US & World

WARSAW, Poland (AP) ― Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Poland to an enthusiastic welcome Thursday as he began a four-day visit intended to honor predecessor John Paul II and further German-Polish reconciliation from the wounds of World War II.

Benedict beamed broadly and waved as he descended from the plane at Warsaw's international airport, and managed to keep his skullcap from flying off in a brisk breeze — unlike his arrival on his first foreign trip to Germany last year.

President Lech Kaczynski, a military honor guard and a crowd of about 1,000 people greeted the German-born pope, while more people holding white and yellow Vatican flags waited on the street to watch him pass by on his way into the city.

A choir sang "The Barge," John Paul's favorite song — just one sign of how the late pope remains a presence in Poland more than a year after his death.

"I have very much wanted to make this visit to the native land and people of my beloved predecessor, the servant of God John Paul II," Benedict said in remarks prepared for his arrival. "I have come to follow in the footsteps of his life."

Benedict planned a visit to the John Paul's hometown of Wadowice, as well as the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the Nazis killed some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews.

Last year, Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, that was destroyed by the Nazis, but his visit to Auschwitz is even more significant for a German who acknowledged serving in the Hitler Youth as a teenager and later deserted from the German army near the end of World War II.

Benedict tried some Polish with his formal hello to the honor guard: "Greetings, soldiers," but stumbled a bit over the words. He drew a roar of applause, however, as he launched into his welcoming speech in Polish, later switching to Italian.

Benedict spoke in both languages presumably out of regard for the wartime generation in Poland, which suffered enormously at the hands of the Nazi invaders.

But Poles like Benedict's emphasis on continuing John Paul's legacy and don't seem to mind that he is German despite the memory of the war. Catholic-Jewish relations were a favorite cause of John Paul, who also visited Auschwitz on his 1979 trip to Poland.

Asked by journalists on the plane how he felt about visiting Auschwitz as a German, Benedict said, "I am above all a Catholic. I must say that this is the most important point."

Organizers dropped initial plans for Benedict to ride through the Auschwitz gate under the infamous words "Arbeit Macht Frei" — "Work Sets You Free" — when it was recalled that Nazi soldiers drove through the gate while inmates walked. He will now arrive on foot.

"I expect like his predecessor he will remind Christians of the unique debt that Christianity owes to its Jewish parent," said George Weigel, an American biographer of John Paul.

The pontiff's schedule also included a Mass on Friday in central Warsaw where John Paul inspired the Solidarity movement with a landmark appearance in 1979 during communist rule.

Benedict's visit did not draw the same frenzied anticipation that characterized native son John Paul's visits, when thousands jammed the streets before dawn to watch him pass by.

"It's not the same as with our pope," said 75-year-old Wanda Nowicka, who was waiting on a downtown street to watch Benedict pass by on his way to his first stop at Warsaw's Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. "Our pope said this is my country. He knew what our problems were, he understood them, he cared."

"I was in Warsaw during World War II and the Warsaw Uprising, you can't imagine what we suffered from the Germans," she added. "But when I think of Benedict, this does not matter, I don't think of him as German.

The 1944 uprising — by Polish guerrillas against the occupying Germans — was met with terrible retaliation by Adolf Hitler that left the capital a heap of rubble.

Shortly after his election last year, Benedict said he saw a "providential design" in the fact that a Polish pope was succeeded by a German one.

"Both popes in their youth — both on different sides and in different situations — were forced to experience the barbarity of the Second World War," Benedict said.

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