Part III

19 HISTORICAL EVENTS, 1939-1945

20 GERMANY

21 NORWAY

22 THE NETHERLANDS

23 FRANCE

24 YUGOSLAVIA

25 GREECE

26 DENMARK

27 SLOVAKIA

28 RUMANIA

29 BULGARIA

30 HUNGARY

31 SWITZERLAND

32 SWEDEN

33 GREAT BRITAIN

34 THE UNITED STATES

35 THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

36 TERRITORIES IN WHICH THE CHURCHES REMAINED SILENT

37 IN CONCLUSION

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PERIODICALS AND REPORTS

INTRODUCTION (by Uriel Tal)

The protests of the non-Roman Catholic Churches against the persecution

and extermination of the Jews during the Nazi period, carefully compiled

and amply documented in this volume, possess a significance that is not

confined to the history of Christian-Jewish relations. They constitute an

important chapter in the history of Christianity itself in that they reveal

the deeper aspects of the Church's antagonism to the anti-religious and

hence anti-Christian character of Nazi anti-semitism.

The well-attested facts presented to us in this volume are a clear

confirmation of the Church's reputation of Nazi doctrines, not only when

these doctrines were directed against the Jews but, first and foremost,

when they threatened the very existence of the Church itself, both as a

system of theological doctrines and beliefs and as an historical institution.

The Church regarded freedom, freedom of man as well as its own, as an

inalienable right rooted in the nature of man as a rational being created

in God's image. Hence, when the Church was deprived at the right of

self-determination, it felt its very existence endangered, and it was then

that it recognized the full symbolic import of Jewish persecution. This

view was plainly set forth at the beginning of the persecution of the Jews

by the Nazi-regime in Holland, by D. J. Slotemaker de Bruine, Protestant

pastor and Minister of State, who declared:

"...Freedom of the spirit is our life-blood. By that I mean freedom in

questions of the spirit, freedom of conscience, freedom of the Church,

freedom of instruction, freedom of the Word of God, freedom to bear

witness..." [1]

<I>

In the light of this statement it is obvious that the Church was provoked

to raise its voice in protest chiefly because the Nazis appropriated the

messianic structure of religion which they exploited to their own ideological

and political ends.

This was made clear already in the early days of the Third Reich by "Die

Geistlichen Mitglieder der Vorlaufigen Leitung der Evangelischen Kirche" who,

in a memorandum (Denkschrift) addressed to the Fuehrer (May 1936), accuse

Hitler of pursuing a policy that is not only directed against the Church but

which is designed "to de-Christianize the German people" (das deutsche Volk

zu entchristlichen), quoting, among other things, the words of

Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley:

"The Party lays total claim to the soul of the German people...and hence

we demand the last German, whether Protestant or Catholic..." [2]

To those Church circles that raised their voices in protest this totalitarian

structure of the Nazi regime presented a double threat to the very existence

of the Church. First, the pseudo-religious and pseudomessianic character of

Nazism was calculated to weaken the Church from within and to mislead the

Christian community, especially its youth. It became increasingly clear to

these circles that the Nazi racial doctrine - which Hitler and also the

"Deutsche Christen" had called positive Christianity in their first

formulation as early as 5 May 1932 - constituted a kind of additional

gospel of messianic redemption that ostensibly strengthened Christianity

as an institution and as a religion of revelation. Secondly, this pseudo-

messianic and pseudo-religious authority that the Nazi regime arrogated to

itself was able by means of its repressive measures to curtail the influence

of the Church and even to reduce it to silence. This danger was perceived at

an early date by the "Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche" in

its Botschaft (Part I, par 2, 5) adopted by the Conference held in Berlin-

Dahlem 19-20 October 1934, which stated:

<II>

"The National Church that the Reich's bishop has in view under the slogan:

One State - one People - one Church, simply means that the Gospel is no

longer valid for the German Evangelical Church and that the mission of the

Church is delivered to the powers of this world.... The introduction of the

Fuehrer principle into the Church and the demand of unconditional obedience

based upon this principle are contrary to the Word of Scripture and bind the

officials of the Church to the Church regiment instead of to Christ... [3]

Towards the end of the period that is dealt with in the sources collected in

this volume, in the year 1943, we also meet with a clear expression of the

Church's opposition to this pseudo-religious and pseudo-messianic character

of Nazism in the "Pastoral concerning National Socialist Philosophy" that

was sent in Holland:

... to parochial church councillors to give them the necessary basis for

their opposition in the struggle against National Socialist ideology, and

especially against the intangible, but all the more dangerous religious

ideas and expressions of National Socialism which will exercise an influence

even after the war."

In its penetrating analysis of the totalitarian character of Nazism this

Pastoral observes:

"...It is not surprising that National Socialism has the power to become the

religion of the masses, and its assemblies to take the form of a kind of

popular worship in which a great deal of latent religious emotion is

released.... In carrying out its ministry the Church must therefore make

its work in this connection even more definite in character, and must tell

its members very clearly and resolutely that what is at stake here is the

first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods besides me...!" [4]

<III>

This pseudo-religious and pseudo-messianic character of Nazism was by no

means accidental or the product of mass hysteria induced by some skilful

propagandists. It was rather an ideological structure that was consciously

given definite patterns and developed within a conceptual system in accordance

with its own laws of logic. In this development the traditional theological

concepts of Christianity were retained but given an altogether different

meaning. Values that had previously been regarded as relative in the culture

of Christianity and of the West now became absolute; and values that had

formerly been considered absolute, being interpreted as metaphorical or

visionary, became relative. Phenomena with an imminent historical essence

were lifted to a meta-historical plane. Means were converted to ends, and

ends were endowed with absolute authority in so far as they sanctified

the means.

In this manner the fundamental concepts of religion were not invalidated

nor the integrative functions served by these concepts impaired, such as

those cohesive factors that hold together the social structure and ensure

its normal functioning. The Nazis retained these concepts and their functions

as a legitimate part of their racial theory and, after depriving them of

their authentic historical content, turned them into political expedients

to be used in their attack against humanism, religion and Christian values.

Basic theological concepts such as God, redemption, sin and revelation were

now used as anthropological and political concepts. God became man, but not

in the theological Christian sense of the incarnation of the Word:

"...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1. 14) or in

the Pauline conception of the incarnation of God in Christ in whom "the

whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2. 9).

In the new conception God becomes man in a political sense as a member of

the Aryan race whose highest representative on earth is the Fuehrer.

This change in the essential meaning of the concepts God-man is, from the

standpoint of cognition, effected by converting the relative into the

absolute and, from the standpoint of theology, by transferring the Pauline

conception (Ephesians 4. 24; Colossians 3. 10) from the plane of metaphysics

and eschatology to that of nationality rind politics.

