While it is "a place that commands silence," the setting also demands earnest words. Angela Merkel made her first official visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau on Friday after 14 years as Germany's chancellor. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accompanied her, as well as former prisoners and the representatives of various Jewish organizations.

The International Auschwitz Committee has called Merkel's visit an "especially important sign" of solidarity with those who survived the horrors of the Holocaust.