The article is generally fair, but does show ignorance and even prejudice too. Roman Catholicism is not Christianity, it is 100% the opposite of biblical Christianity, and anti-semitism is a Catholic doctrine not a Christian doctrine, no real Christian could ever be anti-jewish. Just because the Cult of rome calls itself 'christian' doesnt make it Christian.

Were I a Jew, I would be offended as well; the Pope appears to be insensitive. As an American Southern Baptist evangelical, I along with nearly all evangelicals am labeled as right wing, ignorant, and intolerant, none of which accurately describes the millions of other Americans who believe like me. Almost universally, we who the world might expect to be hostile to Israel at the circumstances of the death of Jesus, instead are fiercely loyal to the state of Israel and the survival of its people as a matter of U.S. policy. You are still God's chosen people giving us a special duty to protect. Jerry Grace Satartia, MS

All you can think is about the jews that were killed by the Nazies..for your humble info more christinas were killed by the germans ..war have no religion.. & why should the pope ask forgiveness from you..& for something he didnt commit...you are living in the past too way in the past its time to move forward with a reason of a psycho The Pope is not the German Pope he is THE POPE...it is time for you to reconcile with yoursleves before asking anything from others

How many of us fail to be perfectly honest and completely truthful in each and every moment-to-moment...? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Which part of the photo's of the pope in a Nazi uniform have people missed.

This man attacks the pope in his article and then screens our replies. His comments containing "incitement, slander and inappropriate language" offends me.

That is true that this article was written by a man of the Jewish persuasion-it seems that they all think alike. I wonder if they are thinking about what is going on in Middle East and what they have been doing to Palestinian for decades. How different is that from what Hitler and Germans did to them during the WWII?

You see, Mr. Plocker, I'm having a bit of difficulty here. You say that such words as "reconciliation" and "understanding" are "smooth" and political, rather than in earnest; yet what would have been the response had those words not been used? Benedict, for all his faults (and they are many, make no doubt), did not come to Auschwitz as a representative of the German people, and therefore had no right to apologize on behalf of them. Indeed, as you said in your article, that apology has been delivered countless times, dating from the mid-1950s. Benedict came as a representative of the Roman Catholic Church, which is the only authority he had. Again, that apology - on behalf of the nearly one billion Catholics in the world - was made by John Paul during his pilgrimage. Must it be made again? If so, at what point do those apologies merely become rote words with no meaning? As for German Catholics standing idly by, is this why Maximilian Kolbe was killed? Is this why Catholics (who smuggled Jews out of Nazi territory disguised as nuns and monks) were arrested as enemies of the state and executed? Many German Catholics did indeed stand idly by, but how many more German Lutherans did so? Where are your demands of apologies from the Lutheran Church? Finally, your assumption that the modern Catholic Church must be reminded in order to avoid anti-Semitism is a flawed one. Of all the major Christian sects, Catholicism is one of the most allied with Judaism. You must look at the more radical right-wing Christian fundamentalists, should you wish to see anti-Semitism again rearing itself in Christianity. Mr. Plocker, I believe that your own anger at Ratzinger's heritage - his ethnicity, if you will - is preventing you from seeing his visit as what it was: the stumbling, tentative first steps of a man ashamed of his people's past and not yet sure how to rectify it.

Thank you for your openess. Your views are not based on truth. As a follower of Christ, the pope is not responsible for the sins of other people. Each individual is responsible for their own salvation. I have been saved...I am being saved...I will be saved. This does not have a pope go before the Lord on our behalf.

And you would expect any more from an ex-collaborator with the Nazi's as Ratzenger was? He is as guilty as Hitler....get real.

Greetings. First, I am a Christian, but not a Catholic. So, I am not necessarily a supporter of a figure head like the Pope. However... your article reflects a deep rooted bitterness, which reminds me of the deep rooted bitterness many Christian have towards the Jews, as they blame them for Jesus` crucifixion. In either case God`s grace needs to prevail and reality needs to be faced. We know that is it is wrong to think that it was the Jew`s fault that Jesus died. We also know that it is wrong to hold on to a history of hatred and bitterness in other formats. Clearly we are called to forgive. The current generations of Germans, have as little to do with Hitler as the current Jewish generations have to do with Pontius Pilate. Eric.

