Anti-Waldheim Activists Plan Vatican Protest

American and European Jewish activists, vowing to mount demonstrations in St. Peter’s Square, arrived in Rome on Tuesday on the eve of a two-day state visit to the Vatican by Austrian President Kurt Waldheim.

Waldheim, who has been placed on a U.S. Justice Department “watch list” for covering up his involvement with a German army unit that deported Greek and Yugoslav Jews and partisans to Nazi death camps in 1942-44, was to arrive in Rome late today.

The state visit, which has raised a storm of protest from Jewish groups around the world, will be Waldheim’s first since he was elected Austrian president on June 8, 1986.

Four U.S. Jewish activists, led by Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale, N.J., said on their arrival Tuesday at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport that they would link up with other protesters from throughout Europe and elsewhere.

“We plan to demonstrate wherever Waldheim goes, including in St. Peter’s Square, if we get permission from police,” Weiss told reporters. “We will continue to insist that the visit should not take place. We will not beg this, because we are very proud. We will insist.”

The Americans, members of a U.S. Jewish activist group called Coalition for Concern, said some protesters would dress in the garb worn by Jewish inmates of the World War II Nazi death camps.

The Vatican confirmed Tuesday that Waldheim will have an official audience with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican at 11 a.m. Thursday and will be welcomed with the full honors of a visiting head of state.

Meanwhile, world Jewish leaders warned the Vatican that a historic 20-year effort at reconciliation has been gravely endangered by the Pope’s decision to meet Waldheim.

A strongly worded letter sent on their behalf to Cardinal Jan Villebrands, the Vatican official in charge of relations with the Jews, said the Pope’s decision to grant Waldheim an audience “is a terrible blow to the future of Jewish-Vatican relations.”