Continuing Agony

Alan L. Berger occupies the Raddock Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies and directs both the Holocaust and Judaic Studies B.A. program and the Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz at Florida Atlantic University. Berger was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa from Luther College in 1999. Susan E. Nowak is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Honors Program at Nazareth College, New York. Nowak holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Syracuse University. Harry James Cargas, Professor Emeritus of Language and Literature at Webster University, Missouri, was the recipient of the Eternal Flame Award from the Anne Frank Institute, the Micah Award from the American Jewish Committee, and the Human Rights Award from the United Nations Association. Professor Cargas died in 1998.

• Chapter 1 Acknowledgments Chapter 2 Contributors Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 I. POLITICAL DYNAMICS: The Carmelite Convent at Auschwitz: Nationalizing Theology; The Large Cross in the Garden of the Former Carmelite Convent at Auschwitz (Facts and Comments); The Truth about the Oswiecim Cross; The Cross at the Gavel Pit at the Chapter 5 II. PSYCHOLGOCAL AND THEOLOGICAL DYNAMICS: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy: A Failure of Symbols; The Struggle for Memory and Memorialization at Auschwitz; Toward a Healing of Memories: Catholics, Jews and the Shoah; An "Unfinished Business: Chapter 6 APPENDICES: A Convent and Cross in Auschwitz; The Cross in Jewish-Christina Relations; Statement of Jan Karski; Statement of the national Polish American-Jewish American Council on the Recent Placement of Crosses at the Auschwitz Death Camp in Pola Chapter 7 Afterword Chapter 8 Index

This comment by Berger (head of the Holocaust center at Florida Atlantic University) should prompt readers to get the book: 'If Catholics and Jews are interested in working together to seek at least a partial tikkun olam (restoration or repair of the world insofar as this is possible after Auschwitz), the dialogue has to deepen.' Indeed, the dialogue has deepened because of this book's publication.