Nun Strip-Searched After Protesting Waldheim Election

NEWARK, N.J. —  A Roman Catholic nun who traveled to Austria to protest the inauguration of President Kurt Waldheim because of his World War II activities said today she was strip-searched at the Vienna airport.

Sister Rose Thering, a professor of education at Seton Hall University in South Orange, said she was “embarrassed and humiliated” by the sudden search during her departure Wednesday.

She said she is not sure why she was strip-searched but believes it may have had to do with her protests, which she said provoked shouts of “Jew pigs” from some Viennese.

Thering, who described her age as “50-plus,” traveled to Austria with two clergymen. They held an all-day prayer vigil outside a synagogue in the old Jewish quarter of Vienna on Friday to call attention to Nazi atrocities against Jews in World War II, she said. Waldheim has been accused of participating in some of those activities.