More on Convent at Death Camp

The controversy surrounding the existence of a convent at Auschwitz truly does indicate “the need for a fundamental spiritual reappraisal of love and justice” as written by John K. Roth (“When a Faith Exalts Itself Over Others, Hatred Is Born,” Op-Ed Page, Aug. 25).

The Holocaust represents a logical culmination of Jewish-Christian relations. Historically, Martin Luther’s idea of the Jew as a Christ-killing, water-poisoning, plague-spreading, child-sacrificing unbeliever, unrepentant of his ways, formed a Christian strain of thought upon which Hitler built. The idea of a convent at Auschwitz jars the senses.

A fictional genocide in America may provide an apt analogy: World War II never occurred, therefore, neither did America benefit from the racial integration necessitated by the war effort. Race relations grew worse, the Constitution was suspended, and apartheid was imposed as a precursor of genocide. Out of 14 million black people in America, 6 million were herded into ghettos and then slaughtered systematically at various death factories nationwide. Forty years later, a white religious group decides to establish a shrine at the bloodiest of the grave sites, to the revulsion of the surviving black American community.

Roth’s pietistic ministrations notwithstanding, the first step towards “a fundamental spiritual reappraisal of love and justice” is for the nuns to turn the other cheek and leave these victims’ tortured souls--and those who survived--a chance to rest in peace.

ELLIS PAUL ROBIN, Los Angeles