Royal couple ‘moved’ by visit to death camp
PRINCE William and his Kate Middleton have said they were ‘intensely moved’ by their visit to a Nazi concentration camp where 65,000 died.
After passing through the ‘Death Gate’ entrance of the Stutthof camp yesterday, the royal couple were taken to the stark wooden barracks where inmates were housed.
One contained thousands of pairs of shoes seized from arrivals to the camp, in a stark reminder of the atrocities committed there during World War Two.
William and Kate also saw the brick gas chamber used to murder those who were too sick to work, and the crematorium where their bodies were burnt.
During their visit they met Stutthof survivors Zigi Shipper and Manfred Goldberg, who had both returned for their first time since moving to Britain after the war. Mr Shipper and Mr Goldberg, both 87, became friends as teenagers in the camp, situated in what is now northern Poland, and later settled in north London.
Mr Shipper said William and Kate were ‘very moved’ by what they saw.
Thanking both men, Kate said: ‘What you have been through and you still hold in your memories must be extremely difficult to speak about.’
Writing in the guest book at the end of their visit, the royal couple said they were ‘intensely moved by our visit to Stutthof, which has been the scene of so much terrible pain, suffering and death’.