‘We’re very lucky you’re here,’ Vance tells Holocaust survivor on visit to Dachau
The vice president also met with the director of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation and with officials at the former concentration camp.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, met with Abba Naor, a Holocaust survivor, and with Karl Freller, the director of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation, and other officials at Dachau, the site of a former concentration camp in Germany, on Thursday.
“You look better than I do, and I’m 40,” Vance told Naor, per the pool report. The report noted that the two spoke, as it snowed lightly, in front of a gate with the sign “Arbeit macht frei” and that most of the discussion was inaudible to the pool.
Vance’s visit follows Mike Pence’s and Joe Biden’s when they were vice president, per the Associated Press. (Kamala Harris did not appear to visit the site, per public reports.)
A guide told the vice president and his wife that prisoners “had to cede everything they had with them” and showed the two “a display filled with the effects of a prisoner from Czechoslovakia,” per the pool.
Vance “asked the guide: ‘Do we know what happened to him after the war?’ The guide says he survived but that he wasn’t exactly sure about the details,” it added. “Mrs. Vance asked if there were any special provisions for survivors after the war. The guide replied that people who returned to Communist countries behind the Iron Curtain weren’t always treated well and that their loyalties were questioned.”
Naor showed Vance a card with his prisoner information and said, “I’m still here,” per the pool. “Well, we’re very lucky you’re here,” Vance said, putting his hand on Naor’s shoulder.
The visit included a tour, history and a wreath-laying ceremony next to a large metal sculpture of seven contorted bodies labeled “1933-1945,” the years the camp operated, per the pool.
Vance laid a wreath with a red, white and blue ribbon stenciled with “We remember” and “United States of America” in gold lettering, per the AP.
Inside the camp, the delegation was shown the intake area of the concentration camp, which also featured a large map of the Nazi concentration camp network per the pool.
“I’ve read a lot about the Holocaust in books, but being here and seeing it up close in person really drives home what unspeakable evil was committed, and why we should be committed to ensuring that it never happens again,” Vance said, per the AP.
“Moving visit to Dachau Memorial underscoring U.S. commitment to Holocaust remembrance and commemorating the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by U.S. forces on April 29, 1945,” stated the U.S. embassy in Berlin.
The embassy added that Vance and his wife “were touched by meeting Abba Noar, one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also scheduled to be in Germany on Thursday to take part in the Munich Security Conference and the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, per the U.S. State Department. Rubio is also slated to travel to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, from Feb. 15 to 18, per the State Department.
“Secretary Rubio’s engagements with senior officials will promote U.S. interests in advancing regional cooperation, stability and peace,” Foggy Bottom added. “The trip will center on freeing American and all other hostages from Hamas captivity, advancing to Phase II of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and countering the destabilizing activities of the Iranian regime and its proxies.”
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