I read with great surprise and sadness the comments attributed to retired Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek of Poland, concerning the Holocaust. That they come on the 65^th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp at Auschwitz makes them all the more difficult to hear.

Bishop Pieronek is quoted as saying that the Holocaust as we understand it today is an “invention” of the Jews that is promoted in the press to gain support for Israel. This encourages a “certain arrogance that I find unbearable,” he is quoted as saying, claiming that it allows Israel to use its power to exploit these historical tragedies to treat the Palestinians “like animals.” He concedes that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians does not compare to the “shame of the concentration camps” or what he apparently called the “aberrations of Nazism” while dismissing the fact that this was not an aberration of Nazism but its dark heart.

The bishop asserts that the Holocaust has been “monopolized” by the Jews to “obtain benefits that are often unjustified,” such as the unconditional support of Israel by the United States. Then he seemingly seeks to blame the victims by asking what the Jewish-American and the Allied Forces did in World War II to avoid these tragedies. “Little or nothing,” is his answer.

Sacred Heart University’s Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding (CCJU) has long been engaged in the work of dialogue and bridge-building between Christians and Jews. We supported and welcomed the 1998 document from the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, as an important development of theology and teaching begun with Vatican II’s 1965 document, Nostra Aetate. This teaching continued with the Guidelines and Suggestions (1974), and the Notes on the Correct Way to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Catholic Church (1985). We Remember is a profound statement of solidarity between Catholics and Jews and an ethical pledge to promote and act with an authentic moral memory that the Holocaust is a terrible historical fact and yet-to-be-healed wound of the 20^th century. The CCJU has conducted study tours to the camps at Auschwitz and elsewhere engaging bishops and rabbis in a conversation that clearly must be continued and extended. The Jerusalem Post notes that Bishop Pieronek was a friend of Pope John Paul II, who so warmly endorsed our mission. I am certain he would be at pains to distance himself from this regrettable attempt to rewrite history.

The occasion of the 65^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz reminds all people of good will that such places should never be built again and that the monstrous ideas that gave rise to them must never be revived.

David L. Coppola, Ph.D.