Prince Reza Pahlavi visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp with Lady Yasmin Pahlavi on Tuesday, November 10, following his trip to Poland and one day after receiving the prestigious "King Solomon" award from the European Jewish Association.
"My wife and I are not here just on our own behalf," he said at the memorial service for the victims of the Holocaust. "We represent millions of people who understand the meaning of denial and also know the meaning of killing."
Referring to the killing of the demonstrators in Iran and comparing it to the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust, Prince Reza Pahlavi pointed out the denial of the Holocaust by the authorities of the Islamic Republic and emphasized the necessity to confront the denial of this event and to keep the memory of the victims alive. According to him, commemorating the Holocaust is necessary not only to honor the dead, but also to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies.
In the end he turned to the crowd and said: "We stand by your side" and asked them to respect the memory of the dead. This was Prince Reza Pahlavi's first visit to Auschwitz; Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi also visited this camp in 1966.