<HOLOCAUST AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.
The Catholic Church. [never criticized
anti-Semitism - a rumour of Pius XI having said that
"Christians" would be Semites]
In response to Hitler's anti-Semitic policies, *Pius XI,
like the German episcopate, seems to have limited his
concern to Catholic non-Aryans. [...] (col. 910)
anxiety") of March 1937 rejected the myths of "race" and
"blood" as contrary to revealed Christian truth, but
neither mentioned nor criticized anti-Semitism per se.
Nor was anti-Semitism mentioned in the statement of the
Roman Congregation of Seminaries and Universities
(issued on April 13, 1938) attacking eight theses taken
from the Nazi doctrine as erroneous [[wrong]]. On Sept.
7, 1938, during a reception for Catholic pilgrims from
Belgium, Pius XI is said to have condemned the
participation of Catholics in anti-Semitic movements and
to have added that Christians, the spiritual descendants
of the patriarch Abraham, were "spiritually Semites".
This statement, however, was omitted by all the Italian
papers, including L'Osservatore
Romano, from their accounts of the pope's
address.
[[The concordat of the Vatican with Hitler's regime from
1933 is mentioned later only in one single sentence in
this article]].
The elevation of Cardinal Pacelli to the papacy as *Pius
XII in the spring of 1939 brought to the throne of St.
Peter a Germanophile who, in contrast to his
predecessor, was unemotional, dispassionate, and a
master of the language of diplomatic ambiguity.
[1942: emotionless statements about the
Holocaust from the pope]
The Vatican received detailed information about the
murder of Jews in the concentration camps from 1942 on,
[[and surely knew about the mass shootings in NS
occupied eastern Europe]], but Pius XII restricted all
his public utterances to carefully phrased expressions
of sympathy for the victims of injustice and to calls
for a more humane conduct of hostilities.
In his Christmas message of 1942, the pope spoke of his
concern for the hundreds of thousands who, without
personal guilt and merely on account of their
nationality or descent, were doomed to death. Again,
addressing the College of Cardinals in June 1943, the
pontiff mentioned his twofold duty to be impartial and
to point out moral errors. He had given special
attention, he recalled, to the plight of those who were
still being harassed because of their nationality or
descent and who, without personal guilt, were subjected
to measures that spelled destruction.
[1943: Jews rounded up in Rome - 50 kg of gold
within 36 hours - the pope remains silent -
deportations and hiding]
The pope's policy of neutrality encountered its crucial
test when the Nazis began rounding up the 8,000 Jews of
Rome of Rome in the autumn of 1943. Prior to the
arrests, the Nazis told the Jewish community that unless
it raised 50 kilograms of gold within 36 hours, 300
hostages would be taken. When it seemed that the Jews
themselves could raise only part of this ransom, a
representative of the community asked for and received
an offer of a loan from the Vatican treasury. The pope
approved of this offer of help, which, as it later
transpired, did not have to be invoked.
During the German authorities hunt for the Jews of Rome,
Pius XII, contrary to German fears, remained silent. On
Oct. 18, 1943, over 1,000 Roman Jews - more than
two-thirds of them women and children - were transported
to the death camp *Auschwitz [[and then probably to the
tunnel systems]]. About 7,000 Roman Jews were able to
elude their hunters by going into hiding.
More than 4,000, with the knowledge and approval of the
pope, found refuge in the numerous monasteries and
houses of religious orders in Rome, and a few dozen were
sheltered in the Vatican itself. the rest were hidden by
their Italian neighbours, among whom the anti-Jewish
policy of the Fascists had never been popular.
[Criticism against the mute pope 1941-1945]
Pius' failure to publicly protest against Nazi
atrocities, especially against the murder of the Jews,
drew criticism. In July 1942, Harold H. Tittmann, the
assistant to Roosevelt's personal representative at the
Holy See, Myron C. Taylor, pointed out to the Vatican
that its silence was endangering its moral prestige. In
January 1943, Wladislaw Raczkiewicz, president of the
Polish government in exile, appealed to the pope to
issue an unequivocal denunciation of Nazi violence [[and
of their collaborators]] in order to strengthen the
willingness of the Poles to resist the Germans and help
the Jews.
