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Trump reflects on 'so amazing' visit to Holocaust museum

US President Donald Trump breezed through a visit to Israel’s national Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem on Tuesday, summing up the half-hour experience in the museum’s guest book as “SO AMAZING.”

Although initial reports in Israeli and Jewish media suggested the president planned to spend just 15 minutes at the centre, Trump’s team ended up setting aside 30 minutes for the visit.

Before he left, Trump briefly signed the memorial’s guest book. True to form, Trump’s note was blunt and appeared a bit rushed.

US President Donald Trump visited Israel’s national Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem, writing the in the museum’s guest book the visit was “SO AMAZING.”Picture: Reuters

Times of Israel correspondent Raoul Wootliff tweeted out an image of the note, which said: “It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends - So amazing and will NEVER FORGET!” the president wrote.

In response to the strangely curt note, an image of the message former President Barack Obama left in the guestbook started circulating on social media on Tuesday.

Obama’s note, written while he was still a senator in 2008, demonstrated the striking differences in personality between Trump and his predecessor.

“Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim "never again",” Obama wrote.

“And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.”

Trump paid tribute at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust, calling it an indescribable act of evil.

Holding hands, the president and First Lady Melania Trump walked solemnly to lay a wreath together upon the ashes of Holocaust victims, buried at the site's Hall of Remembrance.

The White House broadcast a live video feed of the visit, which carried a typo in its title, incorrectly calling Israel’s Holocaust memorial Vad Vanshem, rather than Yad Vashem.

"Words can never describe the bottomless depths of that evil, or the scope of the anguish and destruction. It was history's darkest hour," Trump said in a short speech after the memorial ceremony.

"It was the most savage crime against God and his children," said Trump, who is visiting Israel and the Palestinian Territories on the second leg of his first foreign trip since taking office in January.

Trump's cringe-worthy note in the museum's guest book, left, compared with former President Barack Obama, left, written while he was still a senator in 2008. Picture: Matt McDermott/Twitter

Trump's administration has drawn anger over past omissions and utterances regarding the Holocaust.

In January, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a Trump administration statement failed to mention Jews, the overwhelming majority of those who were killed in the Holocaust.

In April, White House spokesman Sean Spicer triggered an uproar when he said Hitler did not sink to the level of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by using chemical weapons on his own people. Spicer also used the term "Holocaust centres", in an apparent reference to the Nazi death camps.

The White House broadcast a live video feed of the visit, which carried a typo in its title incorrectly calling Israel’s Holocaust memorial Vad Vanshem, rather than Yad Vashem.

Spicer later apologised after his comments sparked an uproar on social media and elsewhere for overlooking the fact that millions of Jews perished in Nazi gas chambers.

The Anti-Defamation League said in April that anti-Semitic incidents, from bomb threats and cemetery desecrations to assaults and bullying, have surged in the United States since the election of Trump, and a "heightened political atmosphere" played a role in the rise.

Trump had been criticised for waiting until late February to deliver his first public condemnation of anti-Semitic incidents, previously speaking more generally about his hope of making the nation less "divided."

He later called such incidents "horrible ... and a very sad reminder" of the work needed to root out hate, prejudice and evil.