Last night I heard Bill O’Reilly say on his TV show “The Factor” that the proposed mosque near Ground Zero where the 9/11 attack happened could be compared to the Carmelite nuns wanting to BUILD a convent at Auschwitz. Today, I was watching the news on CNN and I saw a clip of Abe Foxman of the ADL saying that the Carmelite nuns wanted to BUILD a convent at Auschwitz, and I realized where O’Reilly had gotten this information. The Carmelite nuns didn’t want to BUILD a convent at Auschwitz; they had moved into an existing building at Auschwitz in 1984 and used it for a convent.
Update, Sept. 5, 2010:
The first mention of the Carmelite convent might have been by Charles Krauthammer who wrote this in the Washington Post:
And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place, it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign.
The nuns moved out of their old convent which was in the Theater building at Auschwitz. The Jews objected to the nuns using this building because it had been used to store Zyklon-B poison gas when Auschwitz was a death camp. It was because of the Jewish protests that the nuns moved, although they only moved a few yards to a location across the street. End of update.
Here is the gist of the mosque story, according to this web site:
The ADL, which exists to fight discrimination, especially anti-Semitism, said last week that building the mosque at the site “will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.”
At the same time, its backers had “every right to build at this site,” the organization said. “The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong.”
On Wednesday, Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, compared the controversy to the battle over building a convent near the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
“We were opposed to it,” Foxman said of the Carmelite order’s plans in the 1980s. “Many called us bigots, saying we were anti-Catholic, anti-Vatican, anti-Christian. So finally Pope John Paul II stood up and he said, ‘You know what? They’re right.’ And he moved the convent a mile outside of Auschwitz.”
He suggested he would like a similar solution in New York.
I have written on my web site about the controversy regarding the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz here. Contrary to what Abe Foxman says, the present Carmelite convent is across the street from the old one, which is shown in the photos below.
Former Theater building at Auschwitz which was used by Carmelite nuns as a convent, beginning in 1984
Theater building at Auschwitz which the Carmelite nuns moved into in 1984
In 1984, Carmelite nuns moved into the brick building shown in the two photos above. This building had formerly been a theater, but when Auschwitz became a concentration camp, the building was used to store cans of Zyklon-B, the gas that was used to murder the Jews. This was a sacred building because it was the storage place for the murder weapon that was used to kill the Jews at Auschwitz. This was what caused a controversy that was similar to the current controversy over the mosque at Ground Zero.
The controversy became heated in 1988 when the Carmelite nuns placed a cross near their convent which was just outside the walls of the camp. The convent was only a few feet from the gravel pit where 152 Polish Catholics were executed by the Nazis.
A Catholic cross was erected near the convent in 1988
The nuns were forced to move out in 1993, after protests by American Jews, and they now live in a new convent that was built for them across the road. The nuns didn’t WANT TO BUILD a new convent; they were forced to build it after protests by American Jews. The Polish Catholics are still angry about this, as I learned from a Polish cab driver when I visited Auschwitz in 2005.
The back side of Block 11 at Auschwitz where a cross was placed in 1988
The cross that was put up by the Carmelite nuns in 1988 is still there, although the nuns are no longer in the old theater building, which you can barely see on the left side of the photo. Block 11 was the prison building at the Auschwitz main camp. The gravel pit where the Poles were executed is now covered with grass. The cross is the one that was used by the Pope when he said mass at Birkenau.
There is also a Carmelite convent at Dachau with an entrance through one of the former guard towers.
Carmelite convent at Dachau is just outside the former concentration camp
A guard tower at Dachau is now the entrance to a Carmelite convent
Carmelite convent is very close to the Jewish memorial at Dachau
Although the Jewish memorial is only 40 yards from the Carmelite convent, the nuns at Dachau have not been forced to move. The Carmelite convent was built before the Jewish memorial was built.
Idiot hairsplitters. The nuns should have been kept out of there in the first place. Erasing history is what you dneir nazis really want to do. No different than islamofascists. Fascists are the same worldwide.
