Within the last year and half I have traveled four times to Poland. I have by no means covered the broad expanse of this great country, but I have managed to visit Warsaw, Sulwalki, Lublin, Kraków, Oswęciem, Wadowice; I have spent much time in Katowice in Upper Silesia, and its surrounding towns such as Tychy, … Read more
“On the face of every human being, especially when marked by tears and sufferings, we can and must see the face of Christ.” ∼ Blessed Paul VI We reached Poland early that morning, the long bus drive through the night bringing us first to Czestochowa, where the Black Madonna, Poland’s most sacred icon, has for more than … Read more
I was in Kraków, and I knew I would go to Auschwitz sometime, but I didn’t know when. It was inevitable but unplanned—you can’t plan to visit Auschwitz like you plan to visit the Wieliczka Salt Mines. Then I was wandering around the streets of Kraków one morning and suddenly I hailed a cab. After … Read more
About a month ago, up at 2am with a sick baby, I found myself watching a documentary about the modern-day descendants of prominent officials of the Third Reich. Entitled Hitler’s Children, it examined the lives of modern-day descendants of high-ranking Nazi officials such as Hermann Goring, Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Höss. None of them Nazi … Read more
Arthur Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, was such a strong voice against the Axis that when he died in 1943, King George VI expressed frustration that protocol prevented his attendance at the Requiem. When King George V and Queen Mary had attended the Requiem for the exiled Empress Eugenie at the Benedictine abbey in Farnborough in 1920, a … Read more
One of the funniest men who ever lived, W.C. Fields, whose mask of comic malevolence will live forever, was asked once if he liked children. He replied instantly: “I like children—fried.” His view of dogs and women was scarcely any better. Women he regarded rather as elephants: “I like to look at ‘em, but I … Read more
Standing up against the cold, pale sky were the words ‘Arbeit macht frei,’ etched so succinctly, that when I closed my eyes I still saw the letters definitive shapes. The words were used as a false hope for those within its iron claws. ‘Work makes one free,’ is just one of the lies imposed upon … Read more