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The Convent at Auschwitz

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After a trip to Poland in April/May of this year, I became very interested in the history of the country . My interest was enhanced by my amazement in finding the names of 3 men who shared my family name and who had died at Auschwitz. They were Polish freedom fighters.

This book explains the controversy surrounding a convent of Carmelite nuns who went to Auschwitz to pray for the people who had died there. The seemingly innocent idea became an international news story with Christian and Jewish groups at odds as to whether the nuns should be allowed to stay. All concerned had heartfelt and valid reasons that formed their opinions and the history of Poland and Auschwitz were at the center of the conflict.

Auschwitz was first opened in June 1940 and for the first 21 months only Poles were housed there. They were mostly the intelligentsia and 270,000 of them were killed at the site. Later, it became a death camp for the Jews, and Birkenau, which was nearby, was built for the elimination of the Jews taken there. The Jews of Europe felt that they had been the group who had suffered the most at the hands of the Nazis; however, the Polish people felt that they had also been pin pointed for extermination. Actually, more Jews were killed in the death camps of Germany, but most of those camps were destroyed before the end of the War II. Since Auschwitz is intact, it has become the symbol of Jewish martydom for Jews of the world.

As an American, I grew up seeing films of the holocaust and have always been aware of the terrible sufferings of the millions of European Jews who were killed. I really had no idea that Poland and her people were also chosen to be eliminated.

In 1939, The Boundary and Friendship Treaty was signed between Stalin and Hitler. The Treaty had provisions for the extermination of the Polish people who opposed and fought against either Russia or Germany. Early in 1940, 45% of the officers of the Polish Army were shot and any Pole with a secondary education was considered a danger within occupied Poland. Killing the leaders and anyone with an education was the rule for the subjugation of the Polish people. The penalty for trying to save a Jew was death for yourself and sometimes for your entire family.

Since both the people of Poland and the Jews of Europe suffered within the confines of Auschwitz, all concerned consider Auschwitz their history.

This is an excellent book.

This is an excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in the history of Polish-Jewish relations in the 20th century and the relationship of the Roman Catholic church and Jews during the same period.

The author brings to this discussion nearly impeccable credentials. A Roman-Catholic Pole, he was a prisoner at Auschwitz (camp I) from 1940-41. After the war, he spent years fighting Communism (imprisoned 1946-48, 49-54 and 81-83). He has enjoyed a distinguished career as a journalist and diplomat for his country. In addition, Bartoszewski is an honorary citizen of the State of Israel because of his actions to save Jews in WWII. There are few people as honorable or as qualified to discuss this topic.

The great strength of this book is that Bartoszewski is able to present both points of view--that of the Roman Catholics, who want their religious commemoration to be allowed in Auschwitz, and that of the Jews, who find such commemoration insensitive and even horrifying. His presentation is very clear and fair. As Bartoszewski shows, the controversy is largely the result of both sides refusing to try to understand the nuances of the "other's" point of view. Bartoszewski also shows how the controversy has been hijacked by extremists on both sides and how it fits into the unresolved scars of the Jewish experience in Poland during the Holocaust and immediately after it.

The only downside is that the book was written in 1991 and does not cover recent developments related to issue, including the removal of the convent in 1993 and the erection of hundreds of crosses in the camp by Roman-Catholic extremists (some of these crosses have since been removed also).

Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski gives a good rundown of the Auschwitz Carmelite controversy, but also includes some whoppers. He repeats the myth of Saint Kolbe's prewar anti-Semitic writings (p. 8), and implicitly denies the fact that the Nazis planned eventually to exterminate the Poles (p. 14). In actuality, Hitler, Himmler, Frank, Globocnik, and others repeatedly spoke of the eventual disappearance of Poles--but after Germany won the war. He makes the false statement that there was no Polish Quisling because the Germans never wanted one (p. 15), when in fact they unsuccessfully approached some Poles (e. g., Prince Radziwill, Jan Karski) for this ignoble role. Most incredible of all is his degrading of the hundred thousand Polish gentile victims of Auschwitz through his statement that, unlike Jews, Poles weren't gassed (p. 11). Surely death is death, whether from gassing or from shooting, hanging, overwork, starvation, etc. Ironically, about half of the 5-6 million murdered Jews weren't gassed either!

