Glemp Reverses Stand, Backs Move of Convent at Auschwitz

Polish Cardinal Jozef Glemp, who caused an international storm by calling for cancellation of an agreement to remove a convent at Auschwitz, has reversed his stand and agreed that the convent should be moved from the death camp.

The Polish primate said in a letter to Sigmund Sternberg, chairman of the international Council for Christians and Jews, that the Carmelite convent should be moved as soon as possible.

“There is a great deal of ill feelings and misunderstanding which we would like to clear up. We are a people of our word. . . . Auschwitz should never be a place of controversy,” Glemp wrote.

Sternberg said Glemp’s letter was drafted at a meeting with Jewish leaders in London on Wednesday night.

“He has seen we are reasonable people and reason prevailed,” Sternberg said. “I found Glemp ready to listen.”

Glemp earlier had outraged Jewish groups around the world with comments many of them called anti-Semitic. He accused Jews of raising themselves above other people in protests against the presence of the convent at the former Nazi death camp, where about 4 million people perished, about 2.5 million of them Jews.

The establishment of the convent has been seen by Jews as disregarding the symbolism of the Holocaust.

In the letter, Glemp agreed to implement a 1987 agreement signed by five cardinals and Jewish representatives. He had said earlier that the four cardinals were not competent to deal with the question and called for renegotiation of the agreement.

On the convent move, he said: “It is my intention that the Geneva Declaration of 1987 should be implemented and I am therefore keen to work on a friendly dialogue between Christians and Jews.”

The Vatican on Tuesday said the convent should be relocated and offered to help pay the cost, a statement seen as a contradiction of Glemp’s original position.

In the past, the cardinal has underlined the importance of Auschwitz as the scene of Polish, and not just Jewish, suffering.

Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki has invited Sternberg and Jewish officials to Poland to discuss the issue, which has strained relations between officials and followers of the two faiths.

On Tuesday, Glemp said a solution to the Auschwitz controversy had emerged from discussions with Zygmunt Nissenbaum, a Polish-born Jewish millionaire who has offered to help fund an ecumenical center.