OSWIECIM, Poland -- The human bone and ash of 50 years ago have long since worked their way into the soil. But from deep in this sediment of genocide, not far from the long rows of empty barracks and lonely chimneys, some very old mistrust and suspicion have worked their way back to the surface.
That was evident yesterday when Jews and the rest of Poland parted company at the gates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
It happened when international Jewish organizations upstaged the Polish government by holding their own memorial service a day before this morning's government ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the camp's liberation from the Nazis.
On the surface, the rival ceremonies are the culmination of an unseemly, months-long spat over matters of honor and remembrance.
But with its eerie echo of events of a half-century ago -- when Jews were set apart from others by black-clad SS men -- the
dispute represents much more.
It is the latest fight in a struggle for control of Holocaust history, not only in Poland but in every eastern European country where Nazis once rounded up Jews, Gypsies and other "undesirables."
The dispute is also the most public display yet of the ambivalence and anxiety of Poland's Roman Catholic majority, which has yet to resolve what it thinks either of the Holocaust or of the Jews.
"It is undignified, and it also mars the memory of those who died here and suffered here," Susan Berger, international coordinator the Shoah Foundation, a Holocaust history project, said of the dispute that led to yesterday's breakaway ceremony. "It's become a political issue when it should be a celebration of the liberation and a commemoration of those who died."
Jean Kahn, president of the European Jewish Conference, touched on the most immediate cause of the split during yesterday's solemn ceremony of speeches and Jewish prayers.
Church, government assailed
He criticized the two strongest pillars of Polish society -- first, by citing "the Catholic Church, which wished to Christianize the Shoah [Holocaust]." Then, by citing "the Polish government, which wished to organize a nationalist ceremony by reducing the Jewish dimension of the Shoah."
The government ceremonies which have caused so much turmoil are scheduled to begin this morning with a speech by Polish President Lech Walesa.
Representatives of several religions and nationalities were to follow with more speeches and prayers.
The only scheduled Jewish speaker was to be Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who had been imprisoned at the camp for 11 months.
Crosses were to be displayed with equal prominence alongside the symbols of Judaism. And the theme of the Polish nation's suffering was to be emphasized.
"The Polish president doesn't want to admit that Auschwitz was a Jewish tragedy," Mr. Kahn said in an interview. "He continues to give the version that it was a Polish tragedy. So we decided we could not pass the 50th anniversary without a Jewish ceremony."
90% were Jewish
Jewish organizations have inevitably drawn ammunition for this argument from the camp's grim body count: of the 1.1 million to 1.5 million killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, about 90 percent were Jews, most of whom perished in the gas chamber.
While overwhelming in the weight of its numbers, the logic has made some people uneasy, Jews among them, by seeming to pit one group's pile of corpses against another's.
The talk has also angered many Polish Catholics, who feel their own wartime suffering has been minimized
"Auschwitz is in Polish soil. My mother died at Auschwitz," Stanislaw Kalembryk, a Catholic, said as he stood in the central town square of Oswiecim, the Polish name for Auschwitz.
His mother was imprisoned for being the wife of a Polish army officer.
Brother at Dachau
"For four years my brother was in the concentration camp in Dachau. My heart is aching from all these disagreements and misunderstandings," Mr. Kalembryk said.
And millions of other Poles -- many of them Jews, many of them not -- were executed at other death camps.
People such as Mr. Kalembryk have not been well-served by their schools over the decades since the war.
During the 44 years of nondemocratic Communist rule, the Jewish plight in the death camps was barely mentioned, even when Auschwitz was studied.
The Auschwitz museum also reflected this slant until recently, only mentioning the Jews in passing amid a generous scattering of Communist shrines and Catholic crosses.
Protest signs
A recent effort by Jewish groups to have one of the most prominent crosses removed -- it stands about 10 feet high -- has led to protest signs that are written in the red and white of Poland's flag.
"Protect this cross from the next attack of the Jews and the Masons," one sign says.
Which leads to another aspect of the recent Jewish criticism, which disturbs some Poles most of all: namely, the implied allegation that Polish anti-Semitism created a climate in which it was easy for Nazis to kills Jews at Auschwitz.
It is a sore spot, especially since last year's showing of the movie "Schindler's List," most of which was filmed here and in nearby Cracow.
A brief but significant moment of the film depicts a leering Polish boy drawing his finger across his neck as a passing trainload of Jews approaches Auschwitz.
"They have a problem in Poland because there were lots of little boys like that," said Professor Yehuda Bauer, a Holocaust historian at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
"Not everybody felt this way, of course, and even for those who wanted to help, it was extremely dangerous. But the overall attitude of hostile indifference by the Polish people cannot be explained away."
Saved Jewish children
Not fair, say the Poles, some of whom have settled on a version of wartime history which most historians would say is romanticized.
"I know people who saved the lives of Jewish children during the war," said Elisabeth Nowak, who is 81 and lives in Oswiecim.
"During the Nazi occupation, the Poles and Jews were closely embracing each other. Generally speaking, Poles were trying to save everybody. Jewish people are ill-informed on this. They don't know the truth."
Mr. Kalembryk shares similar sentiments, but he also complains of "Jews who would like to tell the Polish nation what to do. Poland is ours and we have no need for others to try and govern us."
Ms. Nowak also slipped easily from her descriptions of past harmony into present-day suspicion. "The Jewish people should not come and try to run our country," she said.
There are few Jews left to try to run Poland -- 6,000 to 10,000 Jews in a Polish population of 39 million. In 1939 there were about 3.5 million. About 3 million were killed in the war, many in the Nazi camps.
Thousands more emigrated, leaving about 250,000 after the war, and most of those had left by 1968 after a government-sanctioned campaign to drive them out of the country.
Too much influence
A recent poll conducted for the American Jewish Committee by Demoskop, a leading Warsaw polling firm, shows that 30 percent of Poles would still prefer not to have Jews as neighbors, and a small but significant number -- 16 percent -- persists in believing that Jews have too much influence in Polish society.
President Walesa hasn't exactly eased Jewish mistrust of Poland, either, especially after his remarks during his 1991 election campaign.
When campaign crowds shouted questions to him, such as what he would do about keeping "all those Yids" out of government, and even suggested that he might be Jewish, Mr. Walesa answered: "I am 100 percent Polish. When we introduce a clear system of government, everyone will know who is who and where he comes from."
So, when Mr. Walesa not only injected himself into the Auschwitz planning but also made himself the lead speaker for this morning's ceremonies, some Jewish groups immediately began organizing a separate ceremony.
The government reaction to all this has been snappish at times; the main response of officials has been to stand their ground, refusing to change events or speakers.
Even amid the rancor, there were voices of reconciliation yesterday. The main one was that of Mr. Wiesel, who still plans to speak at the Polish government's event and urged other Jews to attend as well.
The only group that doesn't deserve forgiveness, he thundered yesterday during an emotional speech, is the group of Nazi criminals who sent millions to their deaths.
As Mr. Wiesel left the camp yesterday, walking slowly down the path where so many Jews walked from train cars to the gas
chamber, he said that he planned to speak with Mr. Walesa last night.
"I hope that all these things can be worked out," he said softly. "This is probably the first and last ceremony of this kind for my generation. All of this creates an ambience, an atmosphere, that I hope will bring people together."