Pope Benedict XVI Visits Holocaust Memorial in Austria

Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Austria for three days. He will be paying silent tribute to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust at a memorial in Vienna. The Pope describes his visit as an expression of “sadness, repentance and friendship” toward the Jewish people.

While at the memorial, the Pope will be accompanied by the city’s chief rabbi, Paul Chaim Eisenberg, and together they will stand before a stone memorial to the 65,000 Viennese Jews who died in the Nazi concentration camps and elsewhere.

Austrian Archbishop Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said that the Pope’s silence will symbolize more than words, in addition to his encouraging faith exuding sympathy to those in their most desirable time of need.

The Pope also has intentions on visiting a Catholic shrine to the Virgin Mary.

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