Holocaust Memorial Day: Portraits of last remaining UK survivors unveiled

Portraits of seven of the UK's last remaining Holocaust survivors have gone on display at the Queen's Gallery to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Prince of Wales, who commissioned them, said the portraits would be a "permanent reminder" of their experiences.

A national ceremony will be streamed online to remember victims of the Holocaust and other genocides.

At 20:00 GMT, people are being asked to leave a lighted candle in their window.

Prince Charles said he commissioned the portraits as an enduring reminder of the horrors of the Nazi regime in World War Two and in tribute to the Jewish refugees who made their home in Britain.

He was left moved after one survivor of Auschwitz showed him her concentration camp tattoo at an event to unveil the portraits on Monday.

Lily Ebert, 98, also showed the prince a golden pendant she had hidden from the guards in her shoe and later in her daily bread ration.

At the event in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace, London, she told Prince Charles: "Meeting you, it is for everyone who lost their lives." Charles touched her shoulder and replied: "But it is a greater privilege for me."

In the foreword to the catalogue of the exhibition, the prince said we are "responsible for one another, for our collective history", and that the attempted extermination of the Jews in Europe by the Nazis was a stark reminder of this.

He said: "Seven portraits. Seven faces. Each a survivor of the horrors of those years, who sought refuge and a home in Britain after the war, becoming an integral part of the fabric of our nation.

"However, these portraits represent something far greater than seven remarkable individuals. They stand as a living memorial to the six million innocent men, women and children whose stories will never be told, whose portraits will never be painted."

He continued: "They stand as a permanent reminder for our generation - and indeed, to future generations - of the depths of depravity and evil humankind can fall to when reason, compassion and truth are abandoned."

In July 1944, Lily Ebert - then aged 20 - was transported to Auschwitz with her mother and five siblings.

The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, notorious for his deadly experiments on prisoners, sent her mother, her younger brother and younger sister to die in the gas chambers, while other family members were put to work.

She said the pendant in the shape of an angel had been given to her by her mother when she was five.

"Auschwitz took everything, even the golden teeth they took off people. But this survived," she said.

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27 January to mark the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the largest of the Nazi death camps, in 1945.

Faith leaders also gathered to light candles and remember the victims of all genocides, including other victims of Nazi persecution such as the Roma people, Slavs, disabled people and gay men.

It also marks the genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

At York Minster, 600 candles were lit to remember the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and arranged in a Star of David.

York's Jewish and other faith communities attended the event, which included a procession with readings, music, poetry, prayers and periods of silence for quiet reflection.

At 19:00 GMT, the UK ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day will be streamed online, with people asked to light a candle and place it in their window as the ceremony finishes an hour later, in order to remember those murdered for their identity and to stand against prejudice and hatred today.

A BBC documentary about the project to create portraits of Holocaust survivors living in Britain, called Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust, will be broadcast on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on Monday.