<IV>

It was this radical change from Christian doctrines to pagan myths that

aroused the Churches to express their protest against Nazism, and also

against the persecution of the Jews, in the above Pastoral of the year 1943:

"And there is now a return to the worship of life and power by accepting and

exalting the old Adam as the original and eternal MAN. There is an attempt at

self-salvation - the old Adam is not crucified with Christ (Rom. 6. 6) but

by his very own inmost strength achieves a new life and a heightened

vitality..." [5]

Similarly, the theological concepts of sin and redemption were transferred

to a legal category of administrative regulations that demanded outer

conformity and inner obedience. The traditional conception of sin and

redemption that was common to all currents of Christian thought held that

man's redemption, and hence eschatological existence, depends on his faith:

"the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ... since all have

sinned and... they are justified by grace... through the redemption which

is in Christ Jesus..."(Rom. 3. 22-24). In the totalitarian Nazi regime the

concepts sin and redemption were used as means by the State or the Party

to convert man into a loyal subject whose allegiance is assured by his

constant fear not only of violating some concrete ordinance or governmental

decree but simply of just deviating from the official ideology. The Christian

belief that man could be saved through faith in the forgiveness of Jesus who

died for his sins, "so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might

no longer be enslaved to sin" (Rom. 6.6), was transferred from the theological

to the secular, political plane. Even the comforting assurance of the believer

that his sins shall be forgiven and that he shall be found worthy of the

purifying influences of grace could now be gained only by the individual's

complete identification with the State, the Party and the superior Aryan race.

An instructive illustration of this shift from theology to ideology is to be

found in the circular letters (Rundschreiben) and in the speeches of the

Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley, for example in his words of

26. June 1935:

"Strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude) is the embodiment of National

Socialism.

<V>

Over against sin we put discipline, over against penitence pride! Over

against the weak and their infirmities we put strength... " [6]

This doctrine was not mere Aryan propaganda; it became an integral part of

school studies and was systematically inculcated into the minds of the young.

The following is an example of a dictation given in 1934 to the third grade

of an elementary school:

"Just as Jesus redeemed mankind from sin and hell, so did Hitler rescue the

German people from destruction. Jesus and Hitler were persecuted; but whereas

Jesus was crucified, Hitler rose to be Chancellor... Jesus worked for

heaven, Hitler for the German soil..." [7]

This same pattern of reversing meanings was also applied by the totalitarian

Nazi regime to the basic concepts of western culture. Nationalism as an

historical phenomenon of a people with a common language and culture and

with the consciousness of a common destiny was raised to a mythical,

meta-historical plane. The essence of national unity was discovered to

reside in race and soil; the cultural and spiritual creations of the nation

were attributed to man's biological resources. Similarly, the State became

an end in itself, an ideal meta-historical entity that was identical with

the national spirit. [8]

This view was critically described by the Dutch Church as follows:

"... The whole cult of National Socialism finds its most powerful

manifestation in a State which claims to support, lead and fill in the

material and spiritual, educational, cultural and religious spheres,

the whole life of its subjects. Not only does the State order the life of

the individual, but it takes a creative part in it. It becomes the founder

of the true religion and the dispenser of the true philosophy; it furnishes

the data for knowledge..." [9]

<VI>

Mythical nationality in the totalitarian regime thus developed a monolithic

structure which functioned as the only ontological framework in which the

individual may acquire his own identity, his selfknowledge and understanding.

While in a different, non-totalitarian civilization man establishes his inner

freedom by means of intellectual autonomy, the Nazi regime made the actual

biological belonging to the Aryan race into the ultimate condition for the

self-realization of Man.

Hence one who could not belong to the Aryan race, the prototype of whom was

the Jew, was doomed to be completely alienated, deprived not only of all

rights, but of the very justification to exist. It was this reversal of the

status of the individual which prepared the ground for subsequent developments

against which the Church protested, such as forced labour, the repression

of independent thought, the indoctrination of the young by the State and

their estrangement from their parents, teachers and preachers. An example

of this tendency towards the total dehumanization of the individual, as

reflected in the persecution of the Jews, and that provoked the Church to

protest, was the decree authorizing sterilization. The stand of the Church

in this matter was stated in the "Letter on the Question of Sterilization"

that was sent in May 1943 by the Protestant and Catholic Churches in Holland

to the officials of the Reich and in which, among other things, we find the

following:

"...In the last few weeks the sterilization of the so-called mixed marriages

has begun. But God, who created heaven and earth and whose commandments are

for all men, and to whom even your Excellency will have to give account one

day, has said to mankind: 'Be fruitful and multiply' (Gen. 1. 18).

Sterilization is a physical and spiritual mutilation directly at variance

with God's commandment that we shall not dishonour, hate, wound or kill our

neighbours. Sterilization constitutes a violation of the divine commandment

as well as of human rights. It is the last consequence of an anti-Christian

racial doctrine that destroys nations, and of a boundless self-exaltation.

It represents a view of the world and of life which undermines true

Christian human life, rendering it ultimately impossible... [10]

<VII>

The fact that the protest of the Church against the persecution and

annihilation of the Jews was an inseparable part of its general protest

against the inhuman and anti-Christian character of modern anti-semitism

places the documents collected in this volume in a broad historical context.

These documents offer ample evidence of the Church's opposition to an

historical phenomenon rooted long before the Nazis came to power, hence

also prior to the rise of modern anti-semitism. The protest of the Church

was fundamentally directed against those pagan and mythological elements

that had crept into Christianity itself in the course of its historical

development among the heathen.

To many of the fathers of modern anti-semitism, which is the racial and

political Anti-semitism that arose towards the end of the 19th century and

reached its highest stage during the Third Reich, the rejection of Judaism

was tantamount to the rejection of religion in general.

This view goes back to Feuerbach's anthropological criticism of religion,

to the young Hegelians (Max Stirner, Bruno Bauer) and to the early Romantics

who longed to return to the primitive forms of a religion called

"vorchristliches Germanenthum". [11] Modern anti-semitism was influenced by

these streams of thought through Nietzsche's concept of the 'Antichrist',

although Nietzsche himself kept aloof from the more vulgar manifestations

of political anti-semitism of his day. In him the anthropological view

reaches its culmination - God, who is nothing more than the deified form

of man [12] is finally overthrown by Dionysian man who found courage to

assert his instinctive life and abjure the gross and enslaving notions of

Christianity that men

<VIII>

are equal and can be redeemed by faith, the gospel of the downtrodden and

everything that creeps on earth. [13] These views, inimical to religion and

to Christianity, were already being expounded with great vigour towards the

end of the 19th century. Christian doctrine was accused of perverting man's

instinctive life, vitiating his natural enthusiasm, inflaming his ego,

invading his private life over which it declares its dominance only to

enslave human nature, to weaken and alienate man, by imposing upon him

"un-natural" restraint such as the anguish of his conscience.

