Zevulun Hammer, Israel’s minister for religious affairs, began an official visit Sunday to Poland, where he hopes to deal, among other things, with the vexing question of the Carmelite convent on the grounds of the former Auschwitz death camp.
It is an issue that has seriously strained Jewish-Catholic relations. Hammer said before leaving Ben-Gurion Airport that he was already discussed the matter with his Polish ministerial counterpart and will continue them face-to-face.
He said he hoped that the convent and other matters could be resolved regardless of changes that might take place in the Polish Ministry of Religion or the Warsaw government as a whole.
The Israeli minister is visiting Poland at a time of momentous political events — the formation of that country’s first non-Communist-led government in 40 years.
Israel and Poland now have rudimentary diplomatic relations in the form of interest sections in Warsaw and Tel Aviv respectively.
Hammer noted that as a result of discussions he has had, a rabbi from Israel has taken up residence in Warsaw, where he serves as spiritual leader to a Polish Jewish community variously estimated at between 5,000 and 15,000 people.
Coinciding with Hammer’s visit to Poland is a visit by four Knesset members and by a group of “Mengele twins” and their relatives. Both groups will visit the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
“Mengele twins” are survivors of barbarous medical experiments performed on Auschwitz inmates by the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele.
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