The Federation of Polish Jews in the United States said this week that it will demand suspension of Catholic-Jewish dialogue if a Carmelite convent built on the grounds of the former Auschwitz death camp is not removed forthwith.
The federation claimed that the furor aroused by the convent deterred plans by the Catholic Capuchin order to build a chapel on the site of Sobibor, another death camp in Poland, all of whose inmates were Jews.
Yechiel Dobekirer and Leon Ilutovich, vice presidents of the federation, said in a statement that “had this development gone unchecked, we would soon have witnessed the establishment of additional convents, churches or chapels at Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek and other places where millions of Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis.”
They criticized the Polish government for the convent being under its jurisdiction, saying “the government cannot be absolved of responsibility for developments like the one around the Carmelite convent in Auschwitz.”
The federation specifically held Polish Cardinal Franciszek Macharski “chiefly responsible” for the continued failure to remove the convent from Auschwitz.
Macharski was one of the European cardinals who signed an agreement with world Jewish leaders in February 1987 in Geneva, pledging that the convent would be relocated within two years.
A resolution adopted by the Federation stated:
“As spokesmen of the largest community of Polish Jews in the world, representing one million Jews from Poland, we condemn the behavior of the Polish Catholic church hierarchy, and the evasive attitude of the Vatican, which violate the letter and spirit of the 1987 accord.
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