If you want, you can always see a negative side to everything. This is the second time a Pope has been to Auschwitz to pray for the millions of jews murdered. I think this is very positive. (I am Catholic, and some of my best friends are jewish)

Extremely well written. Answers the question, "What more could he (the Pope) have done/said?"

This article was written by a man of the Jewish persuasion.

Well I'm no fan of ex-Cardinal Ratzinger, and Il'll admit I havn't followed the visit too closely. I'll agree that the Pope tried to turn the atrocity at Auschwitz into a symbol for all atocities against mankind. I can't understand the Catolic churches hatred for Jews(I'ts still a fact after 200 years). The Christian religeon claims to love Jesus but hate his countryman. I can't understand that. If it is true that The Christian religeon is an offshoot of judism, then why don't Christian incoperate all the Jewish Holydays?. Any time we want to make excuses for capital punisment and other barbarianisms, we conviently quote the Old tesetement! Paul

I watched the visit on tv and found it an uninspiring ritual-but that's more due to the personality of this pope than anything else. Sever Plocker-like many others-it seems to me, is longing for John Paul's charisma, courage and honesty. Benedict is different, more cerebral and distant, but just as conservative Catholic as John Paul. The mentioning of Gypsies/Roma as victims alongside Jews is historically correct, their fate as well as that of homosexuals and communists was shared with the European Jews. Why this 'multi ethnic' make up is offensive to Plocker is unclear to me, it doesn't in any way diminish the Jewish tragedy.

Exactly! But what do you expect of religion? It's time we grew out of all that childishness. The only people who had the right to forgive are the victims who are no longer here to forgive. Regards Tony Kline

I found his question to god disturbing, where was he and why did he remain silent and allow it to happen. Where was he and the Catholic Church? If that just aint the pot calling the kettle black. He was a Nazi Youth himself at age 14 then served in the Nazi Army by age 16 and only when defeat was imminent did he choose to dissent "under pain of death". Was it pain of death by his own or really from fear of death from the Allies? I find his remarks Blasphemous and I do not even belong to any particular religion.

Have you noticed how many present day articles and publications blame WWII and Auschwitz/Birkenau on Nazis, instead of Germans. You would think it was a war between Nazi's, Churchill's Conservatives Roosevelts Democrats and Canadian Liberals. This was a war perpetrated by a nation, not a political entity - It was a war perpetrated by Germany, not Nazis. Quit substituting Nazi's for Germany. Many of the perpetrators could well have been Nazis, I'm not sure, but I am sure they were Germans.

The author has written an undoubtedly interesting article but sadly thats all it is. The author speaks too much out of his 'personal opinion' and says thats what Jews think !! I don't know what all the Pope must have had said, but I now that his visit has certainly made the relationship between Jews and Christians better, even if it is little. Now, if the author just looks again at his writings, he would see that his writing has just helped in causing a deeper schism between the Jews and Christians. It would be better if these articles, coloured with seeminlgly personal prejudices, don't come out; would be better for all.

Where was God? 6 million times God was murdered. Sorry to hear that even the Pope oversees that. My apologies for the astounding blindness of catholicism in which I also was born.

I just cant believe that you keep mentioning that he was driving a german car...so what? I drive a VW, does that mean anything i way about the hollocaust is not true?

