June 16 - Auschwitz & Wadowice

Today we began with a visit to Auschwitz.

Visit to Auschwitz Holocaust Memorial

(from the address of Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to Auschwitz – 28 May 2006)

To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a Pope from Germany.  In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?  How could you tolerate all this?  In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.

 

How many questions arise in this place!  Constantly the question comes up: Where was God in those days?  Why was he silent?  How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?  The words of Psalm 44 come to mind, Israel’s lame

nt for its woes: “You have broken us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with deep darkness ... because of you we are being killed all day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.   Rouse yourself!  Why do you sleep, O Lord?  Awake, do not cast us off forever!  Why do you hide your face?  Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?  For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground.  Rise up, come to our help!  Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (Ps 44:19, 22-26).  This cry of anguish, which Israel raised to God in its suffering, at moments of deep distress, is also the cry for help raised by all those who in every age - yesterday, today and tomorrow - suffer for the love of God, for the love of truth and goodness.  How many they are, even in our own day!

At Auschwitz-Birkenau humanity walked through a “valley of darkness”.  And so, here in this place, I would like to end with a prayer of trust - with one of the Psalms of Israel which is also a prayer of Christians: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.  He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff - they comfort me ... I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long” (Ps 23:1-4, 6).

The Saints of Auschwitz                                            From: CatholicCompany.com

January 27, 1945 is a day forever etched in history. On this day the Russian army liberated the Nazis’ largest and most infamously cruel concentration camp, located in south-western Poland—Auschwitz.  It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered.

Among those who were killed at Auschwitz are two Catholic saints, St. Maximilian Marie Kolbe and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan priest who died as prisoner 16770. When one prisoner tried to escape, the SS guards demanded that ten men be punished for his crime. St. Maximilian volunteered to take the place of one of these ten men. After being starved for two weeks and still found alive, he was killed by lethal injection on August 14, 1941.

Edith Stein (aka St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) was a Jewish philosopher and feminist who converted to the Catholic Church and became a Carmelite nun. She was taken from the convent and transported to the death camp, along with her sister, on a cattle train. Once she arrived she was deemed unfit for work by an SS guard and was sent to the gas chamber. She was murdered on August 9, 1942, soon after her arrival.

In memory of all of the countless lives brutally ended at Auschwitz we share a prayer written by one of the victims, Etty Hillesum.  She wrote this prayer while a prisoner in Auschwitz.  She died her in 1943 at the age of 29.

“You have made me so rich, O God; please let me share Your beauty with open hands. My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with you, O God, one great dialogue. Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on Your earth, my eyes raised toward Your Heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and gratitude. At night, too, when I lie in bed and rest in You, O God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer. Amen.”

Prayer asking the intercession of St. Maximilian Kolbe:

Prayed at/near his cell

O St. Maximilian Kolbe, faithful follower of St. Francis, inflamed by the love of God you dedicated your life to the practice of virtue and to works of the apostolate. Look down with favor upon us who devoutly confide in your intercession. Having consecrated yourself to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, you inspired countless souls to a holy life and various forms of the apostolate in order to do good to others and to spread the kingdom of God. Obtain for us the grace by our lives and labors to draw many souls to Christ.

In your close conformity to our Divine Savior you reached such an intense degree of love that you offered your life to save a fellow prisoner. Implore God that we, inflamed by such ardent charity, may through our living faith and our apostolic works witness Christ to others, and thus merit to join you in the blessed vision of God. Amen.

Litany for intercession of St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross):

Dear Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross,

Child of the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur,

Daughter of Abraham,

Bride of Christ,

Seeker of truth,

Scholar of the Church,

Handmaid of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,

Servant of the Suffering Servant,

Presence of mercy,

Victim of victimizer,

Embracer of the Cross of Christ-like love,

Martyr of Auschwitz,

Imitator of Jesus,

Conqueror of evil,

Friend of God, Edith,

Please pray for me.

Please intercede for this petition of mine.

Amen.

Saint Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Pray for us.

We then went on to Wadowice - the birthplace of Pope Saint John Paul II - and there we celebrated Mass.

The baptismal font in which John Paul II was baptized

Relic of JP II

Then a lovely dinner in a local restaurant.

Tomorrow promises to be a VERY interesting day... some changes to the schedule due to flight cancellations.  More tomorrow... when I actually know what happened.