Pope to walk through Auschwitz gate

Will enter the camp by foot and not by car in order to honor the camp's inmates.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
pope benedict 298 88 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
pope benedict 298 88 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
German-born Pope Benedict XVI will walk into the Auschwitz death camp during a visit to Poland this week, dropping plans to enter by car in order to honor the camp's inmates, who also had to enter on foot, a church official said Monday. Benedict plans to pray at former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in southern Poland on Sunday, a visit heavy with symbolism on the last day of a four-day trip to the homeland of his predecessor John Paul II.
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Benedict, 79, initially planned to ride through the Auschwitz gate, which is topped with the infamous words "Arbeit macht Frei" - Work Sets You Free - in his popemobile. But he decided to walk once Polish organizers pointed out that Nazi commanders and troops drove through the gate in cars, while the inmates were forced to walk, said the Rev. Stanislaw Lubaszka, a Polish priest involved in organizing the visit. "The Holy Father quickly accepted the new plan because it gives him more time for prayer and concentration," Lubaszka told The Associated Press. Once inside, the pope will be greeted by some 30 camp survivors and will walk to the Death Wall, where the Nazis shot inmates, chiefly Polish resistance members. He will also pray at the adjacent camp of Birkenau, the larger part of the extermination camp complex. Between 1940 and 1945, up to 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the gas chambers or died from disease, hunger and forced labor at Auschwitz-Birkenau.