The Carmelite Nuns at Auschwitz

Deena Metzger’s reflection about the Catholic convent at Auschwitz is well-intentioned but misguided.

The essential flaw with her reasoning, as with having a convent on the site of the death camps, is to be found in the article’s sub-title: “A Jew Finds Peace in Carmelites’ Convent.”

Our culture is obsessed with finding peace. Often such a goal is laudable, but often it involves a denial of reality and a callousness toward the suffering of other human beings.

To feel inner peace on the site of the murder of so many millions is an outrage. To seek to do so is an extraordinary profession of ego-centrism.

Rather than seeking to dull the pain, the pointless and brutal murders at the Nazi camps should provoke a sense of horror, rage and resolve. Openness to pain is the necessary prerequisite to taking action--action to assure that no human being need ever suffer at the hands of another for reasons of bigotry, bias or hatred.

From pain comes empathy and a will to act.

For that reason as well, the convent must go.

RABBI BRADLEY S. ARTSON

Mission Viejo