Pope Francis asked God to forgive those responsible for the World War II killings of over a million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau during a visit to the German Nazi death camp in southern Poland on Friday.
“Lord, have mercy on your people. Lord, forgive us such cruelty,” Francis wrote in the Guest Book of the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum.
Francis visited the former concentration camp near Krakow as part of his five-day trip to Poland for the World Youth Day celebrations being held in the city and attended by 1.5 million pilgrims from around the world.
The pope toured the camp on foot alone and in silence, with his head bowed. During the visit, he met and blessed camp survivors and placed a candle at the Death Wall, where prisoners were executed by the Nazis.
Francis also prayed at the prison cell of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic friar who opted to be executed to save the life of a father. The Catholic Church made him a saint in 1982.
A total 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died at Auschwitz-Birkenau in what was Nazi-occupied Poland.
Later on Friday, Francis was due to visit the paediatric hospital of Prokocim, before leading a Via Crucis with the participants of World Youth Day in Krakow.
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