"The mentioning of Gypsies/Roma as victims alongside Jews is historically correct, their fate as well as that of homosexuals and communists was shared with the European Jews. Why this 'multi 'ethnic' make up is offensive to Plocker is unclear to me, it doesn't in any way diminish the Jewish tragedy. " It is not historically correct. Only the Jews were marked out for total destruction. Only the Jews were murdered in such enormous numbers. Only Jewish society has all but been totally wiped out in those places where it was most vibrant. The genocide of the Jews was the central pillar of Nazi ideology: nothing, even winning the war, stood in the way of achieving the objective of killing every Jew on the face of the earth. The notion though that only Germany/Austria were responsible for the Holocaust is plainly absurd. The Nazis could never have achieved what they did without the almost complete and willing collaboration of all of Europe (occupied and also so-called "neutrals"). And that is something else that marks out the Jewish Holocaust as being something totally different. Take your own nation Holland for example which like so many others has lived an almost complete lie about the Holocaust since 1945, hiding as she has behind the myth of Anne Frank who in so many ways was murdered by the Dutch and not the German occupiers. Yes, a few thousand righteous Dutch did aid Jews. Millions more though actively collaborated. The highest number of foreign recruits to the SS came from Holland. Jews living in Holland were: betrayed by their neighbours, arrested by Dutch police on Dutch orders, taken to a most terrible Dutch-run concentration camp, shipped to Auschwitz on Dutch trains driven by Dutch drivers. After the war the few Dutch survivors who returned were treated like pariahs by the Dutch people. Much property stolen by individual Dutch citizens and the Dutch state from those who were murdered has never been returned. Nobody who collaborated in the Holocaust was prosecuted for war crimes against the Jewish people. Indeed some of the very worst offenders in the police force were given significant promotions. The few Dutch policemen who had refused to collaborate were ostracised by colleagues. Today in Holland open anti-Semitism is common at soccer matches where anti-Jewish chants can be heard every week and elsewhere.

You should eventually try to overcome the memories of the past and look at the catholicism in a least hostile view. This article is full of prejudice.

Journalist Plocker is beside the point. Benedict XVI made a breathtaking appeal to God the Father, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Besides speaking as a Catholic theologian, he was also echoing here the prophets of the First Testament : Isaiah, Ezechiel and Job.

David from Cincinnati asks "What more could he (the Pope) have done/said?". Well I think he could say it clearly that this camp was not done by some unidentified criminals and Nazi but it was done by GERMANS. He should say it loud and clearly and he should ask for forgiveness from Jews, Poles, Gypsies and other nations. He SHOULD make a clear line between victims and those bastards born in his country Deutschland (!) who attacked Poland and created these mass graves on our beutifull land. They really should create these camps near Berlin and Munchen... Now they want to forget about their crime, and they left evidences of their crime in Poland - this is why we can hear about 'Polish death camps' which is LIE that makes me very very angry. Auschwitz is GERMAN death camp, created by GERMANS only on Polish land because we lost first stage of war and they occupied our country. We also should remember WHY they created these camps on Polish land - please Jews think about it - not because of anti-semitism in Poland. They created these camps because before WWII there was about 3.4 mln Jews in Poland - about 10% of all Polish population. And it was biggest Jewish society in the world. So this is simple - Germas are practical - they created camps near biggest Jewish cities. Remember this - and also remember this that these Jews were also POLES just like there are Americans that are Jews and Jews from Israel. They could speak Polish, they often fighted with Germans in Polish army when Germans started war 1.9.1939. You really should know and remember this. And feel the difference between John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I think that Benedict should say more clearly that his nation is reponsible for all of this. And he definetly shouldn't talk in German at all during his visit at death camp.

How many apologies do you need? How much financial support from foreign governments do you need? Why do you always and everywhere see anti-semitism? When was the last time an Isreali official ask for forgiveness for the continuing crimes of your regime against the Palestinian people? Or does a Palestinian life count less than a Jewish life? Any why is it that nobody else who suffered under the Nazis does not count? Six million Jews plus how many millions of non-Jews?

Anger leads to suffering. It seems after reading your article regarding the moral failure of the Pope that you are certainly in the anger stage. I hope the suffering resulting from that is somewhat less than the anger others have had in the past. While the quote is from Star Wars. I dont think that wisdom should be lessened. I have never read any article written by you in the past, perhaps you are more objective when covering other stories. I have a feeling you are not, I certainly hope that your feelings are not indicative of many other people, regardless of religious affiliation.

