Police blocking rabbis from protesting church at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The rabbis claim that the existence and presence of the church is a slight to the memory of those who perished and fell victim to the Holocaust.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Birkenau Church (photo credit: REUTERS)
Birkenau Church
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Rabbis gathering to protest at the gates of the infamous Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau against the presence of the church situated on site are allegedly being blocked by Polish police from entering the compound.
According to the rabbis, the presence of the church violates the 1987 agreement signed in Geneva between European cardinals and Jewish leaders, as well as violating the 1972 UNESCO Convention concerning the Protection of the World Culture and Natural Heritage site.
“There will, therefore, be no permanent Catholic place of worship on the site of the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps," the agreement stated.
Despite the "threats" and paths blocked by police vans, four rabbis, including Rabbi Avi Weiss, are continuing the protest to remove Christian symbolism from "the largest Jewish cemetery in the world."
“This church is housed in a building that once served as the Nazi commandant’s headquarters, where Jewish inmates, especially women, were tortured and raped," Weiss explained. "Allied photos clearly show that the Church is within the perimeter of the camp. From just about anywhere in Birkenau, looking up, one sees the Church's towering crosses, casting their shadows over the death camp."
The rabbis claim that the existence and presence of the church is a slight to the memory of those who perished and fell victim to the Holocaust.
"The Birkenau Church, with its inescapable Christian presence, represents one of today's most imminent threats to the integrity of Holocaust memory," Weiss believes. "Visitors and the world will come to believe that the Holocaust was an attempt at Christian genocide, when it was in fact an effort to completely and systematically wipe out all of the Jewish people.”
Some 1.1 million Jews were murdered in the camp, who constituted 95% of its victims.
To be clear, protesters aren’t suggesting that the people living in the village of Birkenau be deprived of their parish church. A church should be built for them in the village, away from the camp, according to Weiss.
"With the camps decaying, and when the survivors are gone – and when we, the second generation, also are gone – all that will be left at Birkenau will be the church and its crosses," Weiss said.


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