Pope’s solitary walk, silent talk

Oswiecim (Poland), July 29 

Pope Francis paid a sombre visit to the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau today, becoming the third consecutive pontiff to make the pilgrimage to the place where Adolf Hitler’s forces killed more than one million people, most of them Jews.

Pope Francis entered the camp on foot, walking slowly beneath the notorious gate at Auschwitz bearing the cynical words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (German for work sets you free).

He prayed silently for more than 15 minutes before meeting several camp survivors, greeting them one by one, shaking their hands and kissing them on the cheek.  Francis said before the trip that he had decided to make no statement as silence was the best way to honour the dead.

He then carried a large white candle and placed it at the Death Wall, where prisoners were executed.

With aides using small flashlights to light his way, Francis visited the underground cell where Franciscan monk Maksymilian Kolbe was killed after offering his life to save a Polish man whom camp handlers had picked to die of starvation.

A few shafts from a tiny window were the only light cast on the white figure of the pope, who knelt for many minutes before he crossed himself and rose to his feet.

Just outside the cell, in Auschwitz's commemorative book, Francis wrote in Spanish: “Lord, have mercy on your people. Lord, forgiveness for so much cruelty.”

As an Argentine, he is the first pope to visit Auschwitz who did not himself live through the brutality of World War II on Europe’s soil. Both of his predecessors had a personal historical connection to the site, with the first, Pope John Paul II, coming from Poland and himself a witness to the unspeakable suffering inflicted on his nation during the German occupation.

His visit in 1979 made history and was part of the Vatican’s historical efforts at reconciliation with Jews. Pope Benedict XVI, who visited in 2006, was a German who served in the Hitler Youth for a time as a teenager.

As a pope hailing from afar, Pope Francis’s visit helps to underline the universal importance of a site that in recent years has drawn ever more visitors from around the world. His visit is also different in its private character, with no speeches planned. It marks a difference from the visit by Pope Benedict, who spoke in Italian, avoiding his native German language, in a speech in which he questioned why God was silent at the slaughter of so many.

Vatican and Polish Church officials had explained that Pope Francis wanted to express his sorrow in silence at the site, mourning the victims in quiet prayer and meditation.

Pope Francis was scheduled to fly from Krakow to Oswiecim, the small town where the former death camp is located, but owing to bad weather travelled the 65 km (40 miles) distance by car instead. — AP