Why are some people still stuck in the past century? No one in Germany will ever forget the murders of the Nazi Regime - we do not need a Pope to remind us of our history, we grow up with it in our classrooms. For how long do some people think Germans are supposed to apologize for crimes that have been committed by a dead or dieing generation? How many apologies do you want to hear - when does your DEMAND for apologies stop? I I don't hear any other country ever apologize for anything! Why? Because it is history, it is past and over. Instead of looking at yesterday, people should concentrate at what is happening today - Germans LEARNED from their terrible history (and that is what counts!), but did others do so? Genocide is a terrible crime, like ANY murder is, no matter under what circumstances and with what excuses ... and it is still happening today - not in Germany though! Do Jewish people never want to get away from feeling victimized? Do they not have the ability to forgive and move on? Open your eyes, we are living in the 21th century, Germans are convinced oponents of injustice today, they are anti war, the terrible times of Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany is long over. Christians have been systematically persecuted and killed by the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages - being a Christian - whom can I ask for an apology? The Italians? I guess they would laugh at me.

I read your article with interest and found it lacking in tone and substance. Yes ;six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi's and this is horrendous. The jewish nation seem to want the entire world to go on apologising forever and ever. It seem to me at least that no amount of apologising will ever be enough to satisfy the Jewish people. Another thing that annoys me and most people I meet is that the minute someone disagrees with the Jewish position on anything you start labeling them as Anti-Semites. This does the Jewish cause no favors as it immediately turns people away fro any message you are trying to convey I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Jewish people and certainly understand their moral obligation to those who perished in the Holocaust. However holding the entire German nation responsible for the crimes of its past muderers is unreasonable in view of the modern world. While the past never can be erased or forgotten, the present begs understanding and forgiveness.

Your article is rediculous. It shows a paucity of intellect and a tiresome streak of self-pity. WWII was a long tome ago. There is absolutely no reason for each new leader of the world's most important religion to make a pilgimage to the camps to grieve over a despised minotity cult. Benedict is Holy Father to 1billion Catholics. If the jews have a problem with him, tough luck. Maybe decent people would like you folks better if you didn't go public with meretricious letters like yours. As it is the only friends you have in the world are American Fundamentalist Christians - and they are hoping you are destoyed in the Apocalypse. Richard Vidaurri Richard Vidaurri

I agree with the seemingly lack of responsibility of the pope, especially having been a member of the Hitler Youth, however, I am equally surprised that the aurthor of this article would dismiss the lives of the five million non-Jews who suffered and died at Auschwitz. Why is it that only "six million Jews " count and not the approximately eleven million people that died there? Why are the lives of these people so easily forgotten?

The moral failure is not one of a German but one of the Catholic Church. The Pope not considered by the Worldwide Church as German Church. Since Auschwitz is an unquestionable fact of the Nazi Regime and the murder of Jews is also a true fact. The German people the Czech Germans in particular where held hostage. The Nazi Regimes invasion of Czechoslovakia at least the Sudetenland was not by invitation. I have heard accounts of how people that refused to serve in the military had their families killed and their homes burned. There where those that where held hostage by the Nazis and had no recourse to act other wise. It is important to remember that the shame and guilt of the German people covers the whole of Europe and does not apply to the Nazis alone. In France their where Nazi collaborators and in Germany there was a resistances. The Jews of Europe where killed in massive numbers for no crime other than being Jewish. This is a mark on the soul of Western Culture and can never be atoned for and must be carried from generation to generation. In the US we carry the legacy of slavery and it can never be atoned for and must be carried as a mark of profound failure. The Jews should take us the non-jews to task at every turn because we forget and have a history of being murderous for no rational reason. The fact that Germany was Christian had little to do with its murder of Jews since the Nazis replaced the role of the church in common life. The bankrupt Germany was hungry for reason in its poverty and went insane with rage and evil. In Czech villages the Nazis replaced the youth activity of the church with Hilter youth program which where mandatory. So the church was pushed aside and had no method to contest the challenge of its traditional role. Germany was starving and crazy and exported the insanity that found a home in the shortcomings of Western Culture. Westerners are the descendants of those that attended the Roman Coliseum, to enjoy the mass killings of innocent people. We are weak and must always guard against our weakness to kill as the first act, when confronted with economic turmoil. The Catholic Church can never apologize or correct such an atrocity. Western Culture cannot correct its systemic weakness for murder we are pagan at our core. The Catholic Church and Jews must constantly keep us in check and as the ears grow deaf to this call for morality the depths of inhumanity can be plumbed. So when you do not hear a response this is a danger signal that the callous disregard for human life has hit a low point and acts of holocaust and genocide are not far off.

