Merkel traveled to Auschwitz on Friday, her first visit to the notorious Nazi concentration camp in her 14 years as leader. She also visited the Birkenau extermination camp, about a mile from the main Auschwitz camp, where she laid a wreath of flowers. While it will be her first visit to Auschwitz, Merkel has visited several Holocaust memorial sites in the past, including the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the Auschwitz Memorial, said the museum doesn't invite state leaders to visit the site. The party is led locally by Björn Höcke, a politician who has previously called Berlin's Holocaust memorial a "monument of shame."

Source: CNN December 06, 2019 10:13 UTC