The Auschwitz cross is a cross erected near the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1979, the newly elected Polish Pope John Paul II said mass on the grounds of the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) extermination camp to some 500,000 people. An 8.6 metre (26 ft) tall cross was erected there for the purpose, and removed after the event.
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 from 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, but they remained until 1993, leaving the large cross behind.
Read more about Auschwitz Cross: Controversy, New Crosses
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