(JTA) — Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, paid tribute to victims of the Holocaust at a visit to Auschwitz.
On Monday, Ban viewed the public exhibits and laid flowers in front of the wall where inmates of the Nazi death camp were shot to death, according to reports.
Ban was accompanied by a former Auschwitz prisoner, Marian Turski, and met at the camp with former Israeli chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, now the chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel and a child survivor of the Shoah.
The U.N. chief also entered the town of Oswiecim, where he visited the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue, a remnant of the pre-Holocaust Jewish life in the Polish town, according to The Associated Press.
Ban is the second U.N. secretary-general to visit Auschwitz; Boutros Boutros-Ghali was there in 1995.
At least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died at Auschwitz during World War II.
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