Obama ends Mideast weekend with visit to German concentration camp

The day after President Obama spoke to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt, he visited the World War II German concentration camp in Buchenwald. It is believed that 56,000 people were killed at the hands of the German war machine at Buchenwald.

Buchenwald is a grim reminder of the costs of hatred and intolerance, the president said after touring the grounds where a crematorium silently haunts visitors with the reality of the bodies disposed. The clocks there are permanently frozen at the time the US Military liberated the camp at 3:15 on the afternoon of April 11, 1945.

“More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished,” the president told the press after touring the camp.

It appears that the timing of the speech in Egypt was set to coincide with the annual remembrances in Europe surrounding the D-Day invasion of occupied France. The timing allowed Mr. Obama to make a huge overture to the Muslim and Arab region, while also truly ending the speech with the visit to Germany and embracing the pain of the Jewish people who lost over 6 million in the many concentration camps.

The recognition by President Obama may be a very crucial step in creating the honest broker image he is trying to create for the U.S. in both the Arab and Israeli public minds.

He also publicly chided holocaust deniers, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while at the camps.

“To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened,” the president said. “This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.”

The president also challenged Ahmadinejad to visit the camps.

It is possible that many pro-Palestinians will chide the president for the visit. Some will claim it is an obvious bow to the “Zionist lobby.” But the trip ended with the striking of a more humanistic tone.

“The president,” reported the New York Times, “said he saw — reflected in the Nazi brutality against Jews and the other impounded outcasts — Israel’s capacity to empathize with the suffering of others.” The president felt “that gave him more hope Israel and the Palestinians can achieve an equitable and lasting peace.”

It is also important that the president toured the facility with Jewish and Israeli author Elie Weisel. Wiesel was imprisoned at the Buchenwald camp with his father - who died in the bunk above Wiesel. The camp displays a picture of the imprisoned - which includes the 16 year old prisoner Wiesel. Wiesel saw the photo for the first time with President Obama.

Wiesel has been applauded many times for his humanistic and spiritual messages he has conveyed through the 57 books he has authored.

In his comments to the president and the press, he politely disagreed with Obama’s speech in which the president said that we had learned our lesson from the Holocaust.

“…The world has learned? I am not so sure. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia, and no Rwanda, and no Darfur, and no Bosnia. The world hasn’t learned. I think that is why Buchenwald is so important.”