Almost all the countries of the former communist regime inevitably experienced difficult moments. It was a transitional stage, a stage of grounding of a new situation, but it was also an opportunity that should not have been lost. The only opportunity to change the course of history, to transform relations between peoples, to close definitively the tragic chapter written by two totalitarianisms that, one by one, tried to suppress the freedom and spirit of Christianity in Europe.
Nothing could have had a more symbolic meaning than the presence of John Paul II and Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 23, 1996. A gate which, as the Pope mentioned, was occupied by two German dictatorships, the Nazi and then the Communist one, which “transformed” it into the Wall. The gate, which has now become “a witness to the fact that people, throwing off the yoke of slavery, have freed themselves from it”.
For the Holy Father it was a moving and full of emotions time, although, which I admit with certain bitterness, many people in Europe did not fully realize the enormous importance of this gesture of the Pope – passing through the Gate, which was a symbol of Hitler’s triumph. Not because it was the Pope – Karol Wojtyła. Then it was important to beatify the victims of concentration camps in the same stadium where the Olympic Games were held in the presence of Hitler.
The passage through the Brandenburg Gate was for John Paul II a sign of the definitive end of the Second World War, and the ceremony at the stadium was a visible seal of God’s victory in the terrible fight against evil.
With the consent of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “Testimony”.
TBA marketing communication Publishing House. Warsaw 2007
