Learning from history
Fleischner, Eva
AUSCHWITZ CONVENT LEARNING FROM HISTORY RESOLUTION BY CATHOLICS & JEWS On February 22, 1987 a Catholic delegation composed of the archbishops of Lyons, Paris, Brussels, and Cracow met outside...
...In a joint statement it affirmed the special significance to Jews of Auschwitz167 Birkenau...
...At the same time, there is movement among Jews as well...
...To Jews, the establishment of the convent in the place which, more than any other, has come to symbolize the murder of the Jewish people by the Nazis, was a denigration of Jewish suffering...
...Together with the Geneva meeting both events lead one to hope that, forty-five years after one of history's greatest evils, Jews and non-Jews are capable of a new willingness to listen to each other...
...EVA FLEISCHNER Eva Fleischner, who has written widely on Judaism and Christianity, discussed the Auschwitz Carmelite convent in Commonweal last June...
...A first meeting took place last July in Geneva...
...While some will disagree with the decision (some Jewish as well as Catholic voices have been heard in defense of the convent), it seems to me a welcome sign that the Catholic church is willing at long last to take into account Jewish self-understanding, and to leam from one of history's harshest lessons...
...the nuns would move to a new location, part of an interreligious center to be built about one mile from the camp...
...The ensuing controversy threatened to strain the new relationship between Catholics and Jews that has been in the making since Vatican II...
...The recent international conference, sponsored by the U.S...
...Soon afterward, upon the urging of Cardinal Lustiger of Paris, an international commission was established that included Jewish members, to consider the divisive issue...
...A year ago Cardinal Macharski, in whose diocese of Cracow Auschwitz is situated, attempted to reassure Jews that the convent was intended only as a place of prayer and expiation...
...AUSCHWITZ CONVENT LEARNING FROM HISTORY RESOLUTION BY CATHOLICS & JEWS On February 22, 1987 a Catholic delegation composed of the archbishops of Lyons, Paris, Brussels, and Cracow met outside Geneva with Jewish spokesmen...
...The outcome of the five-hour meeting was a joint communique, stating that the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz would be closed...
...Catholics, on the other hand, responded that the nuns' presence was appropriate, since millions of non-Jews, in particular Poles, also had been murdered at Auschwitz...
...This decision comes at the end of nearly two years of tension that had developed between Catholics and Jews (see "Contemplation and Controversy: Carmelite Monastery at Auschwitz," Commonweal June 20, 1986 and October 24, 1986...
...Holocaust Memorial Council, on "Other Victims: NonJews Persecuted by the Nazis," held in Washington February 23-25, is an important step toward giving greater recognition to non-Jews murdered by the Nazis...
...The February 22 decision to move the convent is the result of continuing dialogue...
Vol. 114 • March 1987 • No. 6
