Vatican City, Jan 24, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Yesterday, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore participated in the UN General Assembly commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by allied troops.
"My delegation," said Archbishop Migliore, "welcomes this chance to remember the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, so that humanity not forget the terror of which man is capable; the evils of arrogant political extremism and social engineering."
"Today we contemplate the consequences of intolerance, as we recall all those ... considered unfit for society - the Jews, the Slavonic peoples, the Roma people, the disabled, homosexuals, among others - (who) were marked for extermination."
The death camps, he went on, "are also witnesses to an unprecedented plan for the deliberate, systematic extermination of a whole people, the Jewish people. ... During his visit to Auschwitz in 1979, Pope John Paul the Second stated that we must let the cry of the people martyred there change the world for the better."