Bishop Preysing of Berlin, a man of courage and
compassion, urged the Pope on at least two occasions to
issue a public appeal on behalf of the Jews. A similar
request with regard to the Hungarian Catholics was (col.
9119
directed to Pope Pius in September 1944 by Isaac
*Herzog, the chief rabbi of Palestine.
[Criticism against the mute pope after 1945: no
excommunication of Hitler and Goebbels - an appeal
could have had a great flight and helping effect]
After the end of World War II, Pius XII was again
criticized for his silence. It has been argued - among
others, by the German playwright Rolf *Hochhuth - that
the pope could have saved numerous lives, if indeed he
could not have halted the machinery of destruction
altogether, had he chosen to take a public stand and
confront the Germans with the threat of an interdict or
with the excommunication of Hitler, Goebbels, and other
leading Nazis belonging to the Catholic faith.
As an example of the effectiveness of public protest, it
is possible to cite the resolute reaction of the German
episcopate to the euthanasia program. In Slovakia,
Hungary, and Rumania, the forceful intervention of papal
nuncios, who threatened the pro-Nazi governments with
public condemnation by the pope, was also able, albeit
[[though]] temporarily, to halt the deportations. At the
very least, it has been suggested, a public denunciation
of the mass murders by Pius XII broadcast widely over
the Vatican radio, would have revealed to Jews and
Christians alike what deportation to the east actually
meant. Many of the deportees might thus have been warned
and given an impetus to escape, many more Christians
might have helped and sheltered Jews, and many more
lives might have been saved.
No way of proving or disproving these arguments exists,
of course. Whether a papal decree of excommunication
against Hitler would have dissuaded Hitler from carrying
out his plan do destroy the Jews is doubtful, and
revocation of the Concordat by the Holy See would have
bothered Hitler still less. However, a flaming protest
against the massacre of the Jews, coupled with an
imposition of the interdict upon all of Germany, or the
excommunication of all Catholics in any way involved
with the apparatus of the "Final Solution" [[e.g. mass
shootings and tunnel systems]] would have been a more
formidable and effective weapon.
[German Catholics should not leave the Church -
Communism should not come forward]
This was precisely the kind of action that the pope
would not take, however, without risking the allegiance
of the German Catholics. Given the indifference of the
German population to the fate of the Jews and the highly
ambivalent attitude of the German Church toward Nazi
anti-Semitism, a forceful stand by the pope on the
Jewish question might well have led to a large-scale
desertion from the Church.
The pope had other, perhaps still stronger, reasons for
remaining silent. In a world war that pitted Catholics
against Catholics, the Holy See, as Mr. Tittmann was
told by highly placed officials of the Curia, did not
want to jeopardize [[to endanger]] its neutrality by
condemning German atrocities, and the pope was unwilling
to risk later charges of having been partial and
contributing to a German defeat.
Moreover, the Vatican did not with to undermine
Germany's struggle against Russia. Late in the summer of
1943, the papal secretary of state declared that the
fate of Europe was dependent upon a German victory on
the Eastern front. The Apostolic delegation in
Washington warned the American Department of State in a
note dated August 20, 1943, that Communism was making
steady headway in Italy and Germany, and Europe was in
grave peril of finding itself overrun by Communism
immediately upon the cessation of hostilities.
Father Robert Leiber, one of Pius XII's secretaries,
later recalled (in Stimmen
der Zeit [["Voices of the Time"]], March 1961)
that the Pope had always looked upon Russian Bolshevism
as more dangerous than German National Socialism.
Hitler, therefore, hat to be treated with some
forbearance [[patience]].