Bartoszewski (also Jan Tomasz Gross) asserts that Poles' reference to the Zydokomuna is prompted by the conceit that Poles are too patriotic to support Communism (p. 17). Actually, Polish writings indicate full Polish admission of the fact of, and scornful rejection of, Polish gentile Communists. Clearly, Polish complaints about the Zydokomuna stem from the DISPROPORTIONATE degree of Jewish-Communist collaboration, which implies a comparison-baseline of PROPORTIONATE support, which in turn implies that Jews are being held to the same standard as Poles. Had Poles instead been complaining that the extent of Jewish-Communism collaboration was not proportionately LESS than that of Polish-Communist collaboration, then one could validly say that Jews were unfairly being held to a higher moral standard!

Bartoszewski quotes Vidal-Naquet, who wrote: "As a Jew I have to say that Jewish historiography has a tendency to take only what happened to the Jews into account and neglect what the others were subjected to." (p. 11).

However, Bartoszewski alleges a comparable Polish attitude towards Jews, buying into the argument that the past tendency to lump Polish Jews with gentiles was intentionally done in order to imply that they both suffered equally (p. 14). This is a non-sequitur, for at least four reasons. To begin with, to speak of the Polish Jews' near-extermination is disingenuous, as this would make sense only if Polish Jews were the world's only Jews. Second, Polish gentiles were also lumped together although they didn't suffer equally either. For instance, Prussian Poles suffered more than those of the General Government. Some 50% of Polish intellectuals were murdered by the Germans, as against "only" 10% of non-intellectuals. Third, postwar Polish policies were typical in that the wholesale exulting of Jewish over gentile victims of the Nazis did not gain currency, among either Jews or gentiles, until some 20 years after the war. Fourth, Polish Jewish victims were at least acknowledged, even if subsumed under overall Polish losses. In contrast, the vast majority of modern Holocaust materials are so Judeocentric that Polish victims of the Nazis don't exist AT ALL.

Edith Stein is treated inconsistently by Jews (p. 76). On one hand, they have made her into a bone of contention even though she is, by virtue of her conversion to Christianity, supposed to be long dead to the Jewish community!

Bartoszewski provides the full text of Cardinal Glemp's homily (pp. 109-111), for which he has been reviled as an anti-Semite. Why? For pointing out the obvious--that Jews have sometimes wronged Poles no less than the reverse, that Jews frequently speak to Poles in a condescending manner, and that Jews have considerable access to the media? [Glemp did NOT say that Jews control the media].

We keep hearing the Jewish fear that the Holocaust will be forgotten. But considering the mountains of largely-Judeocentric media and educational Holocaust materials throughout the west, far exceeding that on all others' genocides combined, how can this fear be anything other than irrational, or a smokescreen? The convent is supposed to "Christianize the Holocaust", cause the forgetting of the Jewishness of most Auschwitz victims, etc. What amazing, unearthly powers those Carmelite nuns must have!

Much attention is devoted to Christians abandoning their historic attitudes towards Jews (e. g., Vatican II on deicide), but it seems that reciprocity is seldom asked for. In fact, some critics of the Carmelite convent seem to be driven by historic anti-Christian Jewish prejudices: "...few Jews regard Christianity as a religion that shares their heritage. They are more likely to consider it a schism or a heresy in the name of which Jews were, for centuries persecuted throughout Europe." (p. 72).

According to Bartoszewski, Jews, in contrast to Christians don't believe that places such as Auschwitz should include such things as religious symbols, places of worship, the reciting of prayers, etc. (p. 35, 155-156). Otherwise, smokescreens aside, one motive behind the opposition of some Jews to the convent is undoubtedly the "victim chauvinism" inherent in the Holocaust-uniqueness position, as is obvious from Edgar Bronfman: "...it is not only a matter of the Auschwitz convent, but the broader implications of historical revisionism in which the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the murder of the Jewish people is being suppressed." (p. 77).

Interestingly, some Jews went on record supporting the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz (pp. 39-40, 76, 93, 101, 106). In particular, Jonathan Webber, a prominent British Jew, asked: "How come, in this age of pluralism and multi-cultural reconciliation, that we find it so emotive that members of another faith wish to pray at or near a place that has been hallowed (if that is the right word) by massive Jewish martyrdom?" (p. 84). Alma Perepletnik commented: "My parents were Jews who perished in Auschwitz. The last postcard they sent from the camp at Drancy before deportation was addressed to a nun. It included the words: `Pray for us.'" (p. 156).