By the following spring, an international Jewish outcry brought the "Auschwitz convent controversy" into full swing. Central to the debate was the precise location of the Old Theater. It stood outside the wall that encloses Auschwitz I, and some of the nuns' defenders argued that the building--it predated World War I--was not, strictly speaking, part of the camp. That argument was not convincing. Other facilities were also outside the wall--the commandant's house, a railroad siding where prisoners were unloaded, and an execution site. They could hardly be excluded from the camp. Furthermore, the Old Theater's multiple uses indicated that it had indeed been part of the Auschwitz complex. It had served as a storehouse not only for loot taken from those who were gassed but also for the Zyklon B that was used to murder Auschwitz's primarily Jewish victims.

Difficult negotiations between Jewish and Catholic leaders led to an agreement on February 22, 1987, which provided that the Auschwitz convent would be relocated outside the camp within two years. The same agreement also stated that there would be "no permanent Catholic place of worship on the site of the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps." By no means, however, did this agreement put matters to rest. Controversy escalated when the February 1989 deadline for relocating the nuns came and went without their departure. It got uglier that July, when Jewish demonstrators took their protest to the convent grounds and Polish workers responded violently. Following acrimonious debate, ground was broken for a new facility that would house the nuns close by but clearly at a distance from the Auschwitz grounds. In 1993, the Old Theater was vacated, and the nuns decamped to new quarters.