China's Wen visits Auschwitz

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STORY: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, visiting the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in southern Poland on Friday, said the atrocities the site had witnessed during World War Two were a tragedy of the entire human race.

As many as 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, perished in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, a hallmark of the Holocaust, either in the gas chambers or from freezing temperatures, starvation, sickness, medical tests and forced labor.

"This is an unforgettable page in the history of mankind," Wen said after visiting what now is an open-air museum containing gas chambers and crematoria, or personal items like shoes and even hair of those who perished there.

"It is a message that we should never forget history, we have to remember history and only those who remember history can create a good future," Wen said.

Chinese people's memories of the World War Two are dominated by their own history of often brutal occupation by Japan before and during the war, which started in Europe with the Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland on Sept.1, 1939.

Wen's visit to Auschwitz appeared intended to show that he understood the scale of war-time suffering across the Nazi-occupied Europe.

Wen has been touring European trade partners earlier this week as Beijing is seeking ways to diversify its foreign currency reserves, the worlds biggest.