* visits the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington - pics

Press Gaggle on Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau

Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary

Krakow, Poland
May 31, 2003

EXCERPT...

MR. FLEISCHER: Oh, that probably extended some 30, 40 feet behind glass, and you just see hair. Women's hair. The guide talked about in the next room that Auschwitz was also a site of plunder because as the Jews were rounded up and sent there, they brought their belongings with them so they had their suitcases. They didn't know they were going to their death, so they carried their life's possessions with them, which was then quickly plundered, the guide explained.

The President saw the Jewish prayer shawls that were hanging. And then another deeply moving part, he saw artificial limbs, actual artificial limbs, prosthesis, legs that were there and which she explained to the President, even these were plundered after people were killed, and then used back in Germany.

The President would say things such as "Powerful." I just wrote down as I listened to him -- "powerful." When he saw the suitcases, he said, "So sad." And then at one point when he went by another display where there were teeny little shoes, the President looked at it and said, "All the little baby shoes." He told the guide, "You've done a good job recording history."

The President talked about the current context of it, how many people come each year. He asked, where do they come from. He asked, "Do people challenge the accuracy of what you present?" And one cell --

Q: And what did the guide say?

MR. FLEISCHER: She explained where people come from. They come from all over, she said. A lot come from Poland, from the United States, from Israel, from Germany.

Q: Did she answer his question, do people challenge --

MR. FLEISCHER: I didn't get it. If she did, I don't remember, I didn't write it down.

Then he saw some cells where the prisoners were kept. Now, these are not -- at Birkenau he saw the bunk cells. But this were actual prison cells with doors that swing open and bars, very, very small rooms. And in one small room, the guide explained, there were 39 people in a small cell with a teeny, teeny little bit of air that came in from a window up top. And this cell was very small. And she said to him, on the doors you can see signs on how to scratch the door to survive. And you could see it -- on the door they would just scratch to get air into the room. They tried to claw their way through a very thick wooden door.

CONTINUED...

http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2003/21131.htm