Angela Merkel has expressed “deep shame” during her first visit as German chancellor to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Holocaust memorial and vowed to fight rising racism and antisemitism in Germany and Europe.
Dressed in black, Merkel said the crimes committed at the site in southern Poland where the Nazis ran their largest death camp would always be part of German history.
“This site obliges us to keep the memory alive. We must remember the crimes that were committed here and name them clearly,” Merkel said during a ceremony also attended by the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
“I feel deep shame given the barbaric crimes that were committed here by Germans,” she added. » | Kate Connolly and agencies | Friday, December 6, 2019