these comments are difficult to understand to me. You speak of the pope as if he was a nazi. The pope is the head of the catholics before being a german. himself became priest as a way to refuse the nazi dictatorschip. Whatever. It s boring to see the jews to enjoy the role of martyr of humanity. The first victims of the nazi were the germans, the jews being a big part of them but not the only one to pay. In Belgium, many political prisonners, resistants,.. were also taken in the death camps included somme of my family. Anti-semitism has lead to terrible events we can never forget. For my part, I belong to the young generations. I never knew the war in Europe. I never knew antisemitism, wich is for me, smth of the past as the segregation was with black people. We have to keep aware that such events never happen again but personnaly, I don't feel any responsability with the killing of jews, as for the one of our families who died. However, I feel we have a responsability in front of new waves of intollerance in the world: the degerous rise of nationalism in some countries, the way the palestinians are treated by some jews extremist who don't have any limits! It is even more sad that the jews had a long story of suffering, and are generally people more instructed.

Jesus is his prophet, he is the son of God.

Apology is not needed here cause forgiveness will never be neither. We are jews and Never forget never again never forgive must be the creed. How can we forgive anyone for what happened there? Jews will always be rightly suspicious of not just germans but EVERYBODY not jewish. I cant imagine feeling beter if they apoligize even if hitler apologized or every german from that era were to return and apologize, jew would never forgive. You beat the crap out of me and after apologize? KEEP the apology, keep the kneeling to the blue,keep the atoning , keep the talk about not having antijewish hatred. And Ill keep my memory and my uzi

Talking in this place of mass human destruction is nearly impossible, especially for me - german christian.[...] I am here as a son of german nation, nation in wich group of criminals used my nation to have power nad destroy. Yes, I had to be here -said Benedict XVI. (transalted from Polish Press Agency, www.pap.pl) - in Auschwitz Benedict met with 32 ex-prisoners of this camp (mainly Jews) and talk for a moment with everyone -during 30 min he spent in the first camp he did not say any word loudly - don't you think that silence may be a symbol? - than he met with youngsters, volounteers of Oswiecim Youth Centre which organizes historical sessions for Jews, Poles and Germans, - He was praying for several minutes (20-25) next to the sculpture in Birkenau - Who cares about car?!! It is just the official limousine of polish government. Wihich car would be ok? Japanese -no... French (Vichy) no... Italian...- no. Probably American, heh? I haven't heard about Israelian cars:( Pope wanted to be symbolic in there. You, as a Israelian and Jew, wanted to hear banal "Sorry" again...I heard "sorry" in his symbols, his silence, his pray. You still see half empty glass and MANIPULATE his words Regards, Karol

It took the church nearly 2000 years to appear to begin extending the hand of friendship to a people it demonised and persecuted endlessly. To some, the second visit by a Pope to Auschwitz symbolizes a step forward, i.e. better a little than nothing. To others it is too little from a church held responsible for at best doing nothing to stop the genocide of 6 million Jews. If the church truly meant to extend its hand of friendhip to the Jewish people, nothing would have gained it more credit than the unreserved apology to the Jewish people by its leader for its past failures. The visit to Auschwitz by the Pope was not an opportunity lost but an eye opener to the lack of sincerity in its extention of the arm of friendship to the Jewish people.