Wilhelm Marr, one of the early fathers of modem racial and political

Anti-semitism and the man who during the late 70's coined the term

'anti-semitism'[14] included in the rejection of Judaism his critique of

Christianity as early as the year 1862. In a polemical work called

"Der Christenspiegel von anti-Marr" by Moritz Freystadt, a member of

the "Society for History and Theology" in Leipzig, written in answer

to Marr's "Judenspiegel", the author interprets Marr's rejection of

Judaism as a rejection of monotheism, based on his anthropological view

of God as a subjective product of our conscious life - an antireligious

analysis Marr evidently borrowed from Voltaire, Feuerbach and Bruno

Bauer. [15]

With Marr's intensification of anti-Jewish propaganda inspired by the new

racial anti-semitism we find increased criticism of Christianity both as a

system of beliefs and as an institution. In one of his popular books

"Religioese Streifzuege eines Philosophischen Touristen" (1876) Marr,

relying on theories propounded by Voltaire and Feuerbach, observes

that from the atheistic point of view it is evident:

<IX>

"that Christianity, in its dogmas and precepts, is like every religion, a

malady of human consciousness. The philosopher explains... every religion

as a product of man's conscious life and relegates to the sphere of phantasm

the so-called 'revelations' of which all people boast depending on the state

of their culture..." [16]

Most additional factors in the rejection of Judaism, Marr continues, go

beyond the attack directed against Christianity as a system of beliefs and

superstitions that demoralizes man and corrupts his nature. Anti-semitism is

not only called to combat religion and Christianity; its chief aim is to

save the German nation and the whole world from Jewish domination and from

the moral depredation of the Jewish race. Christianity is not yet fully

cognizant of the gravity of the problem, and it deceives itself when it

thinks that baptism or conversion is a gratuitous deliverance from native

corruption, for the Jew's aberrations are not religious but biological

and hence incorrigible. The Jewish question, Marr concludes, is a racial

question for the infidelity of the Jew is essentially biological, and

hence Christianity is in no position to save the world from the perils

of the Semitic-Jewish race. [17] <X>

We here encounter a primary distinction between the doctrines of racial

anti-semitism and those of the Christian Heilsgeschichte, a contradiction

that awoke the Church to the dangers of Nazism when, in 1933, it opposed

the "Arierparagraph". This racial law rejected the notion that the Jews

could still hope for redemption, and for a renewed status of election,

assured them in the New Testament (Rom. 9-11) on condition that they

acknowledge their error and accept the redeeming truth of Christianity.

Even in the early years of racial anti-semitism, in the seventies and

eighties of the last century, we already find this inner contradiction

between a racial theory that regards Jews as the ontological embodiment

of an ineradicable evil and the views of the Heilgeschichte that believes

this evil to be remedial if only the Jews could be persuaded that salvation

comes from the Savior who was sent first of all to the Jews themselves, and

who atoned for the sins of all mankind.

It is this inner tension between the recalcitrance of the Jew and the

incorrigibility of Judaism that refuses to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah,

already conspicuous in the change that took place in Luther's attitude to

the Jews between 1523 and 1543, which charactarizes the theological and

political attitude of Adolf Stoecker, court preacher in the Bismarck era

and one of the leading figures of modern anti-semitism. Until recently

historians concentrated much on his importance in preparing the ground

for racial and political anti-semitism. It is true that without his powerful

influence during the last decades of the 19th century the rise of modern

political anti-semitism would be incomprehensible. A more balanced approach

has been taken lately, as may be seen in the instructive study by Walter

Holsten on the part played by Stoecker in the rise of modern anti-semitism.

The author shows that many phases of Stoecker's anti-semitism had their roots

in the conservative tradition of Lutheranism and at the same time were

opposed to the anti-Christian tendencies of racial anti-semitism. [18]

<XI>

The early phases of Stoecker's activity already reveal the ambivalent

nature of his attitude to the Jews and to Judaism, an ambivalency that

characterized the anti-Christian elements in antisemitic "Christian"

ideology throughout the days of the Third Reich. In his speeches after

the political defeat of his Christian Social Labor Party in the summer

of 1878, Stoecker insisted on making a distinction between the anti-Jewish

attitude that arises in conjunction with or flows from Christianity and

the antisemitic attitude which at the same time also impugns Christian

ethics. In his well-known antisemitic speech as early as 19.9.1879 Stoecker

warns his listeners:

"We can already detect here and there a hatred directed against the Jews

that is contrary to the Gospels". [19]

Even in his most violent speeches against the Jews Stoecker did not draw

the extreme biological consequences of his racial theories and continued

to maintain that conversion was the only authentic solution to the Jewish

question that would complete the universal mission of Christianity and that

only baptism could save the Jews from their ignominious belief in the

validity of the halacha after the coming of Jesus. The salvation promised

to the Jew then is to be saved from his Judaism. The final redemption,

however, will not raise the Jews above the nations of the world, as

promised in the Old Testament, but this position of eminence and election

will pass, or actually has already passed, from the Jews not just to the

Christians but to Christian Germany. The redemption promised to the Jews

is thus to be attained by way of the baptismal font at the entrance to

the Church:

<XII>

"All Israel will be saved when the fullness of the heathen shall have come

to an end. This was Paul's promise to his beloved people - final salvation

and not a future glory that will raise Israel above the other nations as

proclaimed in the Old Testament... and every believing Christian knows well

what a rejoicing there will be in the Kingdom of God when the people of the

Old Testament finally acknowledge their sin against Christ and repent. This

event will be hailed by all Christendom and by the angelic hosts with paeans

of praise, and it will be turned by the Church in the End of Days into glory

and renown when Israel will bring to it its uncommon religious talents and

intellectual gifts..." [20]

The inner tension between the theological view that sees the solution of the

Jewish question in the liquidation of Judaism and the racial view that sees

it in the liquidation of the Jews is clearly expressed in an address delivered

by Stoecker on 8.2.1882 about the danger to the German Reich from Jews in

public life, in which he states:

"We regard the Jewish question not as a religious nor indeed as a racial

question. Although it is at bottom both of these, it appears in its external

form as a social-ethical question, and is treated by us as such. No people

can tolerate the preponderance of an alien spirit without degenerating and

being destroyed? We would not solve the Jewish question radically by force,

but gradually in a spirit of peace and amity... We must keep the wounds

open until they are healed..." [21]

Although Stoecker himself was opposed to the use of force, modern political

anti-semitism, which was to no small degree influenced by him, did not shrink

from advocating violence in its hostility to Judaism, to religion and finally

to Christianity.

A significant contribution in this direction was made by the Darwinian

racial doctrines of Eugen Duehring and his antisemitic disciples. Whereas

Marr had formulated the anti-religious meaning of modern anti-semitism in

ominous terms of the Jewish domination of Europe and especially Germany,

Dühring adopted a so-called constructive approach by suggesting an alternative

to religion and religious culture, namely, race. In his antisemitic writings

after 1880 Judaism serves as the prototype of religion in general, including

Christianity. <XIII>

The primary aim of this anti-Christian anti-semitism was for Duehring the

struggle against Jews and Judaism, and this also entailed the struggle

against the monotheistic religions and all forces that suppressed what he

called "the instinct of the free, natural life." In his anti-religious

book "Wert des Lebens" (1877), and especially in the third edition issued

four years later, he points out that Christianity as a monotheistic religion

is opposed to life and that all religious systems are nothing but pathological

maladies (ein Stueck weltgeschichtliche Krankheitslehre des Geistes).

