Merkel: Germany aware of responsibility

Germany will never forget its post-Holocaust responsibility to Israel, Angela Merkel said.

The German chancellor, in the middle of an official visit to the Jewish state, toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Monday and laid a wreath on behalf of her nation.

“Germany knows about its historicalresponsibility for the Holocaust but is prepared, and is doing its best, to build bilateral relationships for the future now, in the framework of the new consultations,” she said, reading from her inscription in the visitors’ book.

Merkel, who was accompanied by a team of German government officials, went from Yad Vashem to talks with a senior Israeli delegation led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The two countries signed a series of cooperation agreements that Olmert referred to as “unprecedented.”