[Papal nuncios are actively helping the Jews]
The reluctance of Pius XII to be drawn into a public
protest against the "Final Solution" stands in contrast
to the often energetic rescue activities of several of
the papal nuncios in Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania
[[Romania]], and Turkey. Monsignor Roncalli, the nuncio
in Istanbul, who later became (col. 912)
Pope *John XXIII, in particular helped save many
thousands of lives. The extent to which these men acted
upon instructions from Rome is not clear, but the
motives for the Vatican's solicitude seem to have been
mixed. It appears that from late 1942 on, the Vatican
was well aware that an ultimate Allied victory was
inevitable. Considerations of expediency began to
reinforce whatever moral revulsion the pope may have
felt at the massacre of the Jews, and Pius began to drop
hints to the bishops of Germany and Hungary that it was
in the interest of their people, as well as that of the
Church, to go on record against the slaughter of the
Jews.
For example, he wrote an Austrian churchman on Oct. 15,
1942, that to intercede for those suffering in the
conquered territories was not only a Christian duty but
ultimately could only be of advantage to the cause of
Germany.
[The climate of opinion against the Jews - the
different nationalism movements and anti-Semitism]
The Nazis' assault on European Jewry [[and by their
collaborators]] occurred in a climate of Christian
hostility to Jewish religion and people.
[[This is above all true for the situation in eastern
Europe since 1919. In central Europe the situation was
not this extreme and many Christians even helped the
Jews by danger of life and anti-Semitism had to be
instigated by SS or SA]].
At the same time, other factors, such as varying
patterns of nationalism, had an important bearing on the
attitude of the Catholic churches of different European
countries toward the Jewish tragedy. Thus it is
important to differentiate between the situation in
Germany and in the various Nazi-occupied countries of
Europe.
[[Polish anti-Semitism after 1919 was very strong with
boycott movements, discrimination movements, hunger and
unemployment for the Jews]].
[since 1919: The German Catholic Church
adopting anti-Semitic elements - opening data for the
Nazi system]
During the 19th century some elements of German
Catholicism contributed toward the emergence of modern
anti-Semitism, and in the 1920s many Catholic publicists
agreed with the Nazis on the importance of fighting
Jewish liberalism and the Jews' alleged destructive
influence in German public life (see *Church, Catholic,
Modern Period). This anti-Semitic trend received a
powerful impetus after Hitler's accession to power in
1933. Seeking to counter the Nazis' offensive against
the Catholic Church, as a rival for the loyalty of the
German people, churchmen attempted to gain favour with
the Nazi regime and its followers by adopting certain
aspects of Nazi ideology.
[[The Church was praying for another Germany after the
two hyperinflations and huge unemployment, and the
Church opened the marriage books to detect half Jews,
quarter Jews and so on, the so called "non-Aryans"]].
They stressed the elemental values of race and racial
purity, and limited their dissent to insisting that this
National Socialist goal be achieved without resort
[[change]] to immoral means. The sacred books of the Old
Testament, it was argued, were not only beyond the
Jewish mentality but in direct conflict with it. Jesus,
it was conceded, had been a non-Aryan, but the son of
God was fundamentally different from the Jews of his
time, who hated and eventually murdered him. They also
said that the Jews had had a demoralizing effect on
Germany's national character; the press, literature,
science, and the arts had to be purged of the "Jewish
mentality".
[[There were Catholic clubs excluding Jews, the Catholic
students organized rallies against Jewish students etc.,
in Austria even since the 1880s, in Germany after the
defeat of 1919]].
In the face of the Nazis' anti-Semitic legislation the
Church retreated, even when the ordinances touched on
vital domains of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, such as
matrimony. The diocesan chancelleries helped the Nazi
state to detect people of Jewish descent by supplying
data from Church records on the religious background of
their parishioners [[community members]]. The bishops
facilitated the emigration of non-Aryan Catholics, but
little, if any, solicitude was shown for non-Aryans who
were not of the Catholic faith.
