Bielsko-Biala, Poland, Jul 29, 2016 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp welcomed Pope Francis’ Friday visit and asked the world to remember the suffering that took place there.
“It is important for me and I am very excited,” Lidia Maksimovic, 75, told journalists at the camp July 29. “It is not possible to forget about these horrible things and it is important also that people would come here and would see and learn what happened here. So that all that happened here would never happen again.”
Maksimovic is a survivor of the Auschwitz-Brikenau concentration camp run by the Nazis in Poland. As many as 1.5 million people died at the Auschwitz complex, including St. Maximilian Kolbe.
On Friday Pope Francis visited several parts of the complex. He prayed in silence for several minutes at the courtyard of the original camp, known as Auschwitz I. He was then taken by car to the infamous Block 11 building. There, he was welcomed by Poland’s Prime Minister, Beata Szydlo.
He prayed for a moment in silence.
Among those present for his visit was a group of ten men and women who had survived the Holocaust, among whom was Maksimovic.
Her family was of Russian origin living in Nazi-occupied territory in what is now Belarus. The Nazis suspected them of collaborating with the Soviet Union, and they were shipped to Auschwitz with about 1,500 other civilians.
She was stripped naked and tattooed with a number on her arm. She was three years old.
“I was numbered in my left hand as a prisoner. I have it from my childhood,” she told CNA.
Part of the camp served as a laboratory for Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s human experiments.
“We were divided into two groups. I belonged to the group of strong and healthy children from which Doctor Mengele personally choose the children for his targets for medical experiments,” Maksimovic said.
“The most difficult time for us, for mothers and children was the moment of numbering and division,” she said. “They divided children from the mothers. Moms hugged their children and did not want to leave them, but babies were pulled out from their embraces and thrown out as animals. All women were crying. Kicking them, the Nazis forced them to go out to the specially prepared barracks.”
“We as children saw our mothers take off all their clothes and then they were shaved. We children could not recognize our mothers because we have never seen them in that conditions,” she said.
“Then our moms were dressed in those clothes which you can see here presented at the museum. They were blue and gray uniforms with wooden shoes.”
The children were sent to the children’s barracks.
“We were looking to the other children, to the places where they lived and it was horrible, not like you see it now,” she said. “Now everything is clean… at that time, it was dirty and excrement was around. There were no toilets or clean water.”
It took nearly 20 years for her to be reunited with her mother following the liberation of the camps by Allied forces.
Pope Francis chose to maintain silence in prayer and not give remarks at Auschwitz.
Maksimovic considered this a good choice.
“This place is the place of silence,” she said. “If someone can say something, they have to say that people have suffered here and were lowered to the very bottom.”
"In the hands of young people is the future of the world, and what the world will look like depends on them. It is important that the youth know what happened here in this place, (so that they do) not allow it to happen again." Lidia Maksimovic (Bocarova) 75 years, is one of the survivors of the Birkenau concentration camp. Born into a Russian family, Lidia was not a Jew; nonetheless, the Nazis imprisoned her in the camp for 2 years. The ID number tattooed on her arm has remained her whole life. ???? by Alan Holdren / @catholicnewsagency
A photo posted by Catholic News Agency (@catholicnewsagency) on Jul 29, 2016 at 6:36am PDT
Article Archive
The story of a Holocaust survivor who encountered Pope Francis
Related Articles • More Articles
A Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish procession honoring the patroness of Cuba on Sept. 7, 2023. / Credit: Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Havana, CubaACI Prensa Staff, Mar 28, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).The regime of President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba has prohibited several Holy Week processions in different cities of the country, including the El Vedado area of Havana as well as in Bayamo, a town that was the scene of major protests earlier this month.Last week, ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner, reported on the prohibition of processions in the Diocese of the Most Holy Savior located in the Bayamo-Manzanillo area in the province of Granma, due to the regime's fear that new protests would break out. The prohibition has been extended to the capital, Havana, according to a Catholic priest.In a March 25 Facebook post, Father Lester Zayas, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in the El Vedado business district of Havana, reported that the day before he had been notifie...
The Catholic faithful gathered in the Cenacle in Jerusalem for the Mass of the Lord's Supper that the Franciscan friars celebrated on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. The Cenacle is at the center of strong tensions and disputes regarding ownership and rights of access and celebration. An ancient tradition places King David's tomb here and over the centuries Jews and Muslims have leveraged this to first expel the Franciscans and then to prevent Christian worship, which they deemed sacrilegious. / Credit: Marinella BandiniJerusalem, Mar 28, 2024 / 17:15 pm (CNA).On Holy Thursday, the doors of the Cenacle in Jerusalem were opened to welcome the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land. In this "Upper Room," called the Cenacle in the Holy Land, Jesus had his Last Supper, washed his apostles' feet, and instituted the Eucharist. It was here that the Franciscans celebrated the Mass of the Lord's Supper, reenacting those same gestures. (At the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher,...
The Oregon State Capitol in Salem. / Credit: Zack Frank/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 28, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is reporting a significant rise in assisted suicide prescriptions and deaths in the state, a move that comes after authorities in 2022 began allowing out-of-state residents to access the lethal services.Since the state's passage of the "Death with Dignity Act" in 1997, assisted suicide numbers have been generally rising there, with a markedly sharp uptick since 2013. OHA on March 20 released its 2023 assisted suicide data summary that reported a considerable increase in suicide prescriptions in 2023. The study found that assisted suicide prescriptions in the state rose from 433 in 2022 to 560 last year.Of those 560 prescriptions, 367 people are known to have died from ingesting the suicide "medications." This is up from the 304 who died from assisted suicide drugs in Oregon in 2022.Over half, or 56%, of the assisted ...