Vice President J.D. Vance greeted a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor Thursday at the former site of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp ahead of a critical meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference.
“Abba, you look better than I do, and I’m 40,” Vance told nonagenarian Abba Naor after the pair were introduced outside the gates of the camp, located just 10 miles outside the Bavarian capital
“Take care of yourself,” replied Naor. “Life is a wonderful thing.”
The VP’s visit, accompanied by second lady Usha Vance, came two-and-a-half months ahead of the 80th anniversary of Dachau’s liberation by US forces in April 1945 — and nine days before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the largest conflict on the continent since World War II.
The Vances laid a wreath with a red, white and blue ribbon — and the words “we remember” inscribed in gold lettering — on an international monument at the camp, one of the first constructed by Adolf Hitler’s regime.
“I’ve read a lot about the Holocaust in books, but being here and seeing it up close in person really drives home what unspeakable evil was committed, and why we should be committed to ensuring that it never happens again,” Vance said.
“It’s very important that those of us who are lucky enough to be alive can walk around, can know what happened here, and commit ourselves to prevent it from happening again,” he added.
“It’s a somber moment, it’s a sad moment, but it’s something that I’ll never forget, and I’m grateful to have been able to see it up close in person.”
Around 160,000 prisoners came through Dachau between 1933 and 1945 — including Jews, Roma, homosexuals and political dissidents.
Tens of thousands were killed or died there from disease and malnutrition, while many more were transferred to death camps in Poland.
Some of those who survived and returned to their home countries after the war still faced ill-treatment at the hands of Communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain, a guide told Vance and his wife at the site.
The guide also said upon entering Dachau that prisoners were stripped of all they had, gesturing to a display that showed one Czechoslovakian inmate’s possessions that were taken.
Naor then pulled his prisoner registration card to show to Vance.
“I’m still here,” he told the vice president, to which Vance placed his hand on his shoulder and responded: “We’re very lucky you’re here.”
The vice president will meet with Zelensky in Munich on Friday, as President Trump seeks to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.
