Prince William, Kate Visit WWII Holocaust Camp on Poland Trip

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate, who are touring Poland, paid respect to the victims of a Nazi German concentration camp Tuesday as they were guided around the site by two Jewish survivors.

The royal couple is on a goodwill trip to Poland and Germany aimed at underscoring Britain’s intention to maintain friendly relations with the European Union after it leaves the bloc.

They flew to northern Poland on Tuesday from Warsaw, where they and their children were staying at the Belvedere Palace.

At the Stutthof museum they were guided by two survivors of the camp, Manfred Goldberg and Zigi Shipper, both 87, from north London. The royals were shown discarded shoes, clothing and other personal items that were seized from the inmates on arrival at Stutthof. They were also shown the gas chamber where those too sick to work were killed.

The couple paid their respects to the victims by placing remembrance stones at the Jewish memorial.

The German Nazis set up the Stutthof camp right after invading Poland in September 1939. Out of some 110,000 inmates of various nationalities, as many as 65,000 died in the gas chambers or from disease, hunger, hard labor or during evacuations. Some 28,000 of the victims were Jewish.

Later, the royal couple traveled to nearby Gdansk, on the Baltic coast, where they shook hands with a welcoming crowd among the city’s Gothic and Renaissance architecture. They tasted traditional Polish pierogi — pastry stuffed with meat — and Goldwasser herbal liqueur that contains tiny flakes of gold.

They are later expected to visit a replica of a Shakespearean theater, whose patron is William’s father, Prince Charles. They will then meet former president and democracy champion Lech Walesa, whose office is housed in the new European Center of Solidarity that documents Poland’s peaceful struggle in the 1980s to shed communism. They return to Warsaw in the evening.

On Wednesday they fly to Berlin.