02 June , 2006
Pope Benedict XVI has addressed anti-Semitism and wartime suffering by Jews in his weekly audience. “Today’s humanity must not forget Auschwitz and the other ‘factories of death’ where the Nazi regime tried to eliminate God in order to take his place,” the Pope said. Some observers saw his remarks as a response to Jewish groups’ criticism that he did not explicitly mention anti-Semitism and the Jewish victims of the Nazis when speaking at Auschwitz last Sunday. “Humanity must not give in to the temptation of racial hatred, which is at the origin of the worst forms of anti-Semitism,” he said in Rome on Wednesday.