Plocker has a very clear idea of what *he* expects from Pope Benedict. His expectations have two main themes: (1) To acknowledge the specifically anti-sematic nature of Auschwitz and to warn against anti-Semitism now, viz: "he should have had a different purpose: To warn against renewed anti-Semitism, and to atone for the sins of the German Catholic church...& various other comments which derogate from the suffering of other races and groups who were targeted at Auschwitz. AND (2) Atone for the Germans, German Catholic Church and to a smaller extent the Catholic Church, viz: "he failed to kneel next to the...." "he ignored the truly important question: Where were people?... How could the German nation have allowed themselves to develop such an intense hatred for the Jewish people and for other nations? God may have remained silent, but the Germans were the ones who murdered all those people.... "he should have had a different purpose...and to atone for the sins of the German Catholic church...& c. IN the first theme, Plocker seems to require an emphasis on the primarily anti-Semitic nature of Auschwitz, and a warning against anti-Semitism going forward. True it is, increased anti-Semitism has been evidenced worldwide. But why should Benedict be restricted to emphasising this? The scale of hate crimes, committed and potential, which afflict other races and minorities, is so much larger than anti-Semitism today. The proportions of anti-Semitic hate crimes as against all hate crimes is probably very small. One need only see the tens of thousands of Africans of different religion or regions being slaughtered each year…the slaughter of Sunnis and by Shias, and Shias by Sunnis. Consider the trouble in Eastern Europe…in the last ten years. The real issue today is hatred, not anti-Semitism. I really think had Benedict not -- politically correctly – focused on the real issue, he would truly have conducted himself deplorably. Auschwitz was a slaughter of Jews, but after decades of German and Catholic atonement, as Plocker acknowledges himself, and in an age of increased religious and secular hatreds, the more important emphasis should be on hatred. It’s absolutely no answer to say that Benedict has a special responsibility as a German pope – Plocker’s second theme. Plocker makes far too much of Benedict's German origins. Plocker seems to think that Benedict's papal office is a German office because the pope happened to be born in Germany. And accordingly, Benedict has to atone for the Germans’ too. [Perhaps the Cardinals should have voted for an African, instead?] But is the Pope from Germany necessarily a German Pope. Plocker assumes so – wrongly; consider the decades of the Pope’s life spent elsewhere, decades spent steeped in the Church’s very unique – not at all German – culture. And at any rate, it seems a little tenuous to burden a country’s moral debts from its moral errors on every of its citizens, from date of the error to people uninvolved, 60 years later. I would not dignify the Hitler Youth suggestions as coming close to rebutting this argument. Plocker – your views are clearly impassioned, justifiably – but here your emotions have caused you to abandon your sense of proportion and perspective.

Apologizing is too little too late. Do you have any concept of how many people make up a million? The current pope is a german, his church tolerated the atrocities against jews. To tolerate that, is the same as commiting the crime.

If you read the article, or the popes's speech, you will find that he made it sound like the country was "taken over" by a band of murderers who then had the victims murdered. That is not what happened!! Hitler was elected into office after expressing very clearly (and probably because of it) his anti-semitism. (Mein Kumpf, as well as his speeches). The majority of the German people (as well as the Poles- later in the war) were eager & willing participants in the murder & sought after the destruction of the entire Nation.

People are not perfect, people can be lead astray and decieved. It is allways easy to criticise others but hard to find and lead the way. Germans don't need to apologise. It isn't a German thing. It is people, you, me, as well as others. We are the ones who need to be active in securing a future with out hatred of others not by hating others. Why look to histrory and point the finger, when today we are making history where many will ceratinly point the finger at us. We shouldn't be complaining about others but trying to do something ourselves. I don't want complaints about potential misunderstandings in what I have written, but feel free to add, correct or improve upon that which I have said.

