POPE JOHN PAUL II AND WOMAN HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR DURING YAD VASHEM VISIT, 2000-03-23 (photo)

Pope John Paul II reaches out to touch Edith Tzirer, a Holocaust survivor, as he meets with six survivors in the "Hall of Remembrances" in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial complex in Jerusalem March 23. The Pope honoured the memory of the six-million Jews exterminated by the Nazis during World War II and expressed heartfelt grief for centuries of Christian persecution of Jews. Tzirer, with tears running down her cheeks in the ceremony, recalls that that on the day of liberation a young priest, Karol Wojtyla, gave her a piece of bread and a cup of tea and then carried her on his back to a railway station where she linked up with other concentration camp survivors. Karol Wojtyla went on to become Pope John Paul II. JWH/WS/MMR