The Visit of Pope John Paul II to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem: March 23, 2000

Looking back over the life of the late Pope John Paul II, we note his historic visit to Yad Vashem in March 2000. The Pontiff’s remarks emphasized the imperative of remembering the Holocaust. He stressed the uniqueness and centrality of the Holocaust in the history of Western Christian civilization. An ideology as warped and destructive as the Nazi ideology could have developed "only in the absence of God" amidst the disappearance of basic human values. The Pope called for active, continual remembrance of the Holocaust. Not only must we empathize with and identify with the victims of the Holocaust and the suffering, but we, as human beings, should consider the struggle against evil as a principal goal in life. Each individual must consolidate the basic set of values that underlie our humanness. This is an important part of his legacy.