The Bread and the shawl

“Prophets still exist”. It is the Pope speaking at the end of his encounter with Edith Bruck at Casa Santa Marta. What stands out is the gesture, the posture: the two are standing, saying their farewells, hands in hands, eyes in eyes. Precisely the same way in which this second personal meeting of the Pope with the Auschwitz survivor had begun an hour earlier, far from the spotlight: the two embraced, in silence, or rather with fragmented, crumbled words, mostly made of “thank you”. I had the privilege of participating in their first meeting on 20 February 2021. After reading Francesca Romana de’ Angelis’ interview with Edith Bruck on L’Osservatore Romano on 26 January 2021, the Holy Father asked me to accompany him to visit Edith at her home. Now it is she who has come to reciprocate that visit, on Holocaust Remembrance Day. And ...