President Obama tours Buchenwald, speaks out against deniers of Holocaust

June 5, 5:59 PMProgressive Politics ExaminerKaren Harper

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Entrance gate to Buchenwald, former Nazi concentration camp.  AP Photo/Jens Meyer

President Obama stopped in Germany on his way to France from Egypt.  He toured the Church of Our Lady in Dresden with German Chancellor Angela Merkel before touring the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald near Weimar, Germany.  The sign on the entrance gate in the photo (right) translates, "To Each His Own." 

The president toured Buchenwald with two of its survivors, Bertrand Herz, and Elie Wiesel, and German Chancellor Merkel.  They laid white roses on a memorial to those who did not survive.  Buchenwald held an estimated 250,000 inmates and of those nearly a quarter were murdered.

President Obama's great Uncle, Charlie Payne, served in the 89th Infantry Division that liberated Ohrdruf, a Subcamp of Buchenwald, the first camp liberated by Americans on April 4, 1945.

President Obama spoke out against those who would deny the Holocaust took place for the second time in as many days and said the the place had not "lost its horror with the passage of time."

To this day there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened, a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. 

He also said, "I will not forget what I've seen here today."

You can view a photo gallery of President Obama's tour of the former Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald here.