Holocaust site moves Merkel

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Piotr Cywinski (L) walk through the gate during her visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland (AFP Photo).

OSWIECIM, Poland (AFP) — Stony-faced and dressed in black, Germany’s chancellor walked in silence along the railway tracks that brought prisoners to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp.

She paused in front of one of the cattle trucks used to transport people to the camp in then occupied Poland where 1.1 million people were killed.

On the historic visit, her first as chancellor, a visibly moved Angela Merkel on Friday spoke of her “deep shame” at the “inconceivable” crimes of the Nazis during World War II.

“I bow my head before the victims of the Shoah (Holocaust),” she said.

At the entrance of the camp, the weakest, the youngest and the oldest were picked out and taken straight to the gas chambers, the remains on which Merkel also visited.

Black-and-white photos displayed at the site taken by SS officers in 1944 show groups of child prisoners arriving wearing hats and holding hands.