Polish president visits former Nazi camp Mauthausen

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski paid a visit Thursday to the former Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen in Austria, calling on Europe to live together in harmony. Komorowski, whose country currently holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, laid a wreath at the foot of the Polish prisoners' memorial and held a minute of silence with his Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer at the site, before taking a tour of the camp. They were accompanied by Austrian and Polish delegates and four former Polish Mauthausen inmates. About a quarter of the 200,000 prisoners that went through the Mauthausen network of camps until the end of World War II were Poles, the biggest national group there. Some 30,000 of them were killed, according to the Holocaust Research Project. Almost 70 years have gone by since then and "this affords a good perspective to appreciate how we can live together in an integrated Europe", Komorowski said in a speech. However, this could only be achieved through reconciliation and coming to terms with history, he urged. About 100,000 people perished in the Mauthausen network of harsh labour camps under the Nazi regime. Komorowski's two-day visit to Austria was his first trip abroad since Poland took over the EU presidency on July 1.