Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy Review

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(More customer reviews)The strongest part of this book is its listing of events (p. 17-on) and the full texts of important speeches, as by Cardinal Glemp (p. 207-on). We also read how Glemp made reference to Jews having access to the media (p. 224). He did NOT say that Jews control the media.
Unfortunately, the authors generally make no attempt to evaluate the arguments presented for their coherence or rationality. We repeatedly read that the convent raised concerns about the Holocaust becoming forgotten, Christianized, or Polonized. Considering the mountains of Judeocentric Holocaust materials throughout the media and libraries of the west, far exceeding those on all other genocides put together, how can this concern be anything other than irrational, or a smokescreen?
If the cross and the convent had been super-skyscraper size, one might appreciate the contention about them giving an unmistakably Christian "shadow" to the entire Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. But, since these structures cannot even be SEEN from Birkenau, by far the main Jewish-killing site, located 4 miles away, how can anyone take such contentions seriously?
There is an undercurrent of thinking which justifies Jewish opposition to the convent on the basis of the premise that Jews are more or less entitled to an everlasting grudge against Christianity because of such things as past persecutions of Jews. But, considering the fact that no religion has cornered the market on either tolerance or bigotry, isn't this grudge, and its manifestation, itself a form of bigotry?
Furthermore, this book has a heavy blame-Christianity-for-the-Holocaust theme. It has even been argued that the Holocaust couldn't have happened without Christianity, and that there was an inverse relationship between the piety of the local Christian population and the number of Jews saved (pp. 85-86). What ridiculous non sequiturs! Genocides have occurred in lands having minimal Christian influence. And remember Haman's genocide? Oops, you can't blame that on Christianity, which came centuries later. The secularized nations of NW Europe happened to have small, assimilated Jewish populations, which were relatively easy to hide or disguise as gentiles. Besides, the German occupations of those nations were far less intensive than those of Eastern Europe.
Completely lost on all of the authors in this volume is the fact that Nazism was a pan-German, racist ideology which developed, not when Christianity enjoyed considerable political power, but in this age of the modern secular state. And Hitler's decision to exterminate the Jews was based on his belief that "international Jewry" had "caused the war", and had nothing to do with traditional Christian teaching about Jews. Finally, unmentioned in this book is the fact that traditional Judaic teachings about Jesus Christ and Christianity were at least as ugly as the reverse.
We read that: Kolbe had been an anti-Semite (p. 20), the 4-million victim figure had been invented to hide the Jewishness of most of the victims (pp. 251-252), and Polish authorities failed to differentiate between Polish and Jewish victims (p. 7, 59). All the foregoing premises are false (see Peczkis Listmania on Auschwitz).
To maintain and justify Judeo-supremacy at Auschwitz and elsewhere, the "all Jews, but not all Poles, were slated for extermination" argument is repeated (e. g., p. 60). To begin with, it is disingenuous, as the Germans were not in a position to kill substantially more Poles than they did for various practical reasons (see the Peczkis Listmania: Forgotten Holocaust...). Not all accessible Jews were victims. Finland's (Germany's ally) Jews were never molested, and thousands of full-blooded German Jews were re-labeled Aryans and deliberately spared (the schutzjuden). Nor is it true that, whereas Poles could sometimes be released from Nazi captivity, Jews never could (p. 43). For instance, about 1,700 Jews were freed by the Kastner-Eichmann deal alone.
Robert Brown (p. 192) condemns Glemp for, in his words, endorsing the notion that Jews feel superior to other peoples. But consider the following: If any OTHER ethno-religious group went to a place of multi-religious deaths and started to dictate what can and cannot be displayed, it would, at very least, be soundly repudiated for its arrogance and chauvinism.


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"The Auschwitz convent controversy put postwar Christianity and Judaism and all their attempts at repentance and reconciliation to the test. This book sheds light on this conflict which is one of the most painful, indeed agonizing, public religious controversies in recent years. The book is marked by candor and integrity. . . . The key documents are included. This book deserves wide reading." Irving Greenberg, President The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership "This is a book of extraordinary power. . . . The essays are excellent, the documentaries are indispensable to the student of a landmark event, and the editors are due a rousing vote of gratitude." Franklin H. Littell, President The Philadelphia Center on the Holocaust

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