Similarly, when mass deportations of German Jews began
in October 1941 [[the first deportations took place in
1940 to south of France]], the episcopate limited its
intervention with the government to pleading for
Christian non-Aryans. When the bishops received reports
about the mass murder of Jews in the death camps from
Catholic officers and civil servants, their public
reaction remained limited to vague pronouncements that
did not mention the word Jews. An exception was the
Berlin prelate Bernhard *Lichtenberg, who prayed
publicly for the Jews. The joint pastoral letter of the
German episcopate of August 1943, for example, spoke of
the right to life and liberty, [...] (col.913)
[Prohibition to speak about the Jews]
Almost half the population of the greater German Reich
(43.1% in 1939) was Catholic and even among the S.AS.
despite Nazi pressure to leave the Church, almost a
quarter belonged to the Catholic faith. While in the
past the episcopate had issued orders to deny the
sacraments to Catholics who engaged in dueling or agreed
to have their bodies cremated, the word that would have
forbidden the faithful, on pain of excommunication, to
go on participating in the massacre of Jews was never
spoken.
The bishops had demonstrated their willingness to risk a
serious clash with the Nazi regime by protesting the
extermination of the insane and retarded in the
"euthanasia" program. This intervention had been
successful in large measure because it had had the
backing of public opinion. In the case of the Jews,
however, it was far from clear whether the episcopate
could count on the support of the faithful, and this was
probably one of the main reasons why a clear public
protest against the "Final Solution" [[e.g. mass
shootings, tunnel systems]] was never issued. Only a
handful of Jews were hidden by the clergy or helped by
individual Catholics in Germany.
[The Catholic Church in anti-Semitic Poland]
[[Polish anti-Semitism was absolutely heavy since 1919,
with political anti-Semitic parties and boycotts over
years, see:
-- Boycott,
anti-Jewish,
-- and the book from Yehuda Bauer: The
Joint
in Poland and the "Polish methods" against the Jewish
population since 1919 ]].
In Poland, where no official policy on the part of the
Catholic Church has never been discerned, it would seem
that, as in Germany, the initiative to help Jews was
taken only by individuals.
[Clerical resistance in Holland, Belgium,
France, and Italy: 1000s of saved Jews by hiding and
conversions]
This situation stands in marked contrast to that
prevailing in Nazi-occupied Europe. In western Europe
declarations of solidarity and help for the Jews were
almost universally regarded as signs of patriotism and
resistance to the Germans. Here some of the highest
Church dignitaries condemned the persecution of the
Jews.
In Holland, where the Church as early as 1934 had
prohibited the participation of Catholics in the Dutch
Nazi movement, the bishops in 1942 immediately and
publicly protested the first deportations of Dutch Jews,
and in May 1943, they forbade the collaboration of
Catholic policemen in the hunting down of Jews, even at
the cost of losing their jobs.
In Belgium members of the episcopate actively supported
the rescue efforts of their clergy, who hid many
hundreds of Jewish children.
Several French bishops used their pulpits to denounce
the deportations and to condemn the barbarous treatment
of the Jews. Throughout Western Europe numerous priests
and members of the monastic clergy organized the rescue
of Jews, and hid them in monasteries, parish houses, and
private homes. French priests issued thousands of false
certificates of baptism.
Many lay Catholics in France, Holland, Belgium, and
Italy acted similarly, thus saving thousands of Jewish
lives. The concern of the population of these countries
for Jewish fellow-countrymen was undoubtedly a key
factor behind the bold protests of the French, Dutch,
and Belgian bishops.
[Catholic church in eastern Europe prevents
Jews from conversion]
In eastern Europe anti-Semitism had deeper roots, and
the record of the Catholic churches there is more
ambiguous. IN Slovakia, a Catholic priest, Dr. Josef
Tiso, was president of a pro-Nazi regime; the Church
there was more interested in saving souls than lives,
although the episcopate did protest the deportations as
a violation of human and divine law. Several Hungarian
bishops protested to the authorities the deportation and
mistreatment of the Jews but at the same time put
difficulties in the way of issuing conversion
certificates that would have saved many Jews from
deportation. Large numbers of Jews, nevertheless, owed
their lives to the courageous rescue activities of
lesser clerics, monks, and Catholic laymen.
