Pope Recalls Jewish ‘suffering’ in Emotional Visit to Polish Town

In an emotional visit Wednesday to his hometown of Wadowice, Poland, Pope John Paul II urged his countrymen not to forget the Nazi slaughter of Jews on Polish soil.

Speaking to a crowd estimated in the tens of thousands, the pontiff recalled sadly that one-fifth of the town had once been Jewish and that there had been Jewish students at his old school, “who are no longer among us.”

He also recalled that a synagogue had once stood next to the school but no longer exists.

“We remember your suffering,” the pope said, referring to the Jewish people. “And when we are here, we must remember we are near Auschwitz,” he added, referring to the notorious concentration camp 15 miles away where 1.5 million Jews were killed.

While in Wadowice, the pope also commemorated St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan friar who died in Auschwitz 50 years ago Wednesday and who was canonized in 1982.

The pope’s trip to Poland, his second this year, centered around the celebration of Catholic World Youth Day, an annual event begun in 1986 that this year brought as many as 1.3 million Catholic youth from around the world to Poland.

The event culminated in a massive gathering at the shrine of the Black Madonna in Czestochowa, where the pope repeated his call that Europe, once divided by communism, must now be united through its Christian heritage.

The pope has on many occasions made public statements urging his followers not to forget the Holocaust, which he often refers to by using the Hebrew word “Shoah.” But on his last visit to Poland, he offended some Jews by saying that abortion is a modern-day holocaust.