Christianity is thus not interested "in ennobling man, but rather in

suppressing his natural instincts" as is evident, for example, in the

"paradox Christian doctrine" of the crucifixion of the flesh. [22] Hence,

it is absurd and hopeless to conduct the struggle against the Jews with

Christian theological concepts borrowed from Judaism, and those Christians

who attach importance to this only deceive themselves for it is plain that:

"...their anti-semitism lacks the primary truth, namely, that Christianity

itself is Semitism, a truth... that must serve as the terminus a quo for

all genuine anti-Hebraism..." [23]

As long as the Christians fail to disavow their Jewish source and their

Jewishness they themselves will be tainted by its anti-natural influence.

But since Christianity is inextricably bound to its Jewish origins, and

even the New Testament is nothing but "a racially Jewish tradition" (eine

rassenjuedische Ueberlieferung), the only hope for struggling humanity is

to throw off once for all this humiliating yoke, meaning the religious

heritage of Jews and Christians alike.

The liberation from the Jewish-Christian heritage, on the one hand, and

the strengthening of the Nordic German race on the other cannot be achieved

through the process of education or civilization but only by means of racial

purity which will cleanse man of religious depravities and restore the vital

sources of his instinctive life. Christianity is inadequate for this struggle

since it is itself ineradicably debased by its complicity with Judaism:

<XIV>

"Those who would cling to Christian tradition are in no position to combat

Judaism effectively. ...An understanding Christian cannot be a serious

antisemite... The Nordic gods are rooted in nature itself, and no millennial

diversion can eradicate them... We here see a vivid phantasy in operation

that is incomparably loftier than the Jewish slave-imagination..." [24]

This basic thesis that racial anti-semitism must also be directed against

Christianity continued to be elaborated from the end of the 19th century

onwards by Theodor Fritsch as well as in a number of journals:

the Antisemititche Correspondenz, which in 1888 became the official organ

of the D.A.P. under the name of Deutsche-Soziale Blaetter, the

Antisemiten-Katechismus which was later called Handbuch zur judenfrage

and, in the early years of the present century, the influential journal

Hammer. The general tendency of this movement was directed against

Christianity as an ecclesiastical institution, sometimes chiefly against

the Catholic Church which was suspected of "ultramontanist" sympathies

for a foreign ecclesiastical power. Christianity was also opposed as a

system of beliefs and practices that tended to debilitate the German

Aryan race in its struggle for existence.

Finally, Christianity was opposed because of its Jewish origins which

deteriorate the whole human race by elevating spirit over body, rational

thought over the wisdom of the senses, abstract ideas over direct and

spontaneous experience, and the discursive intellect over the vital emotions.

In the course of this debate the antisemitic movement displayed a readiness

to reconcile itself to the continued existence of Christianity on condition

that it subsitute the biological values of the Aryan race for its Jewish

origins, as was recommended by the idealogues who made Jesus a member of

the Aryan race - Julius Langbehn, Max Bewer, Houston Stewart Chamberlain,

Leopold Werner, and the German Christians in the days of the Third Reich. [25]

<XV>

We find the same line of thought pursued by the followers of Duehring,

such as Prof. Paul Foerster, as well as in those circles connected with

the antisemitic journals, such as Heimdall, Freideutschland, Staatsburger

Zeitung, also some of the functionaries connected with the imperialist

Der Alldeutscher Verband, such as Friedrich Lange, the author of the

anti-Christian Reines Deutschtum (1893), and numerous writers, historians,

orientalists, scientists and students influenced by anthropology, materialism

and Darwinism. A popular exposition that reveals the national and Romantic

roots of this ideology appeared in the Hammer (Oct. 1908), and reads in

part as follows:

"What shall we do with a Christ whose kingdom is not of this world? A

Bluecher, a Gneisenau, a Koerner, an Arndt can always be useful for Germany,

but not a Christ. The God who was called upon at Leuthen, Leipzig and Sedan

was not the God of love, nor the God of Abraham. Christ comforts the lowly,

the weak and the sick. We too are sorry for these poor folk and try to

alleviate their condition; but they are of no use to us and to our future.

They only degrade that which we deem to be the highest good - the German

character. Strength, health, the joy of life are what we need. The kingdom

of Heaven can be left to the lowly and the wretched, as long as we possess

the earth. Give the Bible to the sick and the lonely, the shut-ins and the

scholars who wear their faces on their backs!..." [26]

Similarly, the antisemitic propagandist, Dr. Ernst Wachler, writes in the

same journal (Jan. 1911):

"Away with the stones and tales, the doctrines and precepts of Jews as well as

of Christians!... Not only the free-thinkers, but our basic Aryan instincts

demand: the Church with all its trappings must be done away with..." [27]

<XVI + (whole page XVII is footnote)>

The available historical sources, including the documents collected in this

volume, clearly indicate that the protests of the Church against the

persecution of the Jews, with its human and ethical concern for their fate,

were an inseparable part of a more comprehensive opposition directed against

the pseudo-messianic and hence anti-Christian character of Nazism. Seen in

this context, the protest of the Church gives rise to a number of historical

and theological questions that require further study. The questions that

arise fall into three groups.

A. To what extent did the secularizing tendencies of the last century, the

rationalistic attacks on religion, the Romantic philosophies, pagan mythology,

Darwinism and the anthropological critique of religion, contribute to the

anti-Christian character of modern anti-semitism?

How did the process of secularization influence the teachings and art of

Richard Wagner, the Christian mythology of Houston St. Chamberlain, Julius

Langbehn, Ernst Bergmann and the movement of the "German Christians", or

the "Mythus" of Alfred Rosenberg? Can modem historiography support the

psychoanalytical Freudian explanation of anti-Christian anti-Semitism in

terms of a revival of vestigial pagan elements which were latent in

Christianity itself, and which consequently revolted against the ethical

Judaic basis of Christianity and against the Jews who were now made

responsible for all that disturbed the Christian conscience?

From the vast literature that has grown up around these problems [28] we see

that side by side with the all-pervasive secularization of life there were

also historical and theological factors embedded in Christianity which

later turned against Christianity itself. Through further study, we might

find in the history of Christianity traditions <XVIII>

that originated in the barbarism of the pagan world, turned anti-Christian

by that very paganism, then continued as anti-Jewish attitudes and policies

on the part of the Christian world - and finally culminating dialectically

into a destructive force that was directed not only against Judaism, but

through Judaism against Humanity and hence also against Christianity. One

of these powerful anti-Jewish elements which rooted in Christianity, and after

having been secularized became an effective means used by totalitarianism

against the Jews as well as against the Jews as the symbol of non-conformism,

as the embodiment of the human quest for a free existence, for the right to be

different and yet to be, is the very concept of Collective Guilt. Its origin

is the idea of guilt for the crucifixion of God who took on Flesh (Matt. 27. 25;

I Thess. 2. 15), a guilt which lies as a heavy yoke on the shoulders of all

the Jews till the end of the days.