[GU.L.]
Protestant and Greek Orthodox Churches.
Protestant churches and their leaders in Britain, the
United States, France, Switzerland, and Sweden protested
against the first anti-Semitic measures in Germany, the
promulgation of the *Nuremberg Laws, and *Kristallnacht of
1938 [[Chrystal Night]]. In (col. 914)
[German Protestant Church excludes "Christs"
with Jewish origin - "Confessing Church"]
Germany, Hitler's supporters within the Protestant
Church complied with anti-Jewish legislation, applying
it even within the Church by going so far as to exclude
Christians of Jewish origin from membership. Although
the "Confessing Church" (Niemoeller's dissident Bekenntniskirche)
defended the rights of Christians of Jewish origin
within the church, it generally neither publicly opposed
discrimination against them outside the church, nor
condemned the persecution of Jews. An Exception to this
rule was the memorandum sent by the "Confessing Church"
to Hitler (May 1936), which stated that "when, in the
framework of the National-Socialist ideology,
anti-Semitism is forced on the Christian, obliging him
to hate the Jews, he has nonetheless the divine
commandment to love his neighbour."
A number of ministers of the "Confessing Church" were
sent to concentration camps because they did not
cooperate with anti-Jewish directives. During the war,
the Protestants in Germany maintained their silence, the
notable exception being Bishop Wurm of Wuerttemberg, who
intervened on behalf of the so-called "privileged
non-Aryans", in 1943.
[Protestant Church in Norway, Denmark,
Netherlands, and France]
In the occupied countries, however, the situation was
different. The Lutheran churches in Norway and Denmark
issued a public protest when the deportations from their
countries began. The Protestant churches in the
Netherlands, together with the Roman Catholic Church,
sent several protests, some of which were read from the
pulpits. In France, the president of the Protestant
Federation, the Rev. Marc Boegner, sent letters to the
French chief rabbi, to Admiral Darlan, Marshal Pétain,
Pierre Laval, and others. A message was read from the
pulpits twice.
[Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia and Greece]
The persecution of the Orthodox Serbs in Yugoslavia
matched in cruelty the persecution of Jews. It has been
reported that Orthodox Church leaders stood up for the
Jews, but hardly any details are available.
In Greece, the archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos, headed
a group of prominent citizens who sent a strong protest
against the deportations of the Jews to the prime
minister of the puppet regime and to the German
representative in Athens. The contents of these protests
show that they were based mainly on national, rather
than on religious, considerations. Damaskinos was
personally active in the rescue of individual Jews. The
bishop of Salonika, Genadios, also intervened on behalf
of Jews. The attitude of nonresistance of the population
of Salonika, however, shows that the faithful did not
always follow the example of their leaders.
SATELLITE COUNTRIES. [Slovakia and Romania]
The Lutheran Church in Slovakia protested in November
1939 and in May 1942. Rumania [[Romania]] has a long
record of anti-Semitic activities in which leaders and
members of the church frequently participated. However,
the metropolitan of the Bukovina region, Tot Simedrea,
the metropolitan of Transylvania, Balan, and Patriarch
Nicodemus personally and successfully intervened with
the Rumanian [[Romania]] government on behalf of the
Jews after fervent appeals from Chief Rabbi Safran.
In Bulgaria, the metropolitan of Sofia, Stephan, and the
metropolitan of Plovdiv, Kyril, intervened personally
with King Boris using extremely forceful expressions.
The "Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church"
repeatedly sent strong protests in writing to the
government. According to a Jewish spokesman, Joseph
Geron, the Orthodox Church played a major role among the
"collective factors" that helped in the rescue of the
Bulgarian Jews.
