On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp run by the Nazis, Pope Francis said the horror of the annihilation of millions of Jews must never be forgotten or denied.
On Jan. 27, 1945, the Red Army of the Soviet Union liberated around 7000 prisoners at the camp, where the German Nazis had killed an estimated 1.1 million people, the vast majority being Jews.
“Let us also remember the many Christians, among whom were many martyrs. May we all to work together to eradicate the scourge of anti-Semitism, along with all forms of religious persecution,” the pontiff said.
Among those killed at Auschwitz St. Maximilian Marie Kolbe and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, better known as Edith Stein.
Francis also spoke about the anniversary during his Angelus address on Sunday.
“I renew my appeal for everyone to work together to eradicate the scourge of anti-Semitism, along with all forms of discrimination and religious persecution. Let us build a more fraternal, more just world, together. Let us educate young people to have a heart open to all, following the logic of fraternity, forgiveness and peace,” he said over St. Peter’s Square.
The anniversary comes during the largest crisis in Vatican-Jewish relations since the Holy See established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1994.
This was caused by the Gaza war that broke out following an Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack by Hamas militants that left 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 250 taken as hostages.
Israel immediately launched a retaliatory offensive in Gaza to oust Hamas from leadership, with the subsequent conflict resulting in the deaths of over 40,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian estimates.
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Just over a year ago, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, said the Catholic Church had issued “a jumble of political and religious declarations that have left us confused and offended.”
In a statement shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, Francis said humanitarian law must be respected, “above all in Gaza, where it’s urgent and necessary to guarantee humanitarian corridors and to protect the entire population.” the pope said.
“Wars are always a defeat, always!” Francis added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen shortly after the 2023 statement to complain to the Vatican about the message.
“It is unacceptable that you put out a statement expressing worry primarily for Gazan civilians while Israel is burying 1,300 who were murdered,” he said.
Cohen said he “expects the Vatican to come out with a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the murderous terrorist actions of Hamas terrorists who harmed women, children and the elderly for the sole fact that they are Jews and Israelis.”
He added there was “no room for unfounded comparisons.”
“Hamas, a terrorist organization worse than ISIS, invaded Israel with the intention of harming innocent civilians, while Israel is a democracy that’s trying to defend its citizens from Hamas,” Cohen told the Vatican.
Yet for the next year, this condemnation of the war in Gaza continued from the pontiff, who as late as last Christmas called it “cruelty … not war.”
However, Francis recently praised the peace agreement between Israel and Gaza.
Vatican Media has been using the Auschwitz anniversary to highlight the Vatican’s concern over anti-Semitism.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano issued an interview with the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Piotr Cywiński, who said after World War II, there was a common effort “to avoid such tragedies in Europe at least.”
“I think that remembrance does not touch only the issue of the victims because the victims are not the anthropological main problem. They were innocent. They were transported to Auschwitz and they were killed,” he said.
“However, the main anthropological problem is the perpetrators. We have to work on those issues also in order to answer, to find some answers. How was it possible? What was the impact of the propaganda? What was the impact of the German state authority on this question? Hitler needed only six years between arrival in his position to start the Second World War, and he didn’t have social media or internet at that time. So I think that the question of the perpetrators or their collaborators is extremely important to be analyzed,” Cywiński added.
“The problem is that, of course, survivors, wrote their memoirs, their testimonies, the SS didn’t. So we are a little bit in a lack of sources. But certainly, it’s not something that we cannot try to do,” he said.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome
