Vice President Dick Cheney shakes hands with former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner Anatolij Vanukiewicz during a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops, in Krakow, Poland, Thursday Jan. 27, 2005.
The Vice President listens to Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko during a joint news conference after their meeting in Krakow, southern Poland, Wednesday.
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski welcomes the Vice President Dick Cheney before their meeting at the Wawel castle in Krakow, Poland, Wednesday.
Striking artistic photo of the VP at the "Let My People Live" international forum, Juliusz Slowacki Theatre in Krakow, Poland, Thursday.
The Vice President signed the memorial book at the conclusion of his visit to the Auschwitz-1 Nazi concentration camp, near Krakow, Poland. He wrote: "On this anniversary of liberation, we look back with reverence and resolve: May God bless the survivors and the souls of the lost, and may the evils committed here never again darken our world."
Here's a link to VP's eloquent remarks at the "Let My People Live" forum. www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050127-6.html
Perhaps the most moving passage from the VP's speech:
The Holocaust occupies a single period in history, but it is not a single event. It represents millions of individual acts of murder. Each prisoner who arrived had a name, and a home, and dreams for tomorrow. Each, like you and me, was a child of God who wanted to live...who had every right to live...who no man had any right to harm.
Gathered in this place we are reminded that such immense cruelty did not happen in a far-away, uncivilized corner of the world, but rather in the very heart of the civilized world. The death camps were created by men with a high opinion of themselves -- some of them well educated, and possessed of refined manners -- but without conscience. And where there is no conscience, there is no tolerance toward others...no defense against evil...and no limit to the crimes that follow.