OSWIECIM, POLAND — Pope Francis paid a sombre visit in silence to the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on Friday, becoming the third consecutive pontiff to make the pilgrimage to the place where Adolf Hitler’s forces killed more than 1 million people, most of them Jews. Lord, forgive so much cruelty.”As an Argentine he is the first pope to visit Auschwitz who did not himself live himself through the brutality of World War II on Europe’s soil. His successor Pope Benedict XVI, who visited in 2006, was a German who served in the Hitler Youth for a time as a teenager. 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 camp survivors and Holocaust rescuers. Francis entered the camp on foot, walking slowly in his white robe beneath the notorious gate at Auschwitz bearing the cynical words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work will set you free).

Source: thestar July 29, 2016 12:18 UTC