{"id":1947,"date":"2010-01-27T17:30:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T17:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/01\/pope-commemorates-65th-anniver.php"},"modified":"2010-01-27T17:30:44","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T17:30:44","slug":"pope-commemorates-65th-anniver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/pope-commemorates-65th-anniver","title":{"rendered":"Pope Commemorates 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vatican City (dpa) &#8211; Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday recalled the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, and event which revealed &#8220;the unprecedented cruelty,&#8221; of the Nazi Holocaust.<br \/>\nThe 82-year-old pontiff made the remarks in his native German during his weekly general audience.<br \/>\n&#8220;On 27 January 1945, the gates of the Nazi concentration camp near the Polish city of Oswiecim, better known by its German name of Auschwitz, were opened and the few survivors freed,&#8221; Benedict said.<br \/>\n&#8220;That event, and the testimony of those who survived, revealed to the world the horror of the crimes of unprecedented cruelty committed in the extermination camps created by Nazi Germany,&#8221; added the pope, who as a teenager &#8211; like most others at the time &#8211; had been a member of the Hitler Youth in the waning days of the war.<br \/>\nHolocaust Remembrance Day which is being marked in several European nations, serves, according to Benedict, to recall &#8220;the planned annihilation of the Jews, and to honour those who, at the risk of their own lives, protected the persecuted and sought to oppose the murderous insanity.&#8221;<br \/>\nBenedict earlier this month made his first visit as pontiff to Rome&#8217;s Jewish main synagogue, an event dogged by a row over his recent elevation towards sainthood of World War II-era pontiff, Pius XII.<br \/>\nCritics say Pius failed to speak out against the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews, but Benedict and other supporter say he acted behind the scenes to ensure that Catholic-run institutions including convents and monasteries sheltered those fleeing from the crimes.<br \/>\nOn Wednesday, Benedict said the Shoah, or Holocaust, should serve as a universal lesson and &#8220;arouse ever greater respect for the dignity of each person, so that all mankind may feel itself to be one large family.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;May omnipotent God illuminate hearts and minds, that such tragedies never happen again,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2010 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vatican City (dpa) &#8211; Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday recalled the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, and event which revealed &#8220;the unprecedented cruelty,&#8221; of the Nazi Holocaust. The 82-year-old pontiff made the remarks in his native German during his weekly general audience. &#8220;On 27 January 1945, the gates&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pope Commemorates 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/pope-commemorates-65th-anniver\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope Commemorates 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vatican City (dpa) &#8211; Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday recalled the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, and event which revealed &#8220;the unprecedented cruelty,&#8221; of the Nazi Holocaust. 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