Pope John Paul II paid tribute today to the memory of the Jews who died in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising 40 years ago. They were “our brothers and sisters who suffered with us the tests of the terrible Nazi occupation and received a cruel death,” the Pontiff told some 40,000 people in St. Peter’s Square gathered for his weekly general audience.
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising “was a desperate cry for the right to live, to be free and for the salvation of human dignity,” the Pope said. He repeated the words he said when he visited the site of the Auschwitz death camp in 1979 that it was most tragic that the Jews “who first received the command not to kill” were themselves victims of terrible bloodshed over the centuries.
The Polish-born Pope spoke in his native language and prayed to the Madonna of Jasna Gora, a religious icon especially sacred to Polish Catholics. A delegation from the Polish government attended the audience, headed by the minister of religions, Jerzy Kubersky.
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