PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND - May 8-15, 2009

At the Papa Ratzinger Forum I created a thread on JUDAISM AND THE JEWS -
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8335345
intended to promote not just basic knowledge about Judaism, but also the Catholic outreach to the Jews since Nostra aetate. I am I am re-posting this item from that thread about the Shoah and Yad Vashem as a quick backgrounder for the Pope's visit today.




The Shoah or Holocaust has been for all Jews after World War II the watershed of their modern history and the prism through which their life and their view of the world is refracted.

Yad Vashem - the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority based in Jerusalem -
yadvashem.org/
has an excellent site for acquainting anyone with all the aspects of the Shoah.
And so does the Unites States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washingnon, D.C.
www.ushmm.org/

The scope and magnitude of Nazi Germany's systematic program to exterminate the European Jewry challenges the imagination,
but a look at the map of the death camps and the list of victims who were killed throughout Europe gives an overview at a glance.






Below, left, the Hall of Rememberance at Yad Vashem with the pictures and names of Holocaust victims; right, bodies discovered at Auschwitz after the Allies liberated the camp.