Vatican City Seek

    WARSAW, June 11 (AFP) - A dispute between Jews and Roman    Catholics over crucifixes put up outside the Auschwitz former Nazi  death camp resurfaced Friday, threatening to cloud a visit by Pope  John Paul II to his homeland.     The row was revived when Poland's chief rabbi called on the    79-year-old pontiff to remove a huge crucifix planted during a  previous papal visit, after 300 smaller crosses were uprooted by the  authorities last month.     The 13-day papal trip, the pope's longest since he left Poland    for the Vatican in 1978, has been an overwhelming success since he  arrived in Gdansk last Saturday, with hundreds of thousands flocking  to open-air papal masses.     But Chief Rabbi Menachem Joskowicz changed the tone in a    conversation with the Holy Father after an historic address to  Poland's parliament Friday morning, the first by a pope to a  national parliament.     He thanked the Catholic leader for the removal of the smaller    crosses, but asked him to also order the removal of a large crucifix  erected during a papal trip in 1979.     I ask you to give the order to your men to remove this last    cross as well, said Joskowicz, a survivor of the death camp. I can  still hear the Jewish children killed there crying, he added,  according to aides.    Polish authorities on May 28 ordered the removal of some 300    small crosses erected by Catholic militants around the larger  crucifix, following Jewish protests against putting up religious  symbols near the former concentration camp.     Jews are still demanding the removal of the large cross,    although it had not been expected that the rabbi would raise the  sensitive issue during the pope's marathon 13-day trip, which ends  on June 17.     The pope's spokesman Joaquin Navarro said the crucifix issue was     a local question which does not concern the Vatican, although he  added: My impression is that most Poles want the crucifix to  stay.     But the remarks appear certain to fuel fierce debate.       Jerzy Wroblewski, director of the Auschwitz museum, said they     came at the wrong time, and disrupted the solemn atmosphere of  the pope's parliamentary address.     John Paul II had just made a marvellous address. He delivered a    message for our people and for the whole world. And now this affair  was raised again. If I was the rabbi, I would not have broached this  question in such a situation, he told the PAP news agency.     The Polish government hoped it had laid to rest the Auschwitz    crucifix affair, which soured relations between Warsaw and Jews  worldwide, and tarnished the country's image.     President Aleksander Kwasniewski succeeded in introducing a law    on respecting religious sites, under which the 300 crosses were  removed by force, although not the papal one.     In fact it was Jewish demands that the papal crucifix be removed    which sparked a group of Catholic militants to proclaim themselves   defenders of the cross and to plant a small forest of smaller  crosses around it.     Government spokesman Krzysztif Luft reiterated that both    political and religious authorities want the papal cross to remain.     Gdansk Archbishop Tadeusz Goclowski, one of the organizers of    the papal visit, indicated there was no question of overturning a  decision by religious authorities in August to remove the 300 small  crosses but leave the big one.     The question is clear for us, and it would seem difficult to    reconsider it, he said.     Joskowicz's remarks were immediately attacked by other Jewish    leaders in Poland.     Rabbi Joskowicz spoke on his own behalf on this issue, and he    does not represent the Jewish communities of Poland, said Jerzy  Kichler, head of the national association of Jewish communities.     His comment was out of place before the pope, and was even    scandalous, he added, pointing out that Joskowicz's mandate ends on  June 13. I hope that will be respected, he said.     Nobody wants to move towards confrontation, we prefer dialogue    which is continuing on various levels, said another key Polish  Jewish leader Szymon Szurmiej.     The row erupted only a few hours before the pope was to pray for    victims of the Nazi Holocaust on the former Umschlagplatz, from  where the Nazis deported Jews from the Warsaw ghetto during World  War II.     Meanwhile former Israel Knesset speaker Shevah Weiss, questioned    on state radio, said: I have a lot of respect for the rabbi, but a  lot of respect for the pope as well, in particular this one who is a  great man who was a humanist during the war.