Kohl Pays Tribute at Auschwitz, Decries Barbarism

OSWIECIM, Poland —  West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl bowed his head in silent tribute today at the former death camp at Auschwitz, where the Nazis killed 4 million people during World War II, and later vowed that such barbarism must never be repeated.

Kohl laid a wreath at the camp’s death wall, where 30,000 victims were shot. He then bowed his head and stood in silence as Poland’s chief rabbi, Pinchas Menahem Yoskovitch, recalled the Holocaust and prayed for the dead, most of whom were Jews.

“The warning (given by) this place must never be forgotten. Unspeakable harm was inflicted on different peoples here, above all European Jews, in the name of Germany,” Kohl wrote in the camp visitors’ book.