German-born Pope Benedict prayed on Sunday at the site where Nazis
killed 335 Italian men and boys and denounced one of the worst
atrocities of the Second World War as “the most horrendous form of
evil.”
Benedict visited the Ardeatine Caves
on Rome’s southern outskirts and prayed there together with Rome’s chief
Rabbi Riccardo di Segni.
Seventy-five of the victims were Jews.
In his brief comments at the haunting
underground site, Benedict, who was a member of the Hitler Youth when
membership was compulsory and later served a German anti-aircraft
artillery, called it a “painful memorial of the most horrendous form of
evil”.
On March 23, 1944, Italian partisans
set a bomb on a narrow street, killing 33 German policemen who were part
of the occupying powers in Rome.
In retaliation, a furious Hitler
approved the murder of 10 Italians for each German killed and ordered
that it should be carried out within 24 hours.
The victims of the reprisal, who
eventually numbered five more than had been ordered by Hitler, were all
shot in the back of the neck in the caves. The Germans later blew up the
caves in a vain attempt to try to hide the massacre.
Benedict, speaking at the national
monument where many of the victims are buried, said the massacre showed
“the abyss that men can be sucked into when, spurred by blind violence,
they abandon their own dignity as children of God and their fraternity
among themselves”.
Jewish groups welcomed the words of condemnation.
“This latest gesture by the
German-born Benedict is a further dramatic step in binding the wounds
that have disturbed Vatican-Jewish relations in recent years,” said Elan
Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust
Survivors and their Descendants.
But Steinberg lamented the fact that
ex-Nazi Captain Erich Priebke, who was sentenced to life in prison for
his role in the massacre, is currently under house arrest and is allowed
to go on shopping trips and other excursions.
“This is a grave offence against man.
Those massacred at the Ardeatine caves by Erich Priebke were patriotic
sons of Italy. Their memories, and the pope’s moving visit, should not
be dishonoured and we call on legal authorities to put an end to this
perversion of justice,” Steinberg said.