Royals make sombre visit to site of Nazi death camp

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have described their visit to a Nazi concentration camp as “shattering”, saying the site is a “terrible reminder of the cost of war”.

William and Kate heard first hand about the horrors of Stutthof camp, now run as a museum, from survivors and also made a private tour of the site’s crematorium, where the bodies of thousands of prisoners were burned.

The couple saw other evidence of the Nazi’s attempts to exterminate the Jews, from a display of hundreds of pairs of shoes from Holocaust victims to the tiny wooden huts where prisoners slept three to a bunk. William and Kate appeared in sombre and reflective mood as they toured the site.

The couple left a message in the visitors’ book which they both signed: “We were intensely moved by our visit to Stutthof, which has been the scene of so much terrible pain, suffering and death. This shattering visit has reminded us of the horrendous murder of six million Jews, drawn from across the whole of Europe, who died in the abominable Holocaust.”