Carmels At Former Concentration Camps

[VeniteAdoremus]

I was talking with a priest tonight, and he told me about his "summer vacation" - he was asked to lead a retreat for a group of male and female discalced Carmelites. They all went on a pilgrimage to various sites from the life of bl. Titus Brandsma, the Carmelite priest who died during WWII. The end point of their journey was the end point of his life, the concentration camp at Dachau.

There was a section for priests and Protestant ministers at that camp, which created many, many martyrs. And right at that point, directly next to the cemetery where a lot of them were buried, there's a monastery of Carmelite nuns (old style, with grilles and everything).

There's another one at the site of Auschwitz, in Poland.

And all the nuns in there specifically came to those locations of horror to pray and sacrifice and make amends for the entire world. It completely blows my mind. (They also eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and sometimes argue, or so they told their visitors.)

Does anyone have more information on these beautiful Carmels?

[aalpha1989]

I don't have information on them, but I went to Dachau 8 months ago and the cloister was beautiful. It was the only splash of color in an otherwise drab landscape (spiritually AND physically- it had snowed and everything was white, grey, or black, other than the gate to the monastery which had some yellow and red on it). I was very happy to see it there, and I spoke with one monk who was very friendly.

Edit: Are there monasteries at other concentration camps? Dachau was the "Christian" concentration camp- more Christians than Jews died there. Bishops and priests were sent to Dachau more than to any other camp. They also did not use the gas chambers which are still there, the chambers were for testing purposes only. No people were killed in them. I don't know why, maybe they just didn't want to do that to Christians.

Edited August 17, 2008 by aalpha1989

[Saint Therese]

[quote]They also did not use the gas chambers which are still there, the chambers were for testing purposes only. No people were killed in them. I don't know why, maybe they just didn't want to do that to Christians.[/quote]
NO offense,but Idon't think that's the reason.

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1629204' date='Aug 16 2008, 08:58 PM']NO offense,but Idon't think that's the reason.[/quote]

Yeah... I was just speculating. When I was there they said no one knows why they never used them.

I also did not mean any offense to Jews or any other group. I was just wondering why Nazis (most of whom were anti-semitic Christians) would choose not to do that.

Edited August 17, 2008 by aalpha1989

[Saint Therese]

I don't mean to minimize the the intensity of the persecution of the Jewish people by HItler, but Christians, especially Catholic priests and religious were particularly persecuted also.
One in every ten men in Dachau was a Catholic priest.
Think about it.
And the beautiful thing, to me, is how the reign of darkness did not prevail. These priests, religious and devout men and women of every faith, reached out to each other in the camps. Think of Edith STein, Titus Brandsma and Maximillian Kolbe.

[DominicanPhilosophy]

The gas chamber at Dachau was used quite often, according to some sources, while others claim it was never used. The reason it was thought to never have been used is because they considered it a failure. The gas pipes were not connected to the fake shower heads in the ceiling correctly, or so it was reported back when the camp was taken and liberated. Something like that.

My grandfather was Jewish and we lost many relatives during the Shoah [there's actually some new record database to find lost relatives that is being set up in Germany, and we're trying to figure out how to gain access to it], but he converted to Catholicism to marry my grandmother. Growing up with both sides is interesting, but I do have to agree that - no offense to either side - I don't think the prisoners' Christian beliefs are what spared them.

I do think it is beautiful that there are monasteries around such places of tragedy. We forget about the victims so often in our daily lives, even those of us whose relatives were killed, so to know that there are religious throughout the world that can't forget and are always praying for them -- very good and comforting to know.

Pax (or Shalom!)

[VeniteAdoremus]

Yup. Priests held positions of authority outside of the Nazi system - so they were suspect at the very, very least. In other camps there were also "experiments" to get people to drop out of Catholicism - they'd show the priests in another section of the camp getting wine and good meals. In reality they were tortured. There's a chillingly good book about that - I should niffle up the title...

Aalpha: there's also one at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I don't know about others, there might be...

[Luigi]

I believe the first effort to establish a Carmel at a Nazi concentration camp was the idea of Pope John Paul II, and it was at Auschwitz - in spite of its German-sounding name, it is actually in Poland (Ostrowitz, or something like that). He had the best intentions - prayer, reparation, never forgetting.

But if I remember corectly, a huge controversy grew up around it. Jewish survivors were offended that the landscape was dominated by a huge cross, and that Catholic nuns had - I guess you'd say "appropriated" - a place of such importance in the Shoah.

I thought the nuns moved out, but maybe they only moved to a less visible location. I also thought the huge cross was removed.

Anybody have more information than my vague recollections?

[salterrae]

JM + JT

How beautiful.

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1629479' date='Aug 17 2008, 04:37 AM']In other camps there were also "experiments" to get people to drop out of Catholicism - they'd show the priests in another section of the camp getting wine and good meals. In reality they were tortured. There's a chillingly good book about that - I should niffle up the title...[/quote]
Did many fall for their trick? I wonder how many people now-a-days would believe a trick like this.

[Saint Therese]

[quote name='Luigi' post='1629643' date='Aug 17 2008, 01:43 PM']I believe the first effort to establish a Carmel at a Nazi concentration camp was the idea of Pope John Paul II, and it was at Auschwitz - in spite of its German-sounding name, it is actually in Poland (Ostrowitz, or something like that). He had the best intentions - prayer, reparation, never forgetting.

But if I remember corectly, a huge controversy grew up around it. Jewish survivors were offended that the landscape was dominated by a huge cross, and that Catholic nuns had - I guess you'd say "appropriated" - a place of such importance in the Shoah.

I thought the nuns moved out, but maybe they only moved to a less visible location. I also thought the huge cross was removed.

Anybody have more information than my vague recollections?[/quote]


I remember reading in Witness to HOpe about the controversy but I don't remember the outcome..

[VeniteAdoremus]

I found the book: [url="http://www.amazon.com/Priestblock-25487-Memoir-Jean-Bernard/dp/0972598170/ref=pd_sim_b_4"]http://www.amazon.com/Priestblock-25487-Me.../ref=pd_sim_b_4[/url]

And where I first saw it mentioned: in the blog of Fr. Finigan. Warning: he describes just how non-privileged the priests were... you might not want to read it.
[url="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2008/01/memoir-of-priest-in-dachau.html"]http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogs...-in-dachau.html[/url]