JERUSALEM: Polish President Kaczynski lays wreath at Holocaust Memorial in Jeruslem

Polish President Lech Kaczynski laid a wreath on Tuesday (September 12) at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Memorial Museum after a series of meeting with the Israeli leadership as part of a four-day visit to the region. Kaczynski listened to a girls' choir at the museum and re-kindled the eternal flame which commemorates the six million Jews killed during the Second World War. Poland had one of the largest indigenous populations of Jews before the war, and was the first place where the Holocaust's industrial killing was first practised on a mass scale, in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Birkenau. "Poland is the nation where Nazis enforced their horrible and criminal Holocaust plan, so we know well how important it is to preserve memory about the thousand year old presence of Jews in Poland," Kaczynski said, reading from an inscription in the museum's guest book, which he signed. "The events taking place in Europe at that time should be a warning and lesson for the whole civilized world. We know now that any crimes are possible, so we have to do everything to avoid them," he read. Kaczynski reiterated Poland's support for Israel and its unconditional recognition of the Jewish state during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday (September 11). Kaczynski was welcomed by his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Katsav, who praised Poland for its role in enforcing and maintaining peace on the Israel-Lebanon border. Nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed in a 34-day war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas triggered by Hizbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July Warsaw has pledged to send more troops as part of the international force deployed in Lebanon. More than 200 Polish soldiers have been sent so far. Kaczynski is expected to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday (September 13) in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

ITN Source | September 13, 2006

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