DISCUSSION 3B:  CROSSES AT AUSCHWITZ

INTRODUCTION

The so-called "War of the Crosses" began in 1979 with the return visit of the newly-anointed Polish Pope to his native land.  At a Mass at the former concentration camp, he described Auschwitz as the "Golgotha of the modern world."  That same year, Catholics erected a small cross by Bunker 2 in response to a papal declaration that the Vatican was initiating the beatification process for Edith Stein, a converted Jew who had become a Carmelite nun before her death in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The controversy escalated in 1984 when Carmelite nuns opened a convent near Auschwitz I in a brick building that had been used by the Nazis to store Zyklon B gas crystals.  By 1989, the nuns were refusing to abandon their quarters and had transferred the 26-foot cross used in John Paul II's 1979 service to a spot just outside the Auschwitz I wall where more than one hundred Polish resistance fighters had been executed by the Germans.  Outraged American Jewish activists staged an impromptu demonstration at the convent that resulted in them being drenched in paint and cement, and then pummeled, by Polish construction workers.

Ten years later, full reconciliation had yet to be realized.  Polish nationalists had erected some three hundred crosses in response to the threatened removal of the papal cross.  Ultimately, the Polish Parliament passed a law establishing a one-hundred-meter zone around Auschwitz and eight other Nazi camps.  Soldiers and police forcibly removed the crosses.  One zealot was arrested after announcing that he had placed explosives on the site to defend the crosses.  Other Jews and Christians worked to promote inter-faith dialogue and understanding.

READING ASSIGNMENT

Start by reading   The 1998 War Of Crosses Or Whose Holocaust Is It, Anyway?

Browse carefully in several of the web-sites listed below.

• Anieszka Tennant, "The Auschwitz Cross," Christianity Today (May 10, 2002).

• Jonathan Luxmoore, "Suspended Sentence For Pole At Center Of Auschwitz Controversy: Roman Catholic Found Guilty Of Racial Hatred For Placing Crosses At Nazi Camp," Christianity Today (January 24, 2000).

• Emma Klein, "The Battle Of Auschwitz," Tablet, October 23, 1999.

• "Polish Police Remove Crosses At Auschwitz," BBC News, May 28, 1999.

• "Poland Charges Auschwitz Campaigner," BBC News, March 2, 1999.

• "Polish Government Seeks Quick End To Auschwitz Cross Problem," Catholic World News (November 3, 1998).

• Auschwitz Cross, Wikipedia:  An entry from the on-line encyclopedia.

• "Sign of Folly," Excerpted by permission from James Carroll, Constantine's Sword.

• Auschwitz: Inside The Nazi State.  The companion web-site to a major PBS series.

THE DISCUSSION FORUM

PRIMARY QUESTIONS:  Was it appropriate that crosses be placed outside the wall at Auschwitz I?  How can this particular controversy be used as an entry point into a discussion of larger issues of national identity, theology, the meaning of suffering and the definition of the Holocaust?

ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS:  What did the Cross symbolize to different groups at Auschwitz?  What was the Holocaust?  Who were its victims and should there be any precedence given here in the enumeration of victims?  Who "owns" the Holocaust and who has the authority to tell its story or to engage in its commemoration?  Did the War of the Crosses represent an attempt to "Christianize" the Holocaust?

Crosses outside of Auschwitz I

This software is licensed
under the BC Commons License .