Bush visits Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps

By The Associated Press

KRAKOW - U.S. President George W. Bush visited

former Nazi death camps Saturday to remind the

world that civilization "must confront evil when

we find it."



Ahead of an "address to the

Polish people," Bush and his

wife, Laura, toured the

Auschwitz and Birkenau

extermination camps, where 1.5

million Jews and tens of

thousands of other victims were

killed during World War II.

Bush and his wife toured a gas

chamber and crematorium at Auschwitz, emerging

grim-faced from the gloomy complex into bright

sunshine outside. Laura placed a long-stemmed

rose on a cast-iron gurney used for pushing

bodies into the ovens.

The president also participated in a wreath-laying

at a brick wall in a row of prison barracks,

where thousands of prisoners were executed.

"I want to see Auschwitz. I've studied a lot of

history. I've been told it's a powerful

experience," Bush told reporters before beginning

his seven-day trip to Europe and the Middle

East.

"But I also want to send a clear signal that all

of us must work together to make sure that kind

of evil never happens again to anybody."

"We must confront evil when we find it," Bush said

in a separate interview with Polish television.

"And there's no better place to remind people

that there has been evil in the world than at

Auschwitz."

Bush arrived in Poland, the first stop, Friday

night. He was welcomed at the airport by a Polish

military cordon, the soldiers wearing feathered

caps and olive green capes.

Bush was only the second American president to

visit Auschwitz, about 80 kilometers from this

southern Polish city. President Gerald Ford

visited in 1975, while Poland was under communist

rule.

The former death camp is now a museum. Its main

gate bears this German inscription: "Arbeit macht

frei" ("Work makes you free").

Exhibits inside show heaps of human hair as well

as suitcases and other personal items of the

victims, who generally were shaved and stripped

of belongings after being brought in by train

from across Europe.