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Pope kisses concentration camp tattoo on survivor's arm

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Philip Pullella, Reuters

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2021/reuters/05/26/pope-audience-auschwitz.jpg"/><figcaption>Pope Francis greets a Holocaust survivor Lidia Maksymowicz and kisses a concentration camp number tattooed on her arm after the weekly general audience at the San Damaso courtyard, at the Vatican, May 26, 2021. Vatican Media/ Handout via Reuters</figcaption></figure></div><p>VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis kissed the number tattooed on the arm of a survivor of medical experiments at the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp when she was introduced to him on Wednesday.</p><p>The pope listened intently as a Polish priest who accompanied Lidia Maksymowicz, 80, told him of her story.</p><p>She then rolled up her left sleeve to show him the number - 70072. He kissed it and she hugged him.</p><p>Maksymowicz and her family were taken from their home in Belarus to the Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland in December 1943, shortly before her third birthday.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/05/03/21/austrias-newest-citizens-reclaim-birthright-stolen-by-the-nazis">Austria&#x27;s newest citizens reclaim birthright stolen by the Nazis</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01/14/20/how-the-nazis-carried-out-their-final-solution">How the Nazis carried out their &#x27;Final Solution&#x27;</a></li></ul><p>She was put in a children&#x27;s barracks, where she and others were the subjects of medical experimentation by Doctor Josef Mengele, according to a documentary about her life.</p><p>After the liberation of the camp in 1945, Russian soldiers assumed her mother Anna - tattooed with the number 70071 - was dead. She was adopted and raised by a Catholic Polish family.</p><p>Born Ludmila Boczarowa, she did not know her birth mother had survived and they were briefly reunited shortly before her mother&#x27;s death in the early 1960s.</p><div><strong> RELATED VIDEO:</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1693435" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div><p>Maksymowicz, who lives in Krakow, Poland, is the subject of a documentary called &quot;70072: The Girl Who Couldn&#x27;t Hate. The true story of Lidia Maksymowicz&quot;.</p><p>She often meets young people in schools to discuss the dangers of extremism and populism.</p><p>The Nazis and their allies murdered around 6 million Jews, as well as others, in German-occupied Europe.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/06/09/09/20000-nazi-camps-ghettos-wwii-europe-report">20,000 Nazi camps, ghettos in WWII Europe: report</a></li></ul><p>More than a million people, most of them Jews, were killed at Auschwitz. The vast majority were gassed to death.</p><p>Francis, who was holding a general audience in the Vatican&#x27;s San Damaso Courtyard, visited Auschwitz in 2016. </p><div><strong>(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alison Williams)</strong></div><div><strong> RELATED VIDEO: </strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WfLpWkzPdGI?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

<p>Pope Francis kissed the number tattooed on the arm of a survivor of medical experiments at the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp when she was introduced to him on Wednesday.<br /> </p>

Pope Francis kissed the number tattooed on the arm of a survivor of medical experiments at the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp when she was introduced to him on Wednesday.

Pope kisses concentration camp tattoo on survivor's arm

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Pope kisses concentration camp tattoo on survivor's arm

Philip Pullella,

Reuters

Published May 26, 2021 08:43 PM PHT

Read More:

Ludmila Boczarowa

Pope Francis

Nazi

Lidia Maksymowicz

70072

Vatican

general audience

Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp

overseas

ANC

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