Benedict XVI, the current pope, drove by the memorial for the
Warsaw Ghetto at 60 mph instead of stopping to participate at
a ceremony the local Jewish community had prepared for him.
The Israeli Ambassador, communal leaders and delegations from
Jewish communities in Europe waited for him at the site in
pouring rain.
The Times of London hinted that the Polish Church
intentionally insulted the Jewish community, while Church
figures claim the tight schedule did not allow him to stop
for even a moment. The Church and the ultra-nationalist
Polish government wanted to prevent the Pope from showing any
gesture to the Jewish ghetto at the beginning of his visit
rather than honoring the Polish partisans.
Jewish activists in Paris said secular Jewish circles seeking
to ingratiate themselves with the Vatican made a mockery of
themselves by expecting the Pope to take part in the ceremony
at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial.
Following the incident, on the second day of his visit, the
Pope visited Auschwitz, where a million-and-a-half Jews were
killed. There too, the Israeli Ambassador and distinguished
members of the local Jewish community were on hand. Asked how
he feels as a German visiting the site of German crimes
committed during the Second World War he said he had not come
as a German, but as a Catholic. Vatican commentators said
that as a Catholic he does not accept any responsibility or
feelings of guilt for Nazi crimes.
In his speech he said Auschwitz provides "a glimpse of the
cynicism of that regime which treated men and women as
material objects and failed to see them as persons embodying
the image of G-d."
