WORLD : Peres Pushes Convent Removal
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OSWIECIM, Poland — Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, on a pilgrimage to Auschwitz, urged Polish authorities today to remove a Roman Catholic convent from the former Nazi death camp as soon as possible.
“I hope this stain will be taken away soon. I discussed the issue with the Polish government and they promised to deal with it,” Polish-born Peres said as he stood by the death camp’s outer wall, to which the Carmelite convent is joined.
The convent was established in 1984 to allow nuns to pray for the 4 million people, most of them Jews, killed at Auschwitz by the Nazis during World War II.
An international dispute started when Jewish leaders demanded the convent’s removal. Poland’s Roman Catholic church eventually agreed to move the nuns but has not said when it will do so.
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