The Pope's argument that the Nazi genocide was anti-Christian is familiar but is true only by reference to an idealised view of Christianity. It is totally inconceivable that the Holocaust could have happened without the centuries of Jew-hatred inspired by Christianity. The massacres of the Crusades, the Black Death, the Inquisition, the numerous pogroms in different countries were all fundamentally Christian phenomena. And don't forget that Martin Luther was as vicious an antisemite as any Catholic. The Nazis, with their specifically racial Jew-hatred, exploited the deep-rooted European Christian Jew-hatred.

hes a racistic asshole who im sure is disliking jews as he hates everyone whos not catholic

German-born Pope Benedict XVI, visiting Auschwitz as "a son of the German people," on Sunday denounced the "unprecedented mass crimes" of the Holocaust, and underlined the reality of Hitler's campaign to wipe out Europe's Jews. "To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a pope from Germany," he said. "In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence," he said, "a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?" --- For a Pope to say this is incredible! He's questioning God! Needlessly negative article! And I'm Jewish not Catholic .. Mike

You must remember that the pope did condamn anti-Semitism many times in his past addresses. He himself had warned of increasing anti-Semitism last year at WYD Cologne. I am not Catholic but I personally think that Jews cannot continue to expect Germans to apologise again and again and again. After all, those who committed the crimes have long gone. I have heard the Pope's message at Auschwitz and I thought it was very well done.

.."Why this 'multi ethnic' make up is offensive to Plocker is unclear to me".. Because in some cases SCALE MATTERS. You can say "stone felt on his head" and not mention the mass of the stone. But do you really reckon it doesn't matter if it was 20 gramm stone or 20 tonn stone?

Being an atheist myself, and having no previous knowledge of Pope Benedict's visit, I was unpleasantly surprised by the tone of this article that was supposed to inform me but instead left me feeling somewhat offended. Sever Plocker is "offended and infuriated" because the Pope did not offer appologies for the German people's actions in Auschwitz, because he arrived in a German car, (keep in mind that Pope Benedict came as a representative of the Church, not of German people) while still insisting "not that [the Jews] still need German apologies". In short, mr. Plocker is disappointed with the Pope's visit, but not because Benedict did or did not do something - but because *he would have done it differently*. I might have still "bought" the whole story if it were not for the politically charged phrases that such as "the fate of Jews at Auschwitz was not the same as other peoples." that define this article for what it really is - Sever Plocker slanted and biased personal view. And he uses the Holocaust to strenghten his points, thinking that he has the exclusive rights to mention this tragic event simply because he is Jewish. I find that more disrespectful to the victims, Jewish and non-Jewish slike, than anything the Pope might have done during his visit.

Your artice seems very subjective. A good author should always try to see both sides of the issue. The Pope does not have the easiest job in the world. He can't please everyone. I'm sure he did his human best. You forget that there are messianic Jews. Jews whose ancestors and relatives were killed in the holocaust. These Jews feel that the Jewish nation makes up the roots of Christianity (as do most Christians today; after all, Jesus was a Jew). The Pope being a Christian, could not forego mentioning his belief that Hitler was wrong in killing so many Jews for the very reason that the Jews, to Benedict's mind, are the nation that God blessed, that God chose to be his channel for blessing the whole World through Jesus Christ. Hitler aimed, according to the Pope, to exterminate that very channel. Whether Hitler consciously wanted to destroy Christianity's roots is another matter. But I don't think the Pope could claim to know Hitler's mind. He could only say what he felt would have been the terrible, blasphemous end of the holocaust, had it not been stopped. Christianity's roots would have been destroyed. So there's the other side of the issue.

shalom chaverim, I sent you a pope note to print. Its not up yet. Are you on bank holiday too. Did not know you were Bankers...is it true? Anglo Mo

"Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Auschwitz was a historical, human and moral failure. He arrived in a black, armored, German car, gave an objectionable speech filled with smooth words like "reconciliation" and "understanding," prayed to Jesus, failed to ask forgiveness for the crimes committed by his people, and got back in his black, armored, German car and drove back to Rome." So what? I don't think he owes us, Jews, anything. It was not a moral failure in any way, shape, or form.