New York, Thursday, September 30, 1999:

Auschwitz:

Hill 'tween Rock and a Hard Place

T'S not easy being Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady and putative Senate candidate from New York.

In her capacity as First Lady, Hillary is scheduled to visit Poland next week to attend a conference in Warsaw on behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

But that presents a particular problem for her as Senate candidate: Whether to make a stop at Auschwitz.

Sources tell me Hillary's campaign staff has been weighing a visit to the concentration camp and fretting over the right course to take.

The campaign is apparently worried that whatever Hillary does will have serious political implications, especially in New York. After all, ethnic politics is a way of life in this town and Hillary has already stubbed her toe on the FALN controversy.

The thinking goes that a photo op at Auschwitz might be construed as a blatant attempt to pander to Jews. And yet on the flip side, if she doesn't go, would New York's politically powerful Jewish bloc of voters view her as insensitive?

Mrs. Clinton visited Auschwitz once before, in July of 1996, an election year.