It was applied to social life by various Church Synods (such as Elvira in 306,

Clermont in 535, Orleans in 538, the Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215) with

their succession of repressive measures and harassments directed against the

Jews. It culminated under the influence of blood libels in the late Middle

Ages (Andreas of Ryn p. 1462, Simon of Trient 1475) [29], and in Modern

Times (Tisza-Esslar, Korfu, Xanten, Polna, Konitz) - down to the days of

the Third Reich. By using the very pattern of a Collective Guilt, the

Christian projected on to the Jew the frailties common to all human beings.

This mechanism enabled the Christian to see his own weakness reflected in

the Jew so that by persecuting the Jew, moreover by exterminating him, the

Christian could obliterate his own image as a sinner, and cleanse his

conscience from the burden of guilt.

These patterns of thought and conduct, these models of generalization,

projection and prejudice that originally were established by Christianity

with respect to the Jews - to what extent were they now employed by the

Nazi regime against Humanity, as well as against the Church itself

whenever the racial antisemites attacked its ethical Judaic basis?

<XIX>

B. The second group of questions concerns the problems as to whether the

survival of the Jews on the one hand, and their ultimate Christianization

on the other, are both indispensable to Christianity.

Since the promise made to the Jews in the Old Testament (Gen. 22 .18;

II Sam. 7. 12; Isaiah 7.14), will be fulfilled or perhaps superseded by

those of the New Testament (Rom. 9-11) when the Jews return in penitence

and acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, it seems that the Christian concern

for the fate of the Jews, even in the days of the holocaust, is unavoidably

accompanied by an interest in his salvation. Alas, his salvation is

conceived by the Christian in terms that are unacceptable for the Jew as

long as he wishes to adhere to Judaism as a religion, a people and an

unfulfilled eschatology.

As we study the documents before us in their total historical context

including parts not directly relevant to the very protest and therefore

not printed in this volume, we are impressed with the following fact;

while the Church raised its voice against the persecution of the Jews

out of human motives, as well as in the hope of thereby strengthening

its own members, the traditional, dogmatic concept of the Jew continued

to be dominant. According to this view the persecution of the Jews

constitutes an error, not only for reasons of humanity, but mainly

because persecution prevents the Jew from seeking redemption among his

persecutors. It prevents the Jew from turning to Jesus as the Messiah

and from seeking in the New Testament that salvation which not only is

promised him, but without which Christianity itself is doomed to remain

unfulfilled. From the theological point of view regarding the right of

Judaism to exist, the Church in its protest against the Nazis reverted

to the original attitude of Luther, as expressed in "Das Jesus Christus

eyn geborener Jude sey" of 1523. When Luther protested against the

anti-Jewish policy of the Church, claiming that the Church treated the Jews

"als waren es hunde", and that under such circumstances he himself would:

"...ehe eyn saw geworden denn eyn Christe", this very protest was also not

based on an acknowledgment of the right of Judaism to exist as an independent,

autonomous religion. The motive that inspired this protest was the hope that

Christianity would mitigate the persecution of the Jews and apply to them

instead the Christian Commandment of love and tolerance, as written by Luther:

<xx>

"...Ob etliche halsstarrig sind was ligt daran? Sind wyr doch auch nicht alle

gute Christen...". In that case, and only in that case, Christians might be

hopeful that the Jews would return in penitence and believe in the salvation

brought to them by their own Messiah.

Against this historical background [30] it seems that even during the Holocaust,

Christianity continued to identify the Jew not in his own, authentic, terms,

but according to the classical traditions. The Jew is one who persists in the

impenitent rejection of Christ, but must be saved, for it is the Jew who has

to complete the eschatological process of the Heilsgeschichte. Therefore Jews,

and especially converts, have to be rescued from racial discrimination.

Moreover, since Judaism continues to be an integral part of Christianity,

the very notion of the Jews as a race can have no basis whatsoever in

Christian theology. [31]

This has been stated as early as September 1933 by the theological faculty

of the University of Marburg in its statement against the "Arierparagraph".

Similar statements were issued by theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann and

the members of the Bekenntnis der Vaeter und die bekennende Gemeinde (Betheler

Bekenntnis), 1934 [32]. Thus, even at the height of Nazi persecution and in

times of the extermination of the Jews, the Church would not acknowledge

Judaism as a religion in its own right and on its own terms, but insisted

that a Jew who became a Christian was merely fulfilling his predestined role;

such a Jew did not leave his faith, he returned to his true faith.

It is most symptomatic and instructive to note that in the controversy

between Heinrich Vogel, one of the leaders in the protests against the

persecution of Jews and the author of the "65 Theses of Protest" (March 1933)

and Friedrich Gebhart, a spokesman of the "German Christians" and the author

of the "Reply to the 65 Theses" (May 1933), <XXI>

both sides, despite their theological and political contradictions adhere to

the same traditional Christian view that the Jews are in a state of rejection

(Verwerfung). One view holds that the Jew can abrogate his old covenant with

Jehovah and step over to the side of the Redeemer; the other holds that the

derelict Jew is beyond salvation and the redeeming influences of the Church,

that Ueberzeuging cannot overcome Zeugung, that the Vollendung of Judaism in

Christ should be turned into the Endloesung of Jewish existence. Both, however,

despite the far reaching differences and contradictions between them, deny the

Jew the right to live on his own terms and according to his own autonomy.

This approach to the Jewish question on the part of those who protested

against the persecution of the Jews was not confined to the Bekennende Kirche

in Germany. Even the Dutch Church, in the early forties, did not deviate from

its theological tradition. A typical illustration is to be found in the

Pastoral Letter written by the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church

(Sept. 1941), a document that will go down in history as a striking witness

to spiritual integrity and moral courage. Although the Letter emphasizes the

fact that the New Testament is dependent on the Old Testament (Deut. 6, 4-5;

Mark 12, 29-31) and that the love of one's fellowman also applies to the

treatment of the Jew (Lev. 19, 18; Matt. 22, 39), it defines Judaism as a

religion that is destined to disappear by being redeemed through and in

Christianity. Again, this is in keeping with Christian tradition which holds

that the metaphysical status of election and the promise of eschatological

salvation as given to the Jews in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus

who is "...the fulfilment of all God's promises to Israel, the true king of

this nation sent by God..." [33]

Hence, the document continues, having rejected Jesus as the redeemer,

the Jews are still sunk in sin: "...Israel did not recognize Him, but

rejected Him... In this way they hardened their hearts against the grace

of God... They are no longer Israel in the original sense of the lord,

they are 'Jews' now. A Jew is a man of Israel who rejects Jesus Christ,

and thus is to us a sign of human hostility to the Gospel..." [34]

The Church that protested Jewish persecution by the Nazis with such courage

and religious conviction still finds it indispensable to advocate conversion

as the only solution to the problem of Jewish stubborn existence, an

existence which equals infidelity: <XXII>

"...The true destiny of the Jewish people lies in its Conversion to Christ,

by joining the Christian Church. The Jew remains a Jew in the bitter sense

which this word has for him first and foremost; the Jew cannot free himself

from himself, as long as he does not come to Christ..." [35]

Are there any pronouncements of the Church that offer a Christian-Jewish

relationship other than that of conversion? [36] Is there a possibility that

the Church may acknowledge the inherent right of self-determination for

the Jew, so that he could retain his identity and not seek to "free himself

from himself?" This "bitter sense" of the Jew the Church spoke about even

when protesting against Nazism, is it indigenous to Judaism or rather the

result of the social and political conditions in a Christian world?

