OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) - Calling himself "a son of Germany," Pope Benedict prayed at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz on Sunday and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, mostly Jews, died in this "valley of darkness."
Ending a four-day pilgrimage to Poland, Benedict, 79, said humans could not fathom "this endless slaughter" but only seek reconciliation for those who suffered then and those who now "are suffering in new ways from the power of hatred."
As on the rest of his trip, he walked in the footsteps of his Polish-born predecessor John Paul, who came to the camp in 1979 on his first visit to Poland as pope. John Paul died in April 2005 and is revered as a saint in his native country.
"Pope John Paul II came here as a son of the Polish people. I come here today as a son of the German people," Benedict said in Italian at a monument near the ruins of a crematorium at Birkenau, the death camp section of the Auschwitz complex.
"I could not fail to come here," he said, gazing down the railway tracks that brought Jews in cattle cars to their death. "I had to come. It is a duty before the truth and the just due of all who suffered here, a duty before God."
The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics also prayed for peace in his native German, which he has avoided to not hurt Polish and Jewish sensitivities. He was forced to join the Hitler Youth and drafted into the army during the war.
WHERE WAS GOD?
Before the ceremony, Benedict visited the main Auschwitz camp, where the Nazis executed or starved special prisoners.
He walked in under the camp's gateway with the motto "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes you free) and proceeded to the Wall of Death firing line, where he met 32 of 200,000 survivors.
Many were Polish Catholics who kissed his papal ring. Benedict kissed a Jewish survivor, Henryk Mandelbaum, on both cheeks.
He also prayed in the cell where Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe died in 1941 after volunteering to replace a family man due to be killed. John Paul made Kolbe a saint in 1982.
Rain fell sporadically over Auschwitz until the main ceremony, when the skies cleared and a rainbow appeared.
Benedict said it was almost impossible, particularly for a German Pope, to speak at such a horrible place.
"The place where we are standing is a place of memory and at the same time, it is the place of the Shoah," he said.
"In a place like this, words fail. In the end, there can only be a dread silence, a silence which is a heartfelt cry to God -- Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?"
"Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?"
Benedict, one of the Church's leading theologians, said humans could not "peer into God's mysterious plan" to understand such evil, but only "cry out humbly yet insistently to God -- 'rouse yourself! Do not forget mankind, your creature!"
Alojzy Maciak, a Polish Auschwitz survivor, said Poles did not hold Benedict's nationality against him.
"We have forgiven the Germans a long time ago," he said at the Birkenau ceremony. "This is a visit by a Pope to Auschwitz, his nationality is not important."
Before he spoke, Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich chanted the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. The New York-born rabbi was attacked on a Warsaw street on Saturday by a young man shouting "Poland is for Poles."
"This incident is very nasty but let's not let it undermine the great importance of today's event," he told Reuters.
Lodz Chief Rabbi Symcha Keller, whose grandfather survived Auschwitz, said the attack showed people still had to be taught the dangers of racial hatred. "That is why Pope Benedict's visit to this grave site is so important," he said.
Earlier on Sunday, Benedict said mass for more than 900,000 people in a field in Krakow where John Paul traditionally held huge gatherings with his countrymen before returning to Rome
Look back 5,000 years and see that god is always close at hand during times of killing but never around when he could give life. How much more evidence do you need that there is no god?
Some say: “there is a god and he works in mysterious ways”.
In this case it was very mysterious: The Jews were slaughtered 1,400 years after the time he supposedly gave his message to the prophet (pbuh).
As a result of the slaughter Palestine was given to the Jews at the expense of the Palestinians. Very mysterious indeed!
If there is no god, then there's people right? They didn't do much, actually they didn't even know about it until very late.
Look back 5,000 years and see that god is always close at hand during times of killing but never around when he could give life. How much more evidence do you need that there is no god?
without life, there's no death...
We don't question why God did or didn't do what we wanted, Allah knows more than we do, and Allah knows best, we didn't live during those times, when he created them to ask "why".
As a result of the slaughter Palestine was given to the Jews at the expense of the Palestinians. Very mysterious indeed!
If all of palestinians were slaughtered and everything was given to the jews, I bet there would be more conversions to Islam. The Jews that were killed in the time of WWII are not the same jews that occupy Palestine.
The survivors were the ones that went to Palestine in 1948 and most of those have died of old age. There are few if any left.
Of coarse they are dead, if they lived, do you think all of the zionists would be capable of having any morals to what they are doing?? I would think that someone who has been killed in such a inhumane way and backstabbed by the people in which they shared a country with would have spread some sympathy towards the people in which are being slaughtered and killed now..
Ultimately, according to believers, it was god's will that lead to the slaughter of the Jews and god's will that created Israel.
Everything is in God's will.
Perhaps, like me you'r not a believer and there is no god. There is only people.
or perhaps you just wish me to be. I don't need to see to believe, if i did it wouldnt be fair to those who are physically blind, my ideal creator is one that can create without me having to see the creation being created, and well those who do not believe in a god are very much divisible between their differences, too much wondering and thinking has to go on with athiests, and when you aren't getting answers, or satisfied with the answers you already have, then you will always be empty and your life becomes wasted...
You are right joe, to not help people in need right in front of your face is a sin isnt it? If you think all u have to do in life is be religious your only fooling yourself.
You believe that if you worship a supernatural being your life is fulfilled??
Nope, not just life itself, but I know that this life, death, and afterlife will be fulfilled., and worship isn't just through praying or whatever you think it is...
I believe that helping people is fulfilling.
Indeed it is when you are able to help, but what happens when they don't want your help or if no one needs it? are you fulfilled still then? Or what happens when you need help yourself, if you are the only helper, who do you call on for help??
btw, if you want to continue this we can start another thread, because we are completely off topic...
The Holocaust convinced many Jews to become Atheists, yet still following their cultural traditions. The Atheist Jews are not punished by their believing brethren.
Would Muslims be so forgiving to one of their own who stopped believing in Allah? I think we all know the answer to that.
'Indama la ta'lamu, Allahu A'lem, When you do not know, Allah knows best..
There is no answer, we are not God, the pope obviously is questioning his own faith, if he cannot an answer to satisfy him within it..
I don't think we are off topic. I just think we are not looking at possible answers.
I say the answer is because there is no god.
Joe, I actually admire the strength of your beliefs and your logical presentations of them. You really do have very strong faith in what you believe and you do have the courage to stand up for your convictions.
I personally do not agree with them. I can not offer you any conclusive proof that would convince you of the existance of God(swt). I am satisfied that I have enough evidence for me to believe, and on a personal level that is all I need.
What do you say the answer is?
I believe the answer is that because Allah(swt) has given us free will, he will allow us to do that which either benefit ourselves or destroys us as a people. We can not harm another person with out harming ourselves, the choice of what we do to ourselves is our own group decision. If my left hand allows itself to be bit by a cobra my right hand will also die, even tho it did not touch the cobra.
I personally do not agree with them. I can not offer you any conclusive proof that would convince you of the existance of God(swt). I am satisfied that I have enough evidence for me to believe, and on a personal level that is all I need.
Mashallah ekhi, excellent reply, couldn't have been said any better. Barak Allahu feek, and mashallah also great replies in other threads, very knowledgeable and wise, jazak allah for spreading your knowledge and wisdom, we need more of that on this board..
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