Comment by tampalam — August 5, 2010 @ 1:22 pm
The Carmelite nuns moved into an existing building at Auschwitz because Edith Stein was a Carmelite nun who was gassed at Auschwitz. Edith Stein was born a Jew and was an atheist, but she converted to the Catholic religion and became a Carmelite nun under the name of Sister Benedicta of the Cross. Because she was Jewish, Edith was gassed in the gas chamber in the little cottage known as Bunker 2 at Birkenau on August 9, 1942; she was canonized a saint in the Catholic Church in October 1998.
The original controversy began in 1979 after Polish Catholics erected a Christian cross at the ruins of Bunker 2, following the announcement by the Pope that the Church was initiating the beatification process, the first step toward sainthood. Jews then erected a Star of David symbol and soon there was a proliferation of crosses and stars. This was the start of the war of the crosses.
Comment by furtherglory — August 5, 2010 @ 1:35 pm
FG, No one was gassed at Auschwitz, so the Carmelite nun could not have been. You are just repeating the tired old, given account here.
But a bigger error is saying the theater building wasn’t used as a theater bldg. during the time the camp was in operation under the National Socialists. It was. All the main camps had theater groups and a place to put on their productions. Auschwitz was the largest, and a Class I camp.
Zyklon B was stored in the Administration building (now the Visitors Center), which made sense because this is where it would be delivered, and it not only had to be overseen in a safe manner, but there were a lot of delousing rooms in the Admin. bldg. for cleaning clothing and personal items.
Storing cans of Zyklon B in the theater building doesn’t make much sense, just like all the explanations in the official story.
And just what kind of a ‘holocaust survivor’ is Abe Foxman? Wasn’t he taken care of by a Christian family throughout that time? Every Jew in Europe gets to call themselves a H.S.! It certainly cheapens the whole concept.
Comment by Skeptic — August 5, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
The main point of my post is that the Jews demanded that the nuns get out of the theater building because this building was sacred to the Jews since it had been used to store cans of Zyklon-B. The administration building is right behind the theater building and there were disinfection chambers in the administration building that were used for delousing the clothing of the prisoners. Pope John Paul finally agreed that the nuns should move to another building. A new convent was built right across the road, not a mile away. The theater building was then empty for years and no one was allowed to see it. Now it is being converted into a educational center. I’m not sure if it is open to visitors yet. The justification for the nuns being in the theater building was Edith Stein who was a Carmelite nun that was canonized as a saint.
Comment by furtherglory — August 5, 2010 @ 9:40 pm
Well, I understand your point and it was a good point. But why throw in a bunch of falsehoods when you’re making a point. Or, at least, I would call them things that are not proven, but only in the realm of hearsay, rumor and speculation.
I wouldn’t say the theater bldg. was right behind the admin. bldg. It’s on a completely different side, around the corner. Not that close. But I’m dismayed that they’re converting it into another DIS-education center where they will tell more lies about what happened. Truth is trash under these people. You said they’re turning the large, well-outfitted kitchen bldg. (which no one has been able to see either) into an “art” museum — one can imagine what kind of art it will display. What fiends.
Comment by Skeptic — August 7, 2010 @ 7:48 am
What you are calling “falsehoods” is protected history which carries a penalty of 5 years in prison for anyone who denies it. I mentioned that Edith Stein was gassed in bunker #2 because this is an essential part of the story. I wasn’t there, so I don’t how she died. She was considered a “martyr” which was part of why she was canonized as a saint. You can read about bunker #2 on this page of my web site and determine for yourself if it was a gas chamber:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/Birkenau03.html
O.K. maybe “right behind” was the wrong terminology. There is an aerial photo of the Auschwitz I camp on this page of my website, so you can see how close the theater building was to the administration building:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/Tour/Auschwitz1/Auschwitz02.html
There was a disinfection chamber in one of the blocks at Auschwitz I, but I don’t remember which one. The theater building was close to the blocks AND the administration building, so it was a convenient location for the Zyklon-B pellets. Notice the buildings across the road from the theater building in the aerial photo. This is where the Carmelite convent is now located. I was trying to make the point that Abe Foxman did not know the story of the convent controversy at Auschwitz, and his analogy to the current controversy of the mosque is not valid.
Comment by furtherglory — August 7, 2010 @ 8:26 am