Palestinian Official Visited Former Death Camp in Poland
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- Published on Monday, 30 July 2012 14:38
PNN
On Friday, 27th July, Ziad al Bandak, advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas on Christian affairs, visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, former largest concentration and extermination camp of Nazi Germany.
The Palestinian official laid flowers at the Death Wall in Auschwitz, the "firing wall", where thousands of people where summarily executed by the Nazis.
Al Bandak, who came to Poland at a private invitation of a Polish foundation dedicated to the promotion of tolerance, also visited the former prisoners barracks, the crematorium and gas chambers. Over 1 million people, most of them Jews, were killed there by the Nazis.
The original camp in Auschwitz was established in May 1940 by Nazi Germany to serve as a detention facility for Polish political prisoners. Auschwitz-Birkenau II was set up two years later, and became a major extermination site for Jews.
In 1947 the former death camps were converted into memorial sites and museum. Last year it was visited by 1,4 million people, including a Muslim delegation of officials from Turkey, Jordan, Morocco and Iraq.
Article compiled from news reports