In Hungary, the bishops of the Reformed and Lutheran
churches voted in the upper house for the first and
second anti-Jewish laws in 1938 and 1939. They protested
when mass deportations began in 1944, but, due to
government pressure, a prepared public statement was not
read out from the pulpits.
[Church actions in the "neutral" countries]
In the neutral countries the Church of Sweden strongly
protested against the deportation of the Norwegian Jews.
In Switzerland, protests of the (col. 915)
Protestant churches were a factor leading to the
alleviation [[reduction]] and ultimate canceling of the
government measures against Jewish refugees entering
Switzerland "illegally", who were at first sent back to
their doom [[sent back to Nazi Germany into SS hands]].
[Church help to Jewish refugees]
The churches also rendered material aid to the refugees.
In Great Britain, the archbishop of Canterbury, the
bishop of Chichester, and other church leaders voiced
strong protests, but their demands for practical steps
were of no avail. The same is true of the United States,
where church leaders issued many protests.
The World Council of Churches, then still in process of
formation, had offices in New York, London, and Geneva.
The general secretary, Willem Visser 't Hooft, and the
director of the Department for Refugees, Adolf
Freudenberg, sent three letters to the International Red
Cross, in which they reported on deportations and mass
executions of Jews and pleaded for help. Together with
Gerhart Riegner of the world Jewish Congress, Visser 't
Hooft sent an aide-mémoire to the governments of the
U.S.A. and Great Britain, informed church leaders in
these countries about the extermination of Jews [[e.g.
by mass shootings and tunnel systems]], intervened with
the Swiss government on behalf of Jewish refugees, and
helped send gift parcels to Jews in concentration camps.
[Silent Churches 1933-1945]
The non-Roman Catholic churches in Austria, Belgium, the
Protectorate (Bohemia-Moravia), Finland, Italy, Poland,
and Russia apparently did not issue any public protest
during World War II.
[Individual "Christian" help]
Individual Christians rendered practical help, though
the importance of this fact should not be overrated:
only a small minority of the Protestant and Orthodox
Christians in occupied Europe risked their lives on
behalf of the persecuted Jews. It is difficult to assess
the practical results of interventions and protests by
churches and church leaders. In satellite countries,
where they could turn to their own governments, the
interventions of church leaders were of some avail.
In the occupied countries, the protests hardly
influenced the German authorities; but, in so far as
they were read out from the pulpits, the protests
contributed to breaking the silence and complacency that
surrounded the extermination of the Jews and stirred the
faithful to noncooperation with the Germans and to
render individual aid to the Jews.
[J.M.SN.]
Bibliography
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
-- S. Friedlaender: Pius XII and the Third Reich (1966)
-- G. Lewy: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (1964), ch.
10
-- P. Blet et al. (eds.): Lettres de Pie XII aux évęques
allemands (1966)
-- E. Bentley (ed.): Storm Over the Deputy (1964), incl.
bibl.
-- J. Nobécourt: "Le Vicaire" et l'histoire (1964)
-- Rothkirchen, in: Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), 27-53
-- P. Friedman: Their Brothers' Keepers (1957)
-- M. Faulhaber: Judaism, Christianity and Germany
(1934)
-- Carpi, in: Yad Vashem Studies, 4 (1960), 43-56
-- Lewy, in: Commentary, 37 no. 2 (1964), 23-35
-- J.S. Conway: The Nazi Persecution of the Churches,
1933-1945 (1968)
PROTESTANT AND GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCHES
-- J.M. Snoek: The Grey Book ... (1969), incl. bibl.
-- W.A. Visser 't Hooft: Struggle for the Dutch Church
... (1944)
-- Les Eglises Protestantes pendant la guerre et
l'occupation (1946)
-- Die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland und die
Judenfrage (1945)
-- M. Leviev: Nashata Blagodarnost (Bul., n.d.)>
(col. 916)
