5/6/2023 0 Comments Pope visits prisoners![]() ![]() In Birkenau the majority of the extermination structures were built: four crematoria with gas chambers, two provisional gas chambers, and around three hundred barracks to house the prisoners destined for work or condemned to a slow death. The Nazis began its construction in autumn 1941, ousting the inhabitants of the village of Brzezinka and destroying their houses. Īt 10.30 Francis arrived at the camp of Birkenau, the largest camp in the complex situated in Oswiecim. ![]() Upon leaving, the Pope signed the Book of Honour with the following words: “ Lord, have mercy on your people, Lord, forgiveness for so much cruelty” Franciscus. There is now a commemorative plaque and a candle, given by St. The prisoners, chosen from the block or working group from which a prisoner had escaped, were condemned to a slow death in the camp’s hunger cells. Hunger was one of the many forms of death penalty that existed in Auschwitz. Maximilian Kolbe, by the Superior General and Provincial of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor Conventual, he entered alone into cell 18 of the underground part of Block 11, where the Polish priest died. At the entrance to Block 11, he was received by the prime minister of Poland, Beata Maria Szydlo, and went on to meet, one by one, ten of the camp’s survivors, the last of whom gave him a candle which he used to light the lamp he had taken as a personal gift to the camp.Īfter being received at the doors of the “hunger cell”, the location of the martyrdom of St. Maximilian Kolbe offered his life in exchange for that of another prisoner. In the autumn of 1943, when the shootings were transferred to the crematorium of Birkenau, the wall of executions was dismantled, but in 1946 the former prisoners of the camp rebuilt it.įrancis paused to pray in silence in Roll Call Square, where prisoners were hanged and where St. Francis entered the camp on foot through arch at the entrance, and proceeded by electric car to Block 11, possibly the most symbolic place in Auschwitz, which includes the “Death Wall” where the Nazis shot prisoners before moving their bodies to the crematorium. He travelled by car to the entrance of the Museum, where he was awaited by its director. Upon arrival the Pope was received by Bishop Román Pindel of Bielsko-Zywiec, and by the mayor of the city. In 1979, upon request by Poland, it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. After the liberation of the country, on 2 July 1947, the Polish parliament approved the conservation of the site of the concentration camp, instituting the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The date of the liberation of Auschwitz, 27 January, was designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations in 2005. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, better known as Edith Stein. ![]() Maximilian Maria Kolbe (1894-1941), the Carmelite nun of Jewish origin St. ![]() The martyrs of Auschwitz include the Polish priest St. More than one million European Jews and 23,000 Sinti and Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and tens of thousands of citizens of other nationalities lost their lives there. As time passed they also began to sent prisoners of other nationalities and in spring 1942, there began the mass extermination of Jews. In 1998 it received from the secretary-general of the United Nations the title of “Peace Advocate”.ĭuring the period in which the camp was active, the Nazis sent to Auschwitz Polish political prisoners in particular, mostly representatives of the country’s cultural élite, a total of 150,000. Today, with more than 45,000 residents, Oswiecim is the centre of many peace initiatives, a meeting-place for people of different nationalities and religions. In Oswiecim the Nazis built the largest extermination camp in the history of humanity: Auschwitz-Birkenau, where between 19 more than 1,100,000 people were murdered. This morning, after celebrating Mass privately in the chapel of the archbishopric of Krakow, Pope Francis transferred by car to the city of Oswiecim, whose history is marked principally by the tragic events of the Second World War. ![]()
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