The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, has commissioned portraits of seven Holocaust survivors to be hung at Buckingham Palace. Each survivor will be painted by a chosen British artist as part of the BBC Two documentary “Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust”, which is to be released on this year's Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th. The exhibition opens in the Queen’s Gallery on the same day. The documentary will feature the survivors' accounts of what they lived through at the hands of the Nazis. The survivors are mostly over 90 years old who came to Britain as children or young adults after the Holocaust. Among the featured survivors is Helen Aronson, 94, who survived the incarceration of Jewish people in the Lodz ghetto, in Nazi-occupied Poland. Other survivors include Arek Hersh, Anita Lasker Wallfisch, Rachel Levy, Manfred Goldberg, and Lily Ebert, who gained international fame when her teenage grandson started interviewing about her experiences in Auschwitz on his soon-viral TikTok account. Together, they also co-wrote Ebert's best-selling memoir, “Lily's Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live“, which was released in September 2021.
“Holocaust survivors endured the very worst. To survive the concentration and death camps and 77 years later see their portraits displayed in Buckingham Palace is very special indeed and a poignant and fitting testament to their lasting contribution to this country,“ said Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock.“As the number of Holocaust survivors sadly, but inevitably, declines, my abiding hope is that this special collection will act as a further guiding light for our society, reminding us not only of history’s darkest days but of humanity’s interconnectedness as we strive to create a better world for our children, grandchildren, and generations as yet unborn; one where hope is victorious over despair and love triumphs over hate,” Prince Charles said according to the BBC.