Canada’s prime minister pays tribute to Auschwitz victims

Trudeau laid a wreath at wall where thousands of prisoners were shot by the Nazi Germans, alongside a memorial of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, the killing ground of hundreds of Jews.

"Tolerance is never sufficient," Trudeau wrote in the book of remembrance, "Humanity must learn to love our differences."

Photo: PAP/Stanisław Rozpędzik

He went on to write: "Today we bear witness to humanity's capacity for deliberate cruelty and evil. May we ever remember this painful truth about ourselves and may it strengthen our commitment to never again to allow such darkness to prevail. We shall never forget."

Trudeau was accompanied by Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger. Born in Chorzów in 1928, Leipciger emigrated to Canada after the war. The two walked in the presence of senior rabbi of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, Adam Scheier.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (R) embraces Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger (2R) during a private visit at the former Auschwitz death camp on Sunday, 11 July. Photo: PAP/Stanisław Rozpędzik

Over 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, were killed at Auschwitz by Poland’s Nazi German occupiers during World War II. (aba)

Source: PAP