The controversy which arose in the summer of 1989 over the presence of a Carmelite convent adjacent to the former Nazi deathcamp at Auschwitz in Poland momentarily brought to world attention the entire field of Holocaust studies, including the theology of the Holocaust. In America, for example, various colleges and universities have established institutes for study of the Holocaust. These centres usually sponsor conferences and scholarly meetings, offer courses on various aspects of the Holocaust, and often do the important work of recording oral and video testimonies from the shrinking pool of concentration camp survivors, thereby documenting the brutality of those years. Some American states have introduced Holocaust studies components into the social studies curricula of their primary and secondary schools. In both Jewish and Christian theological circles, the Holocaust has raised anew such questions as the meaning of suffering and the existence of God, Providence and the vicissitudes of human history, and the entire Christian perspective on Jews and Judaism (including what role Christianity may have played in aiding and/or abetting anti-Semitism).
The Auschwitz convent controversy focused attention on the entire realm of Holocaust studies. But what the controversy did not do was to foster discussion about the central issue upon which the controversy turned: what is the Holocaust?
It is the ambiguity of the definition of “Holocaust” which provided fertile soil not just for the debate over the Carmelite cloister at Auschwitz but also for other disputes. During his June 1991 pilgrimage to Poland, Pope John Paul II was criticised by some Jewish organisations for speaking of abortion on demand as a “Holocaust” of the unborn.