Similar questions arise when we read the documents in Appendix I which do

not deal with the period of the Third Reich but with the period after the

Second World War. In these documents we find a number of explicit statements

by eminent Christian theologians condemning anti-semitism. But even here we

find no acknowledgment of the right of Judaism to exist on its own terms.

Nor do we find such acknowledgment in the special declaration of a group of

theologians, during the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches

which convened in Evanston in 1954, entitled "Hope of Israel" [37]. In this

declaration a systematic attempt is made to renew relations with <XXIII>

Judaism since"... to be a member of the Christian Church is to be involved

with the Jews... and the people of the New Covenant cannot be separated

from the people of the Old Covenant..." [38]

Jews, however, are still regarded as candidates for salvation on Christian

terms, so that even in this enlightened document - a document which was

composed years after the wholesale extermination of the Jews by the Nazis -

theologians find no other solution but "...to hope for the conversion of the

Jewish people..." [39].

Moreover, when these circles in the Church desire for reasons of conscience

and remorse to express "...the grievous guilt of the Christian people towards

the Jews throughout the history of the church...", they find no better way to

express their deep sorrow than to revert to the "Findings of the pre-Evanston

Conference of the American committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews"

(Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, August 8-11, 1954) which states that '... the Church

cannot rest until the title of Christ to the Kingdom is recognized by His own

People according to the flesh...'" [40].

Another typical example of this attitude is the proclamation of the Joint

Committee of the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary

Council, after its Consultation at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, Sept.

12-18, 1956. An attempt was made to elevate the missionary activities of the

Church, to seek the salvation of the Jews by the power of the spirit only:

"...Our hope for the Jews does not mean that we can calculate the time or

define the nature of the coming of Christ in his Kingdom... We may find a

further warning against too precise speculation with regard to the Second

Coming of Christ..." (Ch. III, par. c, d.). [41] In conclusion, however, the

Joint Committee could not help adding a declaration which for the Jew makes

any authentic dialogue meaningless if not impossible: "... The Jewish people

will not find their true destiny until they return and acknowledge Jesus as

Christ and Lord" (Cf. Chap. IV, 6) [42]. <XXIV>

C. The third group of questions that arise from reading the documents and

require careful study, deal with the actual situation as it existed during

the Nazi regime. Were the protests of the Church effective, in rescuing Jews

and then in strengthening the spirit of resistance, or even the religious

feelings among Christians? Were the protests raised at the right time and

under the proper circumstances, to mitigate the persecution or to postpone

the annihilation of the Jews? Was the protest the most useful means of

rescuing Jews, or would it have been more helpful for the Church to keep

quiet so that it could devote itself more to actual underground activities

- but, then, could the Church keep quiet? Was the Church, in its protest,

ready to endanger its members as well as their relatives for the sake of

an effective anti-Nazi struggle, or did the protest function as a Catharsis,

relieving the members of the Church from the burden of moral responsibility

towards the persecuted? Did the protests create a new, perhaps even a

revolutionary non-conformist stand of the Church over against political

power? How was the protest of the Church related to the concept of obedience

to the existing regime, as expressed in Paul's Letter to the Romans Ch. 13,

and in Luther's "Von weltlicher Obrigkeit wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig

ist" 1523? Finally, what was the reaction of the Jews who were persecuted,

and especially of those Jews who lived in free countries and who might have

been expected to exert themselves to save their brethren? Did they endanger

their personal safety to rescue their fellow-Jews and display a deeper sense

of responsibility towards them than the Church?

This collection of sources, by concentrating on only one aspect of the

entire interrelationship between Christianity and Judaism during

the period of the holocaust may confuse the reader in thinking that the

Protest was the prime characteristic and policy of the Church regarding

anti-semitism, the persecution of the Jews and their extermination. The

author of this book, the Rev. Johan M. Snoek, is correct in bringing to

our attention that the Protest must be viewed as one and only one aspect

of the position of the Church and of the Christian world as a whole

during the Nazi regime. A collection of sources on the Protest of the

Church does not preclude the fact that there existed other positions

among Christians; the position of cooperation with antisemites, whether

it was active or passive, direct or indirect, with knowledge of without,

whether voluntary or <XXV>

through coercion. This volume does not attempt to research the entire

and definite historical and theological position of the Church during

the Holocaust. Its purpose is to bring light upon one aspect, which until

now has not been sufficiently investigated. By having gathered these

documents, and by having placed them before us in their historical and

geo-political order, a major contribution has been made towards a more

balanced and varied understanding of this period.

Uriel Tal

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

<XXVI>

PREFACE

Much has been published as to whether the Pope remained silent during the

persecution of the Jews in Europe, primarily as a reaction to Rolf

Hochhuth's play "The Representative" (Der Stellvertreter in German or in

Dutch "Plaatsbekleder"). Not so much, however, has been published about the

attitude of the non-Roman Catholic Churches. When there is a vacuum in

our knowledge, it is an excellent breeding place for myths. We should fill

a gap therefore as well as possible.

There exist certain myths, which die hard. Many people still believe that

it was Richard III who murdered the princes in the Tower, though this has

been shown to be false. The Dutch people for instance did not behave as

courageously during the Second World War as is generally believed, but

the myth seems to be firmly established; just as is the story that the King

of Denmark walked through the streets of Copenhagen wearing the yellow

badge in protest against the German measures concerning the Jews.

One should not lightly dismiss the existence of such historical untruths on

the assumption that there is always a grain of truth in every myth. Sometimes

a myth is completely false, as in the case of murdered princes. Moreover,

this type of myth is sometimes very harmful. We need only remind ourselves

of the infamous ritual-murder myth, suggesting that the Jews used the blood

of a Christian child for ritual purposes. <1>

It is undeniable that throughout the ages many Christians took an active

part in the persecution of Jews. [43] This fact has been officially and

repeatedly admitted by Christian bodies. Some of the statements in this

documentation unequivocally plead guilty in this respect. Small wonder,

then, that many Christians, as well as Jews, honestly believe that "there

was a complete and terrible silence on the part of the Church" [44].

In the process of creation of anti-Jewish myths, there is a tendency to

generalize: "The Jews have ..." We like to think in general terms because

stereotypes are so easy, whilst it costs us much more mental effort to

discriminate. Let us not commit the same offence against logic as the

anti-Semites have and let us remember that it is just as fallacious to

talk about "the Churches" as about "the Jews".

It is important for many reasons not to overrate the positive things the

Churches did and said. It is also important, again for many reasons, not

to belittle them.

We certainly must denounce acts of anti-Semitism, even when outstanding

leaders of the Church were the perpetrators, but this remains a negative.

We must also mention the positive, which is more encouraging.

