Pope Francis paid a silent visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he spent intense moments in prayer, embraced Holocaust survivors and met those who risked their lives to help Jews persecuted by the Nazis.
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He is the third Pope to visit the former Nazi camp where 1.1 million Jews and other prisoners where killed between 1940-1945.
Francis entered the camp on foot, walking slowly beneath the notorious gate at Auschwitz bearing the cynical words “Arbeit Macht Frei”.
Pope Francis arrives in Brzezinka part of the former Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau in Brzezinka, Poland on July 29, 2016, during the World Youth Days (WYD).
All through the Via Crucis the World Youth Day cross was brought to each station by a different group of young people which included a group of refugees from Syria, a former homeless couple from Poland and nuns from the missionaries of charity; all symbolising the works of mercy.
One of them was Helena Dunicz Niwinska, a 101-year-old woman who had played the violin in the Auschwitz orchestra.
The pope travelled the two miles (three kilometres) to Birkenau, the main extermination site, and was driven alongside train tracks which allowed prisoners to be transported directly to the gas chambers and crematoria. One woman kissed his hand and he exchanged a few words with them. His only public words were written in Spanish in the Auschwitz guest book: “Lord, have pity on your people. Lord, forgive so much cruelty”. He then signed with his name in Latin, “Franciscus” and added the date “29.7.2016”.
More than 100,000 non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals and anti-Nazi partisans also died at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in occupied Poland.
John Paul II was born in Poland and witnessed the suffering during the German occupation. Pope Benedict XVI, a German who was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a child, made the somber trip in 2006.
The pontiff, who was in Poland to celebrate World Youth Day – an worldwide gathering of Catholic youth – toured the vast complex of barracks, workshops, gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz, while also meeting with a dozen survivors of the camp.
He sat and prayed in the darken cell of the St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest who volunteered to die in place of a stranger.
At one point the deep silence was broken by the wailing of an infant.
Pope Francis is resting for several hours ahead of an evening vigil Saturday with hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims in a huge meadow in southern Poland.
Rabbi Michael Schudrich, originally from the United States, prayed Psalm 130 in Hebrew, which starts: “From the depths I have cried out to you, O Lord”.
Each visit was closely watched by Catholics, Jews and others, especially because the wartime pontiff, Pius XII, has been criticized by those who feel he didn’t act assertively enough to use his moral influence in much of the world to speak out against discrimination and then the systematic murder of Jews by Nazis, while defenders contend he used quiet Vatican diplomacy to save many Jews. The millions who now visit have put increasing stress on the site’s aging barracks, prompting urgent conservation efforts that are being funded by governments worldwide.
The Holy Father Francis’ five-day-long visit to Krakow is in connection with the 31st World Youth Day planned in the city from 26-31 July. Pope Benedict spoke in Italian when he visited – avoiding his native German language – in a speech that questioned why God was silent at the slaughter of so many.
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Before celebrating Mass at the John Paul II Shrine Saturday, Francis also visited the nearby Divine Mercy Sanctuary, dedicated to the devotion promoted by 20th-century saint and mystic Faustina Kowalska.
