Wen Jiabao at Auschwitz: ‘This cannot be forgotten’
Prime Minister Wen signs a visitor’s log book today after his visit to the Museum of Auschwitz in Oswiecim, southern Poland.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today visited the landmark death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, saying that the scene of 1.5 million people’s extermination enjoined the world to remember the past, according to The Associated Press.
"This is an unforgettable, dark page in the history of humankind and cannot be forgotten,” Wen was quoted as saying.
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“Only those who remember history can build a good future.”
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in southern Poland contains crematoria, gas chambers as well as possessions and human hair left behind by those killed there, most of whom were Jews, during the Holocaust.
In China, public discussion of the Cultural Revolution of 1969 to 1971, in which hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, starved or worked to death, remains limited, with a ban on news media discussion of the details and official accounts subject to censorship, according to Wikipedia.
Wen this week has been touring the countries of European trading partners. The AP said Wen has presented himself as an advocate of moderation and reform but his government has cracked down on dissent.
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According to China Daily, Wen said his visit had been the first of a Chinese premier to Poland in 25 years. Poland abandoned communism in 1989.