The World Jewish Congress called on Pope John Paul II this week to “exercise his authority” to order the prompt removal of a Carmelite convent from the grounds of the former Auschwitz concentration camp.
The resolution, adopted unanimously Monday at a meeting of the WJC Executive here, said the pontiff’s action was necessary to implement the agreement major European Catholic cardinals, including the cardinal of Krakow, Franciszek Macharski, signed with Jewish leaders on Feb. 22, 1987, in Geneva.
It stipulated that the nuns would vacate the convent in two years. But to date. they have made no effort to move, and recently they erected a cross on the grounds.
Explaining the resolution, WJC President Edgar Bronfman said, “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.”
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