“The harrowing atrocities of the Holocaust, which were caused by the most unthinkable evil, will forever lay heavy in our hearts,” the Duchess said.
By World Israel News Staff
In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked on Monday, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, has presented photographs that she took of two Holocaust survivors and their grandchildren.
The first photograph features Steven Frank with his granddaughters Maggie Fleet 15, and Trixie Fleet, 13.
The 84-year-old was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, located in what is now the Czech Republic, when he was a child. Frank and his brothers were three of only 93 children who survived the camp. 15,000 children were sent there.
Steven Frank with his granddaughters Maggie Fleet 15, and Trixie Fleet, 13 (Twitter/kensingtonroyal)
The second photograph features Yvonne Bernstein with her 11-year-old granddaughter, Chloe Wright.
The 83-year-old survived the war by hiding as a child in France with her aunt and uncles.
In a joint initiative organized by the Jewish News, the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the duchess met Frank and Bernstein, along with their grandchildren, at Kensington Palace earlier this month.
She spent nearly two-and-a-half hours listening to their stories of survival before taking their pictures.
In a statement released on Monday, Kate described her time spent with the survivors.
“The harrowing atrocities of the Holocaust, which were caused by the most unthinkable evil, will forever lay heavy in our hearts,” she said.
“Yet it is so often through the most unimaginable adversity that the most remarkable people flourish. Despite unbelievable trauma at the start of their lives, Yvonne Bernstein and Steven Frank are two of the most life-affirming people that I have had the privilege to meet,” the duchess added.
“They look back on their experiences with sadness but also with gratitude that they were some of the lucky few to make it through. Their stories will stay with me forever,” said Kate, adding that “Whilst I have been lucky enough to meet two of the now very few survivors, I recognize not everyone in the future will be able to hear these stories first hand. It is vital that their memories are preserved and passed on to future generations so that what they went through will never be forgotten.”
The photographs are included in an upcoming exhibition of 75 powerful images of survivors and their families to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.