WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s Roman Catholic Church has invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz during his expected visit to Poland in May, a church spokesman said Thursday.
Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Archbishop of Krakow who was the late Pope John Paul II’s longtime aide, invited Benedict to visit Auschwitz and two cities associated with John Paul’s life, his spokesman said.
"The archbishop of Krakow said he has invited the pope to visit Krakow, Wadowice and Auschwitz and a separate invitation has come from the sanctuary of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska," spokesman Rev. Robert Necek told The Associated Press.
Necek reiterated that the German-born pope is expected to visit Poland in the second half of May, but refused to confirm a report in the Rzeczpospolita daily that it would be from May 25-28.
German authorities built Auschwitz in southern Poland when they occupied the country during World War II. Some 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died in its gas chambers or from harsh conditions between 1940-45.
Wadowice is the southern Polish town where the former Pope John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla in 1920. Krakow is where he lived for more that 40 years and served as a priest and bishop, before being elected pope in 1978.
Wojtyla made pilgrimages to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska with his father as a boy, and later as a priest.
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