Bartoszewski: I Do Not Expect of Pope to Apologise to Jewish Nation

Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council, Professor Władysław Bartoszewski told KAI that he does not expect of Pope Benedict XVI to apologise to the Jewish nation for the crimes committed by German Nazis during his upcoming visit to the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"I do not expect this. For me the Pope is not a German, since otherwise I would have to think that the Polish Pope would be treated not as a leader of the Church but as a Pole. And I was accompanying John Paul II in Germany and was satisfied to see that the Germans treated him as the Supreme Pontiff rather than as a Pole. By the same token we must accept the role of Benedict XVI" – observed Bartoszewski in response to the question if the German Pope should apologise to the Jewish nation for the crimes of his nation.

"John Paul II expressed contrition on behalf of the Church for the crimes committed by Christians with respect to the Jews on many occasions in the past. How many times can we reiterate the same words? This is unnecessary. What is at issue is an example to be set, the development of the attitude of the people of God" - added Bartoszewski, himself a former inmate of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.

Bartoszewski recalled that the first concentration camps were created on German soil. "When the present Pope was 7 years old in 1934, the Dachau camp was set up near Munich. It was a camp where Germans incarcerated Germans. Opponents of the regime were detained there, not only socialists and communists, but also Catholics, including priests who did not fall for the Nazi ideology " – said Professor Bartoszewski.

"Our present Holy Father is a son of a nation which first experienced a departure from Christianity and from faith in God. His stay here has, then, an additional symbolic significance" – stressed the Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council.

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