Oświęcim, Poland — (CNN) Pope Francis arrived on Friday at Auschwitz, the notorious former German Nazi concentration camp in Poland, in a historic visit to pay tribute to the more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, who lost their lives there during World War II.
The Pope arrived in the early morning for his first-ever trip to Auschwitz, and chose to sit alone for some time by a tree, solemnly reflecting in the deathcamp, where horrific wartime torture and killings were carried out during the occupation of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
His visit comes as the Pope warns that the world is at war and that a World War III could erupt if divisions are not addressed.
World Youth Day
The Pope visited various cells where prisoners were held, sitting in the middle of one in prayer, making the sign of the cross before visiting others.
Among the cells was that which held the Polish Catholic priest Maximillian Kolbe, who died in 1941 when he volunteered to take the place of another prisoner set to be executed.
The Pope will also visit Birkenau, a nearby camp, where memorial plaques for Christian, Polish and Soviet victims are on display, and where a rabbi will sing Psalm 130, a song dedicated to the departed.
The Pope’s five-day visit to Poland marks his first trip to the predominantly Catholic Eastern European country.
Central to his trip is World Youth Day — an event organized by the church that draws young Catholics on pilgrimages from around the world every two or three years. Young people from 187 countries are expected to attend.
World is at war
On Thursday, he delivered an outdoor Mass before a huge gathering of young Catholics in Krakow on the 1,050th anniversary of Poland’s “baptism” as a Catholic country.
On his flight to Poland Wednesday, the Pope addressed the recent slaying of a Catholic priest in Normandy, France, by two jihadists who declared their allegiance to ISIS.
He told reporters that “the world is at war,” but stressed it was not a war of religion.
“The world is at war because it has lost peace,” he said. “There is a war of interests, there is a war for money, a war for natural resources, a war to dominate people,” he said.
Earlier in the day at a separate mass in the southern Polish city of Czestochowa, the 79-year-old Pope stumbled and fell after appearing to trip on a step. He was swiftly assisted by members of the clergy, and the service continued without interruption.
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