Katy Perry Visits Auschwitz, Warns Others to Learn from History

Pop singer Katy Perry took some time away from the music Wednesday to pay a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, where more than one million people were murdered in the Holocaust of the Second World War.

After performing in Krakow, Poland the night before, Perry shared her trip to the former Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camps with followers on Instagram.

My heart was heavy today. For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazi murdered about one and a half million men, women and children mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz – Birkenau 1940-1945 “The one that does not remember history is bound to live through it again” George Santayana

A photo posted by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) on Feb 25, 2015 at 2:01pm PST

“My heart was heavy today,” she said, before asking fans to let the site remain “a cry of despair and a warning to humanity.”

She also paraphased philosopher George Santayana, stating: “The one that does not remember history is bound to live through it again.”

As part of Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution,” more than one million people died at the site from 1940-1945, most of them Jewish. In January 1945, as the Soviet army approached the camp on Germany’s eastern front, Nazi officials ordered Auschwitz abandoned. Since that time, the site has remained open to the public.

Just weeks following her halftime show performance during Super Bowl XLIX, Perry is in Europe as part of her world tour.

She has already visited Milan, Prague, and Krakow and is scheduled to perform in Vienna, Austria on Thursday night.