Auschwitz cross
in Oświęcim, PolandCategory: Attraction
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Legionów 88, Oświęcim, Poland Print route »
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The Auschwitz cross is a cross erected near the Auschwitz concentration camp.Carmelite nuns opened a convent near Auschwitz I in 1984. Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress called for the removal of the convent. Public statements from Theo Klein, president of the Council of Jews in France, Jewish activist Serge Klarsfeld, and Dr. Gerhard Riegner, representative of the World Jewish Congress, also demanded the removal of the convent. The American branch of the World Jewish Congress also protested with statements from chairman Rabbi Wolfe Kelman and the Orthodox faction representative Rabbi Zvi Zakheim. Representatives of the Catholic Church agreed in 1987. One year later the Carmelites erected the large cross ostensibly to commemorate Pope John Paul II's 1979 Mass on the grounds of the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) extermination camp for some 500,000 people. the 1979 Mass near their site, just outside Block 11, a torture prison in Auschwitz I, visible from within the camp. The Catholic Church ordered the Carmelites to move by 1989. They remained until 1993; however, the cross was not removed.
