Visiting Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong (R) presents statues of victims in Nanking Massacre to the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, May 22, 2014. (Xinhua/Li Rui)

Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong, visiting a museum dedicated to the victims of the Nazi genocide, said here Thursday that history should never be forgotten or repeated.

"History cannot be forgotten," Liu said during her visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. "Nor should it be altered or repeated."

She told Avner Shalev, the Yad Vashem chairman, and Robert Rozett, the Yad Vashem Library director, that both the Chinese and Jewish people were victims of World War II and that they supported each other and fought fascism shoulder to shoulder.

Exhibits at Yad Vashem include the story of He Fengshan, a Chinese diplomat who risked his life to save thousands of Jewish people during the war. "This is a precious record of the friendship between the Chinese and Jewish people," Liu said.

Liu presented to the muesum a set of sculptures in remembrance of the Chinese victims killed by Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937.

She said China and Israel should enhance mutual exchange and cooperation so that people all over the world have a better understanding of the dark history of that era.

"We should learn from history and work together to maintain world peace," Liu said.