U.S. Vice President JD Vance visited the Dachau concentration camp memorial on Thursday, walking the solemn halls with a group that included a Holocaust survivor once held at the site of so much suffering and mass murder and experiencing firsthand a powerful symbol of World War II.
The tour came amid an ongoing war in Europe in which Vance is serving as a key conduit for the Trump administration. The vice president on Friday has critical talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the three-year Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A light rain and sleet mix fell as the vice president and his wife, Usha Vance, spoke to a group of dignitaries near one of the concentration camp’s gates. The couple then listened intently to details about the camp from its director and other museum officials. Among those participating was Abba Naor, a Holocaust survivor who was held at Dachau.
The second couple, holding hands, eventually moved inside and to a long concrete room in front of a large map plotting concentration camps. The area was Dachau’s administrative room.
They next saw the intake room, where those interred arrived at the camp. It included a series of museum cases filled with personal belongings of those who were held there, like watches and government ID cards.
“That’s where you started?” Vance said to Naor.
Both Joe Biden, during the administration of President Barack Obama, and Mike Pence, in Trump’s first term, also visited the Dachau memorial as vice presidents.
Vance laid a wreath with a red, white and blue ribbon stenciled with “We remember” and “United States of America” embossed in gold lettering at a large sculpture known as the International Monument. Inaugurated in 1968, the monument was designed by Nandor Glid, who was persecuted as a Jew by the Nazis in his home country Yugoslavia and joined the resistance to Nazi occupation forces.
On Friday, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are set to sit down with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. They’ll discuss Trump’s intensifying push for Ukraine and Russia to begin negotiations to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Talk of the current conflict followed Vance getting a firsthand look at the memorial demonstrating Nazis’ World War II-era atrocities and the U.S. and Western allies’ slowness to take decisive action to confront Adolf Hitler and the rise of his violent nationalist ideology.
Dachau was established in 1933, the year Hitler took power, as one of the first concentration camps. More than 200,000 people from across Europe were held at the camp, and more than 40,000 prisoners died there in horrendous conditions. U.S. soldiers completed the liberation on April 29, 1945.
Vance, a Republican, is on a five-day visit to France and Germany, his first overseas travel since becoming vice president last month.
The moment at Dachau gave Vance a chance to reflect on the scourges of war just as Trump is ratcheting up his efforts to end the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump on Wednesday spoke separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy. Trump said that he and Putin agreed it was time to “start negotiations immediately” to end the war.
And, as Trump announced his agreement on negotiations with Putin, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia and instead prepare for a negotiated peace settlement to be backed up by international troops.
Trump subsequently said he thought that analysis was correct, and he was noncommittal about if Ukraine should be an equal partner if the U.S. and Russia engage in more substantive negotiations to end the war on its soil.
Besides his talks with Zelenskyy, Vance is scheduled to deliver a Friday address to the security conference. The war in Europe and NATO members’ defense spending are expected to be front and center for the world leaders gathering in Munich.
Vance, like Trump, has been a sharp critic of U.S. allies’ spending what the administration deems too little on their defense budgets.
“The Trump administration has been clear that we care a lot about Europe,” Vance said during a meeting this week with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “But we also want to make sure that we’re engaged in a security partnership that’s both good for Europe and the United States.”
Over nearly three years of war, 50 countries, known as the Ukraine Contact Group, have collectively provided Ukraine with more than $126 billion in weapons and military assistance, including more than $66.5 billion from the U.S., which has served as chair of the group since its creation.
Trump in his 2024 campaign derided the enormous amount of U.S. military aid poured into Ukraine and vowed to end the conflict within 24 hours of returning to the White House.
Since his November election victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump and his advisers have dialed back on their boldest timelines and set a goal of ending the war in about six months.