as well as recalling the past.
“It started with the Jewish people but we never know where it ends. Everyone needs to be very careful. With this gathering we show that when we are united we can fight this phenomenon,” Rivlin said.
Charles, accompanied by the UK chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, toured the Israel Museum, where he met Holocaust survivors. He viewed the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves near Khitrbet Qumran on the north-western shores of the Dead Sea.
His visit follows that paid to the region by Prince William in 2018.
Charles is likely to pay his respects at the resting place of his grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, in Jerusalem’s Church of Mary Magdalene. He told invited guests of the “immense pride” his family felt for Israel’s formal recognition of the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother, for providing refuge to a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Athens during the second world war.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has invited Charles to visit the occupied Palestinian territories, and the prince will tour Bethlehem and sit down for talks with him.
The prince travelled to the Middle East by chartered plane. It is believed the ministerial jet RAF Voyager is undergoing scheduled maintenance. Defending the decision, aides said scheduled flights could not satisfy all of the considerations, including efficiency of time, size of delegation and safety and security.
