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A Priest Embraces His Hidden Jewish Roots

(Globe and Mail-Canada) Ingrid Peritz - Father Romuald-Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel, a professor at Lublin Catholic University in Poland, joined last week with thousands of Montrealers in a west-end synagogue to commemorate the Holocaust. At one point in the ceremony, a request came from the stage: Would all the Holocaust survivors in the audience please stand up? The priest rose, and started to cry. "I thought of all the people who were exterminated. Of my mother, my father, my brother, and all my ancestors. I am alone," he said. Born Jewish, Father Weksler-Waszkinel survived the war hidden in a Catholic home. It wasn't until he was 35 and had already been a priest for 12 years that he learned of his true heritage. Now Father Weksler-Waszkinel struggles to reconcile his two faiths. "When I'm with Jews, I feel I'm with my family. It's irrational. I live in Poland, where I'm a bit like an orphan." Lublin, whose population was one-third Jewish during the war, doesn't have a single Jewish family left, he says.
2005-05-13 00:00:00
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