Harper solemn, silent on visit to Auschwitz

Having been there I can say that silence is probably the only immediate genuine reaction: JCM

Harper solemn, silent on visit to Auschwitz

PM's trip to Poland included meeting with Lech Walesa

Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service

Published: Sunday, April 06, 2008

AUSCHWITZ, Poland -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper is no fan of small talk, and is said to like nothing better than spending time alone with a good book.

True to his nature, Harper paid his respects yesterday afternoon at the most infamous Nazi death camp in a manner that is becoming familiar to Canadians -- he did not utter a word about how it felt to visit Auschwitz, the place where Nazi Germany implemented its "final solution" with ruthless efficiency, killing about 1.5 million people, most of them Jews.

As he emerged from the small, dark red brick building that once housed an early version of the Nazi gas chambers and crematoriums, Harper took a pass on reflecting publicly on what the tour had meant to him, choosing to bypass the journalists who accompanied him here before heading off to the scene of the nearby Birkenau camp.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper pays his respects to Holocaust victims at the Death Wall Memorial while on a tour of Auschwitz, the camp in Poland where the Nazis implemented their "final solution."

But the prime minister did leave his impressions behind, handwritten in blue ink in a guest book kept by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

It read:

"We are witness here to the vestiges of unspeakable cruelty, horror and death. Let us never forget these things and work always to prevent their repetition.

"Lord, bless the souls of those who suffered and perished here, and deliver us from evil.

"Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, April 5, 2008"

Harper became the second Canadian prime minister after Jean Chrétien in 1999 to visit Auschwitz, one of the worst killing grounds of the Holocaust.

His visit yesterday was sombre and low key, in comparison with the tears and raw emotion of the Holocaust survivors and descendents who accompanied Chrétien.

"You don't know what to say. There is nothing you can say. You can only say you remember and it cannot happen again. We all have a collective responsibility to make sure it never happens again," Chrétien told reporters at the time.

Harper arrived under clear spring skies and walked slowly onto the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, accompanied by the museum's director, Piotr Cywinski, and Wladyslaw Lizon, president of the Polish Canadian Congress.

Harper chatted privately with the son-in-law of a Canadian Holocaust survivor.

The group made its way to a rear courtyard where the prime minister walked alone to the Death Wall Memorial, a grey slate monument in a section of the camp where several thousand people were executed by the SS, many of them Polish prisoners who tried to plot escapes.

Harper knelt alone at the foot of the wall for about 20 seconds before a floral wreath with "Canada" emblazoned in gold letters on a white ribbon. Visibly moved, Harper turned and walked slowly out of the courtyard, swallowing hard. He did not say a word before beginning a private tour of the grounds.