London: Prince Charles has warned rising populism across the world has "deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s".
Speaking in a four-minute radio segment recorded for the BBC's Thought for the Day, the first in line to the throne said it was "beyond all belief" that humanity had not learnt the lessons of the Holocaust.
Prince Charles calls for tolerance
In his annual Christmas message on BBC radio Prince Charles has spoken about the importance of religious freedom. Source: BBC Radio
He raised the plight of refugees and said their suffering did not end when they arrived in new countries.
"We are now seeing the rise of many populist groups across the world that are increasingly aggressive towards those who adhere to a minority faith," he said.
"All of this has deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s," he said.
"I was born in 1948 – just after the end of World War II in which my parents' generation had fought, and died, in a battle against intolerance, monstrous extremism and an inhumane attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe. That, nearly 70 years later, we should still be seeing such evil persecution is, to me, beyond all belief. We owe it to those who suffered and died so horribly not to repeat the horrors of the past."
His comments were immediately criticised by a UK Independence Party (UKIP) member of the European Parliament Gerard Batten.
"It is unwarranted and unwise for the heir to a hereditary monarchy to criticise democratic politicians whose policies are popular with the general public," he said.
"Instead of seeing non-existent phantoms for the 1930s, Prince Charles should recognise that the biggest threat to our liberal democracy is Islamo-fascism."
"The pawns of Islamo-fascism drive lorries into peaceful crowds, blow up innocent people on their way to work, and perpetrate the sexual abuse of non-Muslim girls on an industrial scale," he said in a statement.
The Prince of Wales' comments are set against the backdrop of his own country's vote to leave the European Union, which Brexit campaigners centred on controlling migration numbers to the United Kingdom.
In the final days of the EU referendum campaign, the then UKIP Leader Nigel Farage unveiled a poster featuring a huge queue of mainly non-white migrants and refugees emblazoned with the slogan "Breaking Point".
Anti-migrant policies were also at the heart of US President-elect Donald Trump's campaign. He has pledged to build a wall to prevent Mexicans from crossing the border and also pledged to ban Muslim immigration.
And there are fears among progressives in Europe that looming elections in France and Germany, both of which have suffered ISIS-inspired terror attacks, could see the continued rise of the far right.
In France, Front National Leader Marine Le Pen is vying for the presidency and, in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced a backlash against her open-door policy for Syrian refugees.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has doubled to 10 the number of state parliaments in which it holds seats, up from one year ago.