Benedict remembers victims of Holocaust

POPE Benedict XVI pledged yesterday to remember the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, seeking to repair strains with Jews over one of the most sensitive issues at the start of a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

But his calls for the establishment of a Palestinian homeland threatened to overshadow the visit by putting him at odds with his Israeli hosts. Benedict is using a week-long pilgrimage to the Holy Land to reach out to both Muslims and Jews. He spent three days in neighbouring Jordan before arriving in Israel.

“It is right and fitting that during my stay in Israel, I will have the opportunity to honour the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude,” the German-born pontiff told a welcoming ceremony at Israel’s international airport, using the Hebrew word for Holocaust. He later lay a wreath at Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. While Israel’s relations with the Vatican have improved greatly since Benedict’s predecessor John Paul II visited in 2000, differences remain, none deeper than the widespread belief in Israel that the Vatican did not do enough to halt the Nazi genocide. The Pope did not delve into any of the Holocaust-related controversies between Israel and the Vatican.