With people marching through downtown Charlottesville, Va., in crash helmets, carrying shields and truncheons and giving Nazi salutes, there can’t be much question of the need for everybody to review the history of Christian- Jewish relations since the world learned the horrors of Auschwitz in the Second World War, says the director of the Institute for Jewish- Catholic Relations at Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s University.

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 16:13). This is the Gospel that St. Maximilian Kolbe preached with his life and death. On the 75th anniversary of his death (Aug. 14), the Church celebrated his heroic sacrifice in 1941 when he volunteered his life in place of a fellow Auschwitz inmate.

KRAKOW, Poland – Humankind's cruelty did not end with the Holocaust, but rages on in the suffering of those living through war, homelessness and persecution, Pope Francis said.

Walking through the Auschwitz-Birkeneau concentration camps was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

VATICAN CITY – Tears and not words. Prayers and not greetings. During his trip to Poland for World Youth Day, Pope Francis will go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp. He said he wants to go alone and say nothing.

MONTREAL – Leon Celemencki looked at the group of young adults heading to the World Youth Day celebration in Krakow, Poland, in July, asking about their planned side trip to the notorious Nazi concentration camp known as Auschwitz.

AURORA, ONT. – When a gang of pretty high school girls spot 87-year-old Max Eisen they all shout “Max!” and shuffle over for a hug and a chat with the man who showed them the inside of Auschwitz last summer.

Life has a knack for continuously shaping our perspectives, for changing how we view the world through exposure to new experiences and ideas. These changes can be gradual or arrive in a sudden rush of mind-blowing revelation, as happened when my life was changed by my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

WARSAW, Poland - Catholic leaders joined in commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where 1.2 million mostly Jewish prisoners were killed by the Nazis during the Second World War.