JD Vance to visit Dachau on Thursday, the latest VP to tour the Nazi camp
United States Vice President is the latest in a string of senior U.S. officials to travel to the former Nazi death camp
US vice president J.D. Vance will visit the site of the Dachau concentration camp on Thursday, the latest in a string of senior U.S. officials to travel to the former Nazi camp.
Vance will visit Dachau before heading to the nearby Munich Security Conference, an elite national security gathering, multiple outlets reported on Tuesday. He wrote on social media that his visit to Europe is focusing on artificial intelligence policy.
He will also meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who will be key to President Donald Trump’s professed goal of ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Vance is the latest vice president to visit Dachau, one of the first camps built by the Nazi regime. Joe Biden visited with his granddaughter in 2015, when he was serving as vice president, and has taken the trip with other children and grandchildren as well. Vice President Mike Pence visited Dachau in 2017. In 2023, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, went on a Jewish heritage tour of Poland, including a visit to Auschwitz.
But one Jewish group criticized Vance’s impending visit due to controversy over ties between the far-right and the Trump administration. Top Trump adviser Elon Musk stirred considerable controversy last month when he made a gesture that resembled a Nazi salute, then made Holocaust jokes on the social network X. More recently, Vance pushed Musk to rehire a staffer who had publicly self-identified as a racist.
“Mr. @VP, in the name of my mother, who survived the concentration camps, until you condemn the many connections to neo-Nazis in your new administration, please stay off of the sacred ground upon which our parents and grandparents were slaughtered,” Jonathan Jacoby, a longtime liberal activist who directs the Nexus Project, an antisemitism-focused organization, said in a statement on X Tuesday.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
