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World Youth Day pilgrims to flock to former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp

PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska 07.07.2016 09:30
The site of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz, in southern Poland, has received online bookings from nearly 300,000 young people from all over the world.
Photo: cc/wikipediaPhoto: cc/wikipedia

They intend to visit the former death camp during the upcoming World Youth Days in Kraków.

During the event, Auschwitz will be open only to the pilgrims. The deadline for online applications ended on 30 June.

In view of the large number of visitors, a special route has been prepared, with no possibility to enter the barracks and go through various permanent exhibitions.

But, as the director of the Auschwitz Museum, Piotr Cywiński, told the Polish Press Agency, “it is listening to the silence of the place that is of the greatest importance, not only to have a better understanding of history but also to have a clearer perception of the present and the future”.

Pope Francis will come to Auschwitz, located some 70 km from Kraków, the venue of the World Youth Days, on 29 July.

According to historians, it was on that day 75 years ago, that Polish Franciscan monk Father Maksymilian Kolbe volunteered to die in place of another inmate, who had a wife and children.

After two weeks in a starvation cell, he was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Father Kolbe was canonized in 1982. Pope Francis is to pray in silence in Father Kolbe’s cell, at the Wall of Death and at the memorial commemorating over one million victims of Auschwitz.

World Youth Days will run between 25 and 31 July. (mk/aba)

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