Pope: Where was God?
2006-05-28 22:04
Oswiecim - German-born Pope Benedict has asked where God was when 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died at the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
Speaking at the Birkenau section of the camp, near where Jews were led from trains to be gassed and cremated, the head of the Roman Catholic Church said it was almost impossible to speak in "this place of horror", especially as a German Pope.
"In a place like this, words fail. In the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God. Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?" he said on Sunday, in a speech delivered in Italian.
"Our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again," he said.
Benedict is on a four-day visit to Poland.
The Auschwitz complex in Nazi-occupied Poland was a linchpin in Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution" to wipe out European Jewry during World War II.
Six million Jews died before Allied forces defeated Nazi Germany.
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single church in the world with 1.1 billion members, accounting for just over half of the world's two billion Christians.
- Reuters