Dear Mr Plocker, I was just in Warsaw at the end of April and gave directions to Jewish pilgrims looking for the synagogue. I paid my own respects at the ghetto. Millions of people were not watching me so I was able to make my own imperfect respects without criticism. I am sorry that you were unhappy with Pope Benedict's words at Auschwitz. You have a right to your feelings, and I respect you for them. I don't think you hit the nail on the head, however, when you accuse the Pope of "political correctness." Rather than repeat what his predecessor had said, he tried to formulate his own response to the horror. You may not be aware that Cardinal Ratzinger participated in the Ceremony of Apology in March 2000 at St Peter's when the cardinals joined the pope in apologizing for Catholic offenses of the past. The attack on the spiritual roots of Christianity is an important point. How could Christians continue to pray and study the Christian Bible if the Nazis succeeded in destroying the descendants of those who wrote it? How long could they continue worshipping an Incarnate God who was incarnate as a Jewish man? The Nazis leadership promoted a return to German paganism. The Shoah was not a Christian project. You misquote the Pope. He did not ask "Where was God at Auschwitz?" That question has already been posed and answered, as you indicate. He asked "Why was God silent?" At that point a rainbow appeared in the sky over Auschwitz. God finally broke his silence, all the Pope had to do was ask. The answer to Shoah is Noah. When God once brought the human race to the point of extinction, he made a covenant with Noah never to allow humanity to be destroyed. The Jewish people are included in that covenant, along with Poles, Roma and all the other people the Nazis tried to exterminate. The Nazi horrow must be answered not with mere human apologies but with a renewal of the Covenant of Noah. God must be a participant in our healing. I hope that with the passage of time the Pope's words will begin to resonate for you as they apparently did not do when initially spoken. I hope that one day you will be able to write a more favorable response. In the meantime let us all take shelter together in the promise of the God of Noah to all peoples, never to bring humanity to the brink of destruction again.

I was baptised a Roman Catholic by my Sicilian/Colombian parents. I've attended all Catholic schools including the largest Catholic university in the US, St John's, and yet I see the lack of a moral compass in this church. As if the pedopile preists scandel and the insuing cover-up were not enough, the ban on female preists, and, the right of a women's choice to give birth or not, we now have a former Nazi as the Pope! A Pope that re-opens and then grinds salt into this horrible wound to humanity, Auschwitz. I am sickened by it all. My personal favorite was from a reader who says the glass is "half full" and some of his best friends are Jewish,(sound familiar?) When will people wake-up from the trance of organized religion? Realize that we are all childern of God, and start treating people the way we want to be treated. You don't need someone shouting from a pulpit to figure that out. Where to begin?

I think, it was very possitive that he (german pope) was in Auschwitz yesterday. We have to remember about this human tragedy. Because this dreadful scenario can repeat once again. Pope chooses remember instead of forgot about this tragedy.

where were YOU when Rowanda was happening? Are you doing ANYTHING about Dafur? Are those not humans also or is it just one race that we have to remember and be reminded of - why is that race silent in the face of these genocides? You want to talk about German made cars while peole are being raped and mutilated - what arrogance

Mr. Plocker does a disservice to his readers when he implies that the Church was silent in the face of Nazi terror. This is a myth that began to circulate in the late 1990s, and it is so easily disproven by casual research that anyone who sincerely promotes it will eventually be embarrassed at how easily they've been duped. Read "The Myth of Hitler's Pope" by Rabbi David Dalin.

You even said it yourself... you don't need the Pope don't need him to ask for forgiveness. Sorry he didn't do it the way YOU think he should.

that we live on the same planet? Are you such a negative persom that you can not see the positive i this event? You whine that the pope 'forgot anti-Semitism, forgot anti-Jewish hatred' but you miss the point when le laments that he can not understand how or why God (the same God that we also love) could let such a thing happen. You need to stop your whining - no one wants to hear it. This very type of behavior just helps perpetuate anti-Semetic feelings. You are an ignorant fool. -Yeshi

The death of any human by a repressive force is unacceptable - even when it is 50 thousand Africans or thousands of Arabs –so the Jews were singled out for death by the Germans, maybe the non-Israeli Jews should go look at the graffiti on the walls in the west bank that say “Gas All The Arabs” – it does not make any difference who is in power - the Nazi in Germany, Tutsi in Africa or Israelis in the West bank – you as an author spinning the world against the Jews story better get down off that high horse or you like hump dee dump dee will fall of and won’t be able to be put back together again. All genocide is wrong no matter who does it – in time there will be Jews who - do to their actions in the west bank will be punished for WAR CRIMES! WWII is not the only time genocide has happen so why not write about the others who the church let down – there are plenty.