Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and the Mount Herzl cemetery on Sunday on the first day of a two-day visit to Jerusalem.
At Mount Herzl, Kurz laid a wreath in memory of late President Shimon Peres. He was welcomed at the cemetery by Peres' grandson, Nadav.
Kurz told Nadav Peres that he admired his grandfather, calling him "a leader and a role model," Walla News reported.
Kurz said that when he was serving as foreign minister, Peres had welcomed him as a guest at the President's Residence and encouraged him in his path.
"He was an inspiration on how to promote enormous enterprises in your country, like he did for Israel," Kurz told Nadav Peres.
While in Jerusalem, Kurz also visited the Old City and the Western Wall.
At the end of the visit, which included a tour of the Yad Vashem archives, the world's largest library of Holocaust-related documentation, Kurz vowed to "never forget the horrible crimes" of the Holocaust.
"We Austrians know that we are responsible for our own history," he said. "It is our duty and obligation to ensure that the Shoah [Holocaust] will never happen again and that my generation and succeeding generations will never forget these horrible crimes."
"Therefore, only a few weeks ago my government decided to establish a new memorial site in Vienna where all Jewish victims of the Shoah from Austria will be remembered by name," Kurz announced.
Accompanying Kurz was Holocaust survivor Victor Klein, who was presented with his father's and his own inmate cards from the Mauthausen concentration camp, where they were both detained.
It is Kurz's first visit to Israel since he entered a coalition deal with far-right Freedom Party, a junior coalition partner to Kurz's Conservatives, that was founded by former Nazis and has repeatedly excluded members in Nazi scandals. Party leaders say the party has left its Nazi past behind.
Kurz has vowed to focus on fighting anti-Semitism after Israel said it would not have direct contact with Freedom Party officials. Israeli media reported on Sunday that Kurz would be asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end this boycott.
