The Visit of Pope John Paul II
Address by His Holiness Pope John Paul II
at the Hall of Remembrance of Yad Vashem
Jerusalem, 23 March 2000
The words of the ancient Psalm rise from our hearts:
"I have become like a broken vessel.
I hear the whispering of many - terror on every side! - as they
scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'."
(Ps 31:13-15).
In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an
extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember. Silence in
which to try to make some sense of the memories which come flooding
back. Silence because there are no words strong enough to deplore the
terrible tragedy of the Shoah. My own personal memories are of all
that happened when the Nazis occupied Poland during the War. I
remember my Jewish friends and neighbours, some of whom perished,
while others survived.
I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the millions of Jewish
people who, stripped of everything, especially of their human
dignity, were murdered in the Holocaust. More than half a century has
passed, but the memories remain.
Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are
overcome by the echo of the heart-rending laments of so many. Men,
women and children cry out to us from the depth of the 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 wish to remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose, namely to
ensure that never again will evil prevail, as it did for the 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 a whole people.
The honour given to the "just gentiles" by the State of Israel at Yad
Vashem for having acted heroically to save Jews, sometimes to the
point of giving their own lives, is a recognition that not even in
the darkest hour is every light extinguished. That is why the Psalms,
and the entire Bible, though well aware of the human capacity for
evil, also proclaim that evil will not have the last word. Out of the
depths of pain and sorrow, the believer's heart cries out: "I trust
in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'." (Ps. 31:14).
Jews and Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony, flowing
from God's self-revelation. Our religious teachings and our spiritual
experience demand that we overcome evil with good. We remember, but
not with any desire for vengeance or as an incentive to hatred.
For us, to remember is to pray for peace and justice, and to commit
ourselves to their cause. Only a world at peace, with justice for
all, can avoid repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of the
past.
As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the
Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law
of truth and love and by no political considerations, is deeply
saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of
anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and
in any place. The Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of
the image of the Creator inherent in every human being (cf. Gen
1:26).
In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow
for the tragedy which the Jewish people suffered in the twentieth
century will lead to a new relationship between Christians and Jews.
Let us build a new future in which there will be no 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 (cf. We
Remember, V).
The world must heed the warning that comes to us from the victims of
the Holocaust and from the testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad
Vashem the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our souls. It makes
us cry out:
"I hear the whispering of many - terror on every side! - But I trust
in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'." (Ps 31:13-15).