Rudd honours Holocaust victims in Berlin

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has paid tribute to the millions of Jews killed during the
Holocaust and Australian airmen killed in daring bombing raids over Berlin during
World War II.
Mr Rudd arrived in the German capital on Tuesday for the start of a five-day
European tour, which will culminate at talks with world leaders in Italy about ways
to push forward with a recovery plan for the global economy and climate change.
The prime minister's first stop was the Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery where he laid
poppies on the headstones of three Australian RAAF airmen buried there.
Flight Lieutenant Frederick King, Pilot Officer Rochester Hart and Warrant Officer
Laurence Collins were all aged in their early 20s when they were killed during
daring bombing raids over Berlin in 1944 and 1945.
"These guys had guts," Mr Rudd said after laying a poppy on Warrant Officer Collins'
headstone.
Mr Rudd made a quick visit to the Bellevue Palace, where he was officially welcomed
to Germany by President Horst Kohler, before embarking on a sombre tour of the
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the city's centre.
The memorial, which was opened in 2005, features 2,700 grey concrete plinths of
varying sizes dotted over a 19,000sq metre piece of land squeezed between the East
and West Berlin of the Cold War.
Mr Rudd was given a private guided tour of the plinths and the memorial's
information centre, dedicated to the memories of the Jews who lost their lives
during the Holocaust and those who miraculously survived.
"Each time you stop at places like this you think of the death of the innocents and
any human being's response from the pit of their stomach," Mr Rudd told reporters as
he left the memorial.
"This is a very sober and sombre place and may it never happen again."
Mr Rudd is due to meet his German counterpart Angela Merkel and hold bilateral talks
with Germany's Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck later on Tuesday.