Catherine reconnects with Holocaust survivor Steven Frankpublished at 18:39 Greenwich Mean Time
Sean Coughlan
Royal correspondent
The Princess of Wales hugged and held hands with the elderly survivors at the poignant London Holocaust memorial event, which was also attended by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The Prince of Wales thanked those present for their “bravery in sharing with us the most harrowing moments of their lives”.
“We remember the survivors who live with the scars, both mental and physical,” said Prince William.
There was a group photograph capturing the historic moment, recording the royal visitors and these increasingly frail men and women from the diminishing numbers of survivors.
Prince William and Catherine took part in a candle lighting ceremony, along with young representatives from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Anne Frank Trust.
Catherine spoke to survivor Steven Frank. They’d met before, as in 2020 Catherine photographed him for an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
Steven, who was in concentration camps as a child, has worked to keep alive the memory of what happened in the Holocaust, visiting schools and giving younger generations a first-hand knowledge of what happened to him and his family.
I met Steven on one of those visits, reporting on it for the BBC – and can still remember that he had a battered saucepan with him, which he’d had when a prisoner in the camps.
He was originally from the Netherlands and came to England after the war – and I remember how he said that he had gone many decades after the war without ever talking about what had happened to him.
As he grew older he realised it was important to act as a witness for what he’d experienced and as a warning to prevent it happening again.
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