'I could not fail to come here,' says Pope Benedict at historic Auschwitz visit
By Lily Galili

KRAKOW - The words "I could not fail to come here," with which Pope Benedict XVI opened his address at Auschwitz-Birkenau yesterday, were the same ones his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, uttered in this place in 1979. But what he said next made all the difference: "Pope John Paul II came here as a son of the Polish people. I come here today as a son of the German people. It is a duty to the truth, and the just due of all who suffered here."

Benedict described himself as "a son of that people over which a ring of criminals rose to power through false promises of future greatness and the restoration of the nation's honor, prominence and prosperity, but also through terror and intimidation." The result, he said, was "that our people was used and abused as an instrument of their thirst for destruction and power. Yes, I could not fail to come here." the rest