VATICAN CITY (CNS): History’s most brutal and oppressive events, including Nazi Germany’s aggression, must be remembered so as to help guide future generations along the path toward peace and reconciliation, said Pope Benedict XVI.
“We have a duty to remind ourselves, especially young people, of what forms of unheard of violence can be reached,” the Pope said after a public screening of a film based on Karol Wojtyla’s life in Nazi-occupied, then Communist-ruled Poland.
Together with about 6000 guests, Pope Benedict watched the Italian movie, Karol: The Man Who Became Pope, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on May 19, the day after Pope John Paul II would have celebrated his 85th birthday.
The special screening was held less than two weeks after the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, which put an end to “that huge tragedy that sowed destruction and death in Europe and the world”, said Pope Benedict.
The German born Pope noted the “atrocious crimes” that revealed “all the evil wrapped up inside the Nazi ideology”.
He said the film created emotionally charged scenes that recalled “the repression of the Polish people and the genocide of the Jews”.
