80 years have passed since the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp. Images like this one still have an impact on society today.
More than a million people died in what is considered the largest Nazi concentration camp in history. It was active until January 27, 1945.
More than 30 years later, in 1979, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to visit Auschwitz, where he condemned the Holocaust. It was also a dark period for the Polish Pope, who lived through Hitler's invasion of Poland when he was only 19 years old.
In 2006, a year after the death of Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI also visited this camp, a long-awaited visit by a German pope.
POPE BENEDICT XVI
In a place like this, words fail. In the end there can only be a shocked silence, a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God, 'Why Lord, did you remain silent?
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI prayed in front of 23 tombstones situated in front of the ruins of the crematorium ovens, many remember this image: when the rainbow came out.
Pope Francis visited in 2016, creating this symbolic moment. The Pope did not make a speech. He put words aside to pray silently in the cell where the Franciscan Saint, Maximilian Kolbe, died, who offered to die for a father of a family who had been condemned to death.
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