POPE FRANCIS VISITS AUSCHWITZ
OSWIECIM, POLAND • Pope Francis paid a sombre visit in silence to the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on Friday, with his only public comment a guest book entry begging God’s “forgiveness for so much cruelty.”
The Argentine-born pontiff made an early morning pilgrimage to the place where Adolf Hitler’s forces killed more than 1 million people, most of them Jews, during the Second World War.
Francis entered the camp on foot, walking slowly in his white robes beneath the notorious gate at Auschwitz that bears the cynical words “Arbeit Macht Frei (Work sets you free).”
Among the 11 survivors he met briefly was a woman in her mid-90s who helped deliver babies born to Auschwitz women; another, 101, played the violin in an orchestra the death camp.
Francis moved on to nearby Birkenau, a sprawling complex where people were murdered in factory-like fashion in its gas chambers. There he greeted 25 Holocaust rescuers, including a woman who as a child helped her mother smuggle in bread in their handbags to Jews forced by Nazi occupiers to stay in Warsaw’s ghetto.
Altogether, it was a deeply contemplative and private visit of nearly two hours that Francis passed in total silence, except for a few words he exchanged with the survivors and rescuers.
Vatican and Polish church officials said Francis wanted to express his sorrow in silence at the site, mourning the victims in quiet prayer and meditation.
However, he did express his feelings, writing in the Auschwitz memorial’s guest book in Spanish: “Lord, have mercy on your people! Lord, forgiveness for so much cruelty!” He then signed with his name in Latin, “Franciscus” and added the date “29.7.2016.”
Francis is the first pope to visit Auschwitz who did not himself live through the brutality of the Second World War on Europe’s soil.
Both of his predecessors had a personal or historical connection to the site. St. John Paul II, born in Poland, witnessed the suffering inflicted on his nation during the German occupation during the war. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, who visited in 2006, was a German who served in the Hitler Youth for a time as a teenager.
Francis prayed silently for more than 15 minutes before greeting survivors, shaking their hands and kissing them on the cheeks. He carried a large white candle to the Death Wall, where prisoners at Auschwitz were executed.
He then travelled three kilometres to Birkenau, the vast satellite camp where the Nazis murdered Jews, Roma and others from across Europe.