PLO's ambassador to Poland visits Auschwitz
Khaled Soufan arrives at concentration camp as Israeli ambassador's guest. Visit meant to show solidarity with Jews' suffering during WWII, he says
A rare visit: The PLO's ambassador to Poland visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Wednesday.
Khaled Soufan was accompanied by David Peleg, the Israeli ambassador to Poland. The two spent some two and a half hours in the camp, during which Soufan told Peleg that only when one visits Auschwitz, can one grasp the scope of the Holocaust.
Soufan, a former PLO ambassador to Hungary, befriended the Israeli ambassador in Budapest and expressed his interest in visiting the concentration camp.
Soufan seemed impressed by the number of the Jewish youth groups visiting the camp, and was moved by the memorial ceremony held by the Birkenau monument.
After signing the camp's visitors' journal, Soufan told reporters he was there to convey his solidarity with the Jewish people's suffering during World War II.
The PLO ambassador is not the only unlikely visitor to the camp: The Pakistani ambassador to Poland visited Auschwitz earlier in October and several of the Pakistani military officials are scheduled to visit it in the next few weeks.
