The Jewish establishment has denounced a protest organized by Jewish students here Tuesday against the continued presence of a Carmelite convent on the grounds of the former Auschwitz death camp.
The Union of Belgian Jewish Students staged a 24-hour sit-in at a Catholic church. About 100 students and Holocaust survivors took part.
Bu the Jewish Central Consistory, the highest Jewish religious authority in Belgium, issued a communique condemning their action.
At issue is the apparent inability of the Catholic church to honor an agreement a delegation that included four cardinals signed with Jewish representatives in Geneva in 1987.
According to the agreement, the convent was to be removed from Auschwitz to another location by Feb. 22. But the church now says it cannot meet the deadline and has asked for more time.
Cardinal Albert Decourtray of Lyon, who headed the Catholic delegation in Geneva, made that appeal in a letter last week to Theo Klein, the French Jewish leader who headed the Jewish delegation.
Klein, president of CRIF, the representative body of major French Jewish organizations, declared that Jewish-Catholic relations would be suspended until the matter is resolved according to the 1987 agreement.
The Carmelites installed themselves at Auschwitz in 1985 to honor the memory of Edith Stein, a German-Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism and died at Auschwitz.
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