Cardinal calls Holocaust Museum ‘a warning, a witness, and an appeal’

Vatican City, Mar 16, 2005 / 22:00 pm

On March 15^th, the new Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem Mausoleum in Jerusalem opened its doors. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, librarian of Holy Roman Church, and the Pope’s representative to the event, assured those gathered of the Church’s and the Holy Father’s solidarity.

The Pope visited Yad Vashem on March 23, 2000 during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is a monument to the memory of victims of the Holocaust and contains, among other things, several urns of ashes of victims from various concentration camps.
 
Cardinal Tauran said that, "The building that we have just inaugurated is, for the whole world, a warning, a witness and an appeal.”

In acknowledging the immensity of Jewish suffering, we come face to face with the obligation to be vigilant, with the need to reject indifference and with the terrifying void of a world without God."
 
The cardinal quoted from the Pope's January 15, 2005 message for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, saying that, "Pope John Paul II repeats once again this morning to all those who are willing to listen that when we remember the 'horrible crime committed against the Jewish nation' that was the Holocaust, we do so because 'these terrible events are for contemporary men and women a summons to responsibility, in order to build our history'."
 
"The Catholic Church," affirmed Cardinal Tauran, "respecting the uniqueness of Judaism and remaining linked in faith to its heritage, teaches that there is no place or reason for the hatred of Jews. This would be a sin against God and humanity."