US rabbi wants Birkenau congregation to leave

An American rabbi who led a successful campaign against a Catholic convent at the Auschwitz concentration camp has urged the Pope to close a church at the nearby Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, extermination centre, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“As a rabbi, I have deep respect for all places of worship, but I also feel Christian houses of worship do not belong at what is in effect the largest Jewish cemetery in the world,” said Rabbi Avraham Weiss. “It’s within the power of Pope Francis, who has shown himself a great friend to the Jewish community, to order the congregation to leave. The building should become a museum,  showing how the Nazis carried out their atrocities there.” He is senior rabbi at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, New York.