Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The symbolic place of the Holocaust, of planned extermination, of violent annihilation of human rights was where Pope Benedict concluded his pastoral visit to Poland. The last lap of this visit by a German Pope to Poland was marked by spiritual and emotional participation, as we see from the Holy Father’s lengthy and profound reflection after the act of prayer to commemorate the victims. “A place of horror, where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man”: said Benedict XVI with regard to Birkenau Concentration Camp silencing some who try tenaciously to deny the Holocaust.
However if that place is now and forever a place of memory “the past is never only the past” Pope Benedict warned: “It always has something to say to us; it shows us the paths to take and not to take”, it tells us of the horror and blind uselessness of hatred. In our own day we risk seeing other “concentration camps” perhaps with a different name, other places of terror and intolerance where man strikes man to annihilate him in the name of revenge, hatred, lust for supremacy. The future of humanity demands that the tragedy of Auschwitz-Birkenau be remembered so that reason may recognise evil as evil and reject it, and men and women of the third millennium may have the “courage to do good and reject evil”.
This is why today Fides publishes only news with regard to the Holy Father’s memorable Fides visit to Poland, so that the words pronounced by Pope Benedict may foster reflection and commitment to build a world based on bonds of brotherhood and reciprocal respect.
People killed in World War II
Members of armed forces 24,350,000
(source F.W.Putzger, “Historischer Weltatlas”, Velhagen & Klasing)
Civilians 25,100,000
(sources F.W.Putzger, “Historischer Weltatlas”, Velhagen & Klasing)
Jews victims of the Holocaust: 5,700,000 (source: www.shoa.de)
Total:55,150,000
(Agenzia Fides 29/5/2006 - Righe 28, parole 319)
