Angela Merkel poses under the famous gate with her Jewish entourage: WJC's Ronald Lauder to her right, the Jewish Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki to her left, and museum director and guide Piotr Cywinski at far left of photo. The white head of Josef Schuster, leader of Germany's Council of Jews peeks over Merkel's left shoulder.
By Carolyn Yeager
IN THE MIDST OF POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES FOR HER PARTY and for her government partnership with the SPD (which just elected new leaders who show little interest in continuing their participation with Merkel's CDU), the German chancellor found time for a seemingly surprise first visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum in Poland.
She is only the third chancellor to ever visit Auschwitz—the previous two being Helmut Schmidt in 1977 and Helmut Kohl in 1989. This past September, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) spoke in Warsaw and condemned pre-1945 Germany for “putting its interests ahead of Europe's” as a whole, saying “Germans must oppose nationalism” and that Germans should not feel they are the “better Europeans.” Steinmeier attacked his own country for what Poland is increasingly pursuing for itself: a more nationalist (Poland First) path. Go figure.
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