​(Communicated by the President’s Spokesperson)

President Reuven Rivlin, together with First Lady Nechama Rivlin, today (Wednesday, 6 September 2017), visited the Dachau Concentration Camp, accompanied by President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier together with his wife Elke Büdenbender, and Minister-President of Bavaria Horst Seehofer and his wife Karin.

Dachau was the first of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, and was used as a model by which others were built. It is estimated that over the 12 years the camp was in operation, beginning in 1933, more than 200,000 prisoners were held at the camp, a third of which were Jews.

After touring the site, the presidents both laid wreaths at the international memorial, and from there went on to hold a ceremony at the Jewish memorial where President Rivlin recited the mourner’s prayer alongside Holocaust survivor Abba Naor. Abba was a born in Kovno (Kaunas), and was 13 years old when the war broke out. Today he is Vice Chairman of the Dachau Survivors organization.



See also:  

• President Rivlin inaugurates memorial for Israeli athletes and meets with the families of the Israelis murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics

• President Rivlin meets with Bavarian Minister-President Seehofer