I believe this is one of the underlying intentions of "Yad Vashem's"

competent Department in trying to seek out and honour the "righteous of all

Nations": non-Jews who helped Jews at the risk of their own lives. [45]

It seems far too early to come to a definite evaluation of many aspects of

the holocaust. Far be it from me, to claim that I can say the last word about

that one aspect under discussion here: the attitude <2>

of the non-Roman Catholic Churches. I can and must try to be objective, but

I cannot be detached, as probably none of our generation can: we were all

involved, in one way or another. [46] But I am convinced that our generation

can and must do the groundwork. It must collect the material that may

otherwise be completely lost or forgotten, and investigate it before even

more people, who were personally involved, have passed away.

Collecting these documents was like trying to make a jigsaw puzzle from

which many pieces are missing, the difference being that in this case one

often does not even know that something is missing. However, the lack of

other pieces is known. [47] As regards my own country (the Netherlands),

I am fairly sure that the collection of documents is well-nigh complete.

Some statements issued by Churches were published in Bulgarian or Slovak,

etc., but not in English. Even such documents as were available in English

were not generally known. Most of the material in this book had to be

translated from Hebrew, French, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish,

Slovak, Hungarian, Bulgarian or Greek.

Initially, I sent a circular letter to the heads of Churches in Eastern

Europe asking for information and I received some replies, though not many.

Some replies stated that no documents were available because everything

had been destroyed during the war. This seems quite possible, and perhaps

we must give the Churches in question the benefit of the doubt. Moreover,

it was not advisable, for security reasons, to keep certain documents. Thus,

for instance, all documents of the World Council of Churches and its

preceding organizations, which might incriminate Christian leaders in

Germany, were destroyed when, in 1940, it was feared that Germany would

invade Switzerland. [48]

<3>

Yet, some Churches, which probably could have sent material, and which in

some cases as, for example, the Churches in Bulgaria and Greece, had a

good record of resistance against anti-Semitism, failed to do so. It would

appear that Church archives are sometimes the safest place in the world for

documents not to be found.

The Library and Archives of "Yad Vashem", in Jerusalem, had much material.

I was also able to spend some days in the Wiener Library, in London, and

in the Library of the World Council of Churches, at Geneva.

I could never have succeeded in finding the material and having it translated

without the help of many interested friends, Jews as well as Christians,

to whom I am deeply indebted. It would be difficult to mention all their

names, but I should like at least to express here my indebtedness to the

late Director of "Yad Vashem", Dr. Arjeh Leon Kubovy, of blessed memory;

and to Dr. Shaul Esh, of blessed memory, who made valuable suggestions for

the chapters on Germany. I am also especially indebted to Dr. J. Robinson,

of New York, and Prof. Dr. C. Augustijn, of Amsterdam, who read the

manuscript and suggested many improvements. Of course the responsibility

for any eventual mistakes solely rests on me. I am deeply grateful for all

the kind help rendered to me by the Chief Librarian of "Yad Vashem", Miss

Ora Alcalay, and her assistants.

Most of the chapters in Part III (During the War) have some particulars

about anti-Semitic measures taken by the Germans: I wanted to give some

historical background for the statements issued by Churches. For the

background of statements issued in the different countries before the

Second World War, the historical survey and the chapter on Germany in

part II should be consulted. One can never have too much knowledge of

the situation and background in the countries concerned, if one is to

see facts clearly in their historical context and interpret them correctly.

Thus, more publications are mentioned in the notes for further study.

Some figures concerning the membership of Churches are given in Appendix II,

though they are of limited value. Many territorial changes took place in

Central and Eastern Europe. Some Churches count as members all who were

baptized, whether they ever attended services or not; others count <4>

"communicants"; the Baptists do not count the children. But one will at

least acquire a conception of the numerical strength of a certain Church.

An investigation into the question whether the non-Roman Catholic Churches

kept silent, must necessarily have certain limitations.

Firstly, no statement issued by a Church under the authority of the Pope

are recorded in this book, with the exception, of course, of joint statements

issued by Protestants and Roman Catholics, as was the case in the Netherlands.

Thus I have recorded nothing from the Polish Greek Catholic Metropolitan

Sheptitsky, or from the Maronite Patriarch of Syria, Mgr. Arida. [49]

Secondly, this investigation is not concerned with the acts of individual

Christians, unless they were leaders of the Church and clearly spoke in the

name of their Church. [50]

Thirdly, I have not recorded the contents of protests issued solely against

the treatment of Christians of Jewish origin. It was certainly the duty of

the Churches to do all in their power to protect those Christians, but this

is not my subject. I am interested in what manner the Churches acted or

failed to act on behalf of the Jews in general.

This book is first of all an attempt to draw up an inventory, rather than

to draw up the balance-sheet. However, the fact that I have often had the

privilege of lecturing on the subject to Jewish, Christian or mixed

audiences, always followed by brisk discussion, encourages me to feel that

I have correctly understood some of the problems and questions which arise.

The Introduction arrived only just in time to be printed. I am particularly

grateful to Dr. Uriel Tal for his penetrating comment and questions. It

stands to reason that our views need not agree in every detail, but <5>

Christians should know that such questions as are raised in the

Introduction are asked by many Jews. It is of the utmost importance

for Jewish-Christian relations to discuss them as frankly as Dr. Tal did.

<6>

I

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

1 PROBLEMS OF EVALUATION

Commentators on the attitude of the Churches in certain lands frequently

contradict one another. Some Christians, such as Rev. Niemoeller [51] and Rev.

Buskes [52] for instance, pass a severe verdict on the Churches and include

themselves also. It seems to me that at least one Jewish commentator gives

too positive a picture about the attitude of the population in his country,

Greece.[53] He may, consciously or unconsciously, have tried not to embarrass

the people amongst whom he still lived when he wrote his book. But also the

opinion of a Christian that "the hundreds of thousands of Jews that escaped

the doom decreed for them owed their survival more to the rescue activities

of individuals and private groups, above all the Churches, than to

governmental resistance policy" [54], seems to me too favourable.

It must be difficult for Jews who know of anti-Semitic actions perpetrated

by Church leaders throughout the centuries, and who personally suffered and

lost their relatives in the holocaust, to believe that not merely a few

"righteous of all Nations" but also Churches publicly and unequivocally

spoke out against Hitler's murderous anti-Semitism. On the other hand,

Christians are in danger of trying to whitewash the Church and ignoring

the many instances when the Church failed. We all tend to forget our

failures and to remember our victories.

Some commentators tend to forget how the actual situation was in those

days. Indeed, it is difficult even for people who themselves lived through

it, to project themselves back into the time when Hitler seemed all-powerful.

Moreover, we now have the benefit of living after the events, and thus we

know many facts, which were not generally known in those days. <9>

It seems unbelievable now, but in the summer of 1940, when some people

somewhere in the Netherlands formed a resistance group, their leader

stated that the British would not liberate us before Christmas 1940, and

everybody present felt sorely disappointed. This kind of unwarranted optimism

was fostered by many people throughout the war, and thus they underestimated

the danger to the Jews and believed that, if German action against them could

be delayed by some kind of compromise, much, and perhaps all, would be won.

