The Pope at Auschwitz
The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Auschwitz was full of tragic symbolism. He walked into the Auschwitz Death Camp under the sign "Arbeit macht frei" in his pure white robes followed by his phalanx of black robed acolytes. The image was perfect. He did the right things, he visited the memorials in Birkenau, and said a prayer in German. At that point I must admit to feeling moved by the occasion. A rainbow came out just to emphasize the irony of the situation. His speech was politically correct, for a "son of Germany" who is now a Pope, except that he did not accept responsibility for what happened there in the name of the Church.
I have written before about how the Christian Democratic Party of Germany was dominated by Catholics who were anti-Nazi, and how Hitler removed this impediment to his gaining total power by negotiating the Reich Concordat Treaty with the Catholic Church of Pope Pius XII in 1933. In this the Church agreed to dissolve the Party and to cease all Catholic political activity in Germany (see "Hitler's Pope" by John Cornwell), and in exchange for this Hitler would allow the Catholic Church to continue its religious activities in his realm unimpeded. So it was that a previous Pope connived in Hitler's accession to dictatorship, and that allowed him to go on to carry out his vicious crimes in the name of Germany. But, this Pope did not speak of this, it remained a silent cry, so that the Church itself can appear to remain innocent, as innocent as the white purity of his garments. According to the Pope it was only the bad German Nazis who did these terrible deeds, and misled the majority of good Germans and Catholics.
In the name of the approximately one million Jews who were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau (known through the meticulous records kept by the Germans) I wish to recall a small incident, not well known, in which four young women tried to start an uprising amongst the Jewish women incarcerated there. They were, of course, caught, tortured and publicly hung. They were Ala Gertna, Rosa Rabotta, Esther Wajcblum and Regina Safirsztajn. A small monument commemorating their bravery stands behind the museum at Auschwitz. Their memory and that of so many others must not be forgotten when the moral calculus is finally appraised.
I have written before about how the Christian Democratic Party of Germany was dominated by Catholics who were anti-Nazi, and how Hitler removed this impediment to his gaining total power by negotiating the Reich Concordat Treaty with the Catholic Church of Pope Pius XII in 1933. In this the Church agreed to dissolve the Party and to cease all Catholic political activity in Germany (see "Hitler's Pope" by John Cornwell), and in exchange for this Hitler would allow the Catholic Church to continue its religious activities in his realm unimpeded. So it was that a previous Pope connived in Hitler's accession to dictatorship, and that allowed him to go on to carry out his vicious crimes in the name of Germany. But, this Pope did not speak of this, it remained a silent cry, so that the Church itself can appear to remain innocent, as innocent as the white purity of his garments. According to the Pope it was only the bad German Nazis who did these terrible deeds, and misled the majority of good Germans and Catholics.
In the name of the approximately one million Jews who were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau (known through the meticulous records kept by the Germans) I wish to recall a small incident, not well known, in which four young women tried to start an uprising amongst the Jewish women incarcerated there. They were, of course, caught, tortured and publicly hung. They were Ala Gertna, Rosa Rabotta, Esther Wajcblum and Regina Safirsztajn. A small monument commemorating their bravery stands behind the museum at Auschwitz. Their memory and that of so many others must not be forgotten when the moral calculus is finally appraised.
posted by Jack Cohen at 6:53 PM
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