Pope Francis is planning to make a pilgrimage this summer to the crucible of Jewish pain — the Auschwitz death camp, NBC News reported.
While on a five-day visit to Poland, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church will visit the grim spot where the Nazis systematically murdered 1.1 million captives, the vast majority of them Jews, the Catholic News Agency reported Monday.
Francis will be following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who survived the German occupation of Poland and made a papal visit to Auschwitz in 1979, and Pope Benedict XVI, a German who was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a child during World War II and who made the somber trip in 2006.
The Vatican released the rest of the popular pontiff's itinerary for his trip to Poland, which starts July 27 when he arrives in Krakow.
