WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a congressional delegation paid a visit Tuesday to the site of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau ahead of the 75th anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops.
At the memorial site in southern Poland, Pelosi laid wreaths at the Death Wall where inmates were executed. She was joined by Elzbieta Witek, the speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, and Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki. They were later to hold political talks.
In a statement ahead of her trip, Pelosi said her visit to the World War II memorial site was to “reaffirm America’s enduring commitment, our sacred pledge: Never again.”
“We must honor the memories of those murdered in this incomprehensible horror by maintaining constant vigilance against hatred and persecution today,” said the statement.
From Poland, Pelosi and the bipartisan delegation of six Congress members will travel to Israel to attend a conference marking the anniversary of the death camp’s liberation.
From 1940-45, some 1.1 million people, mostly Jews from across Europe, but also Poles, Roma and Russian prisoners of war, were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was liberated Jan. 27, 1945, by the Red Army.
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