Attempted expropriation of the six million “Kedoshim” (Martyrs of the Holocaust)
May 29:
From an article by Sergio I. Minerbi, a former Israeli ambassador, currently (Fall 2008) a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Haifa:
“What is at stake here is the Catholic perception of the Shoah—the worst nightmare in Jewish history, during which six million of our people were murdered…In a blatant effort to Christianize the Holocaust, Pope John Paul II [Wojtyla] used the symbol of the “six million” to represent [it as] the number of Polish people allegedly killed during the war…..
John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, [Ratzinger, the current pope at time of publication of this book in 2008] repeated his predecessor’s expression [gambit] when he visited Auschwitz on May 28, 2006, [author – the prepared speech was actually on Day #2 of his trip there, May 29, 2006]
[“Six million Poles lost their lives during the Second World War,” a fifth of the [Polish] nation……..” –from the formal prepared address by Pope Benedict at the Auschwitz killing grounds.]
author – Note: how the emotionally–laden martyrdom statistic – Six million Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust – is co–opted by Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] into the more– convenient–to–the–Church “Six million Poles lost their lives during WWII….”.
Conveniently expropriating the martyred six million figure. But this address is at Auschwitz, the murder–epicenter of the Jews, is it not? In plain sight. Murdering a memory – at the murder grounds themselves although three days later, back at the Vatican [and now under increasing pressure not to pervert history], he ‘corrected’ his own words, and said that it was six million Jews who were killed in Auschwitz.”
– from a longer article in Ha’aretz,
November 14, 2008 (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Note that not too many networks covering the ‘correction,’ of course. Cute.
But back in Poland, the initial target audience, and in front of the worldwide television audience, the pope had successfully advanced the Vatican’s apparent gambit to fudge history, and to attempt to expropriate the six million figure, and to attempt to transform it into a Polish Catholic martyrdom of sorts. That would be interesting news to the Jewish Death Camp victims in their graves. But, of course, now the Polish Bishops and Priests have their ‘thematic talking point’ for decades to come (centuries to come?) with the stamped seal of approval by the pope himself, straight from the killing grounds of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Ground Zero of the Jewish Martyrdom. The Vatican ‘history spin–machine’ ramping–up now in full throttle.
Having set the stage over the centuries for the Nazi murder of millions of Jews at Auschwitz, then having betrayed these same Jews during the Nazi terror–murder campaign against them, the Vatican in the person of Pope Benedict XVI, would on October 29, 2006 now attempt to outright rob them of their Jewish identity altogether. Not “Holocaust Denial”; rather, “Holocaust Expropriation.”
(see www.BenedictDVD.com)