The Continuing Agony: From the Carmelite Convent to the Crosses at Auschwitz

edited by Alan L. Berger, Harry J. Cargas, and Susan Nowak. Academic Studies in the History of Judaism. Binghamton: Global Publications, SUNY at Binghamton, 2002. 327 pp. $25.00.

The aim of this anthology is to further dialogue between Jews and Christians, particularly between Polish Catholicism and Judaism, in light of the controversies over the establishment of the Carmelite convent and the appearances of religious symbols at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex. Although some of the issues were eventually resolved (the Carmelite nuns moved to a different building further away from the main camp and the Auschwitz Museum set a new policy in 1997 to remove all …