Where Can I Find A Silver Wing In Shiny Gold

Shoah: Per non dimenticare MAI

In this place of memories, mind, heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember. Silence in which to try to make sense of the memories which come impetuous. Silence because there are no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah.

Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are overcome by the heart-rending laments of so many people. Men, women and children cry out to us from the depths of horror that they knew. How can we fail to heed their cry? No one can forget or ignore what happened. No one can diminish its scale.

We want to remember. But we want to remember for a purpose, namely to ensure that never again will evil prevail, as happened to millions of innocent victims of Nazism.

How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God Only a Godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of an entire people.

Ebrei e Cristiani condividono un immenso patrimonio spirituale, che deriva dall'autorivelazione di Dio. I nostri insegnamenti religiosi e le nostre esperienze spirituali esigono da noi che sconfiggiamo il male con il bene. Noi ricordiamo, ma senza alcun desiderio di vendetta né come un incentivo all'odio. Per noi ricordare significa pregare per la pace e la giustizia e impegnarci per la loro causa. Solo un mondo in pace, con giustizia per tutti, potrà evitare il ripetersi degli errori e dei terribili crimini del passato.

n questo luogo di solenne memoria, prego ferventemente che il nostro dolore per la tragedia sofferta dal popolo ebraico nel XX secolo conduca a un nuovo rapporto fra Cristiani ed Ebrei. Costruiamo a new future in which there are more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather the mutual respect required of those who adore the one Creator and Lord and look to Abraham as our common father in faith. The world must heed the warning that comes from the testimony of Holocaust victims and survivors.

( Excerpts of the speech of John Paul II Memorial in Jerusalem March 23, 2000 )