Many people in occupied Europe, in Great Britain and in the United States

thought, that the information about the gas-chambers was "atrocity propaganda".

The President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

stated, on May 1, 1943: "What is happening to the Jews on the Continent of

Europe is so horrible that we are in danger of assuming that it is

exaggerated" [55]. We quote the following from "Unity in Dispersion":

"The undertaking was so staggering that, until the revelation about the

Maidanek camp, a majority of the people in the United States as well as

in England dismissed the facts of extermination as 'atrocity mongering'...

It should be conceded, as extenuating circumstances, that never before

in history had states descended to such depths of bad faith, deceit, and

treachery as did Germany and some of her satellites in their resolve to

murder. In 1942, tens of thousands of Polish Jews volunteered for cunningly

disguised 'resettlement' and agricultural work in the territories recently

conquered by the Germans in the East, and thus entered of their own accord

on a road at the end of which destruction awaited them." [56]

The Germans tried to deceive the victims about their aims as well as the

people amongst whom these victims lived, and they succeeded in this to a

considerable extent. [57] <10>

They had, in occupied Europe, all the instruments of mass communication,

such as press and radio, at their disposal. All these and other factors are

mentioned in "Unity in Dispersion" [58] in order to explain to some extent

"the failure of organized Jewry to halt or even to slow down the most

terrible catastrophe in Jewish history". Much of it is, mutatis mutandis,

also applicable to "organized Christianity".

On the other hand, when the true facts became known, there was danger

mentioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury: "It is one of the most terrible

consequences of war that the sensitiveness of people tends to become

hardened... There is a great moral danger in the paralysis of feeling

that is liable to be brought about." [59]

We now are in danger of forgetting that so many other problems burdened

people in those days. The British people were fighting their life-and-death

struggle against the Third Reich, but were free. In the occupied countries,

many young people were sent to Germany for compulsory labour; food was

rationed and became more and more scarce. People went out in the night to

cut wood illegally as there was hardly any fuel.

One cannot understand what happened in occupied Europe without remembering

these things; neither can one understand, without realising the power of

human egoism and the will to survive. No one who has never really been

hungry, nor has been deprived of his liberty, can understand what it meant

in practice to "love one's neighbour" during the Second World War.

The persecution of the Jews was not the only challenge confronting the

Churches in those days, though we only now can perceive better that it

was the most important one. The list of steps taken by the Churches in

the Netherlands shows the type of problems which faced the Churches:

intercession in church services for the Queen; arrest of pastors;

suppression of the Church press; compulsory labour for youth; requisition

of church bells; deportation of labourers to Germany; closing down of the

Bible Society; ban on Church conferences; death sentences: plea for mercy;

deportation of students, and national-socialist education in Christian

schools. [60] <11>

We tend now to underestimate the power of the Hitlerite terror. It has been

said that all the Dutch should have blocked the railways with their own

bodies, thus preventing the deportation of the Jews, because Hitler could

not have murdered the entire Dutch population. I do not doubt that he could

have and he would have done precisely that. [61]

It is not surprising then that many lay members of the Church and Church

leaders were afraid, and therefore failed to fulfil their duties. Gerstein

said, in Rolf Hochhuth's play: "A Christian in these days cannot survive

if he is truly Christian". [62] Dr. Banning said: "If the Church had fully

exercised the obedience of faith, no pastor or priest would have come out

alive. [63]

But the greatness of the risks matched the appalling need to help: the

Germans committed genocide. Whenever the Church remained silent in view

of the holocaust, it was guilty. "Nevertheless a crime of such magnitude

falls in no small measure to the responsibility of those witnesses who

never cried out against it - whatever the reason for their silence." [64]

Therefore, all the considerations mentioned above cannot exempt Churches,

Christians or non-Christians, though they can help us to be fairer in our

judgment.

One is sometimes in danger of becoming irritated by people who did not

stand the test themselves, and yet claim to know exactly what should have

been said and done. There recently appeared a book [65] in which the author

sharply criticizes much what was done, or was not done, during the German

occupation of the Netherlands. <12>

He himself took a very active part in the struggle. Perhaps that is the

reason why his criticism is not without compassion, and that it is to a

large extent self-criticism. In order to understand how difficult it was to

risk one's life or even freedom on behalf of others, one had to have been

in it oneself.

I, who am now living in Israel, have sometimes, when lecturing on the subject,

invited my audience to imagine for a moment that (God forbid!) some foreign

power should occupy the land of Israel, say in the year 1980; and that this

foreign power should deport many Jews for compulsory labour abroad, and also

ration all food supplies, but that the Jewish part of the population should

not risk their lives when complying with the demands of the enemy; that,

however, the Christian minority in Israel should be deported and exterminated;

that they should be deprived of their ration cards, that their identity

cards should be stamped with a C, and that they must wear a yellow badge

in the form of a cross, in order to distinguish them as Christians.

I then asked the question: "would you be willing, in such a situation, to

hide my wife, one of my children or me, who all look very "Aryan", though

you knew that, as in every community, you were in danger of being betrayed

and in even greater danger of being given away by careless talk of other

people? Or would you, if you were the Chief Rabbi, be prepared to denounce

the anti-Christian measures publicly and unequivocally?"

2 FACTORS LEADING TO PUBLIC PROTESTS

There were many factors that led Churches to protest publicly. One of them

is mentioned by the Executive Council of the Federal Council of Churches in

the U.S.A. in 1941:

"No true Christian Can be anti-Semitic in thought, word or deed without

being untrue to his own Christian heritance." [66]

But how often true Christians were untrue... <13>

The National Council of the Reformed Church in France made a similar

statement, in September, 1942, declaring:

"A Christian Church would lose its soul and the reason for its existence,

were it not to maintain... the Divine law above human contingencies." [67]

The Bible (the Old as well as the New Testament) was frequently cited in

the protests. This may appear strange to people who only knew that the New

Testament was used as a source of anti-Semitic influence. The same applies,

by the way, to the Old Testament. [68] In my opinion, this use is quite

indefensible. We list some of the texts cited in the protests:

"Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to

destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the

poor and the needy. (Proverbs 31, 8-9).

Indirect reference, particularly in Switzerland and Germany, was made to

Ezekiel 33, when the Church's office as Watchman is mentioned.

"When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man

of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: if when he seeth the sword

come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people; then whosoever

heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come,

and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head...

But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the

people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them,

he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the

watchman's hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the

house of Israel..." (Ezekiel 33, 2-4, 6-7).

"With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matthew 7, 1).

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of

these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Matthew 25, 40).

"We ought to obey God rather than man." (Acts 5, 29).

"...and (God) hath made of one blood all the nations of men..." (Acts 17, 26).

"There is neither Jew nor Greek...: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

(Galatians 3, 28). <14>

In addition to this, the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10, 30 - 37)

was quoted. It was frequently pointed out, though the wordings differ, that

Jesus was born a Jew.

With regard to the Churches in the Netherlands, it has been stated that

"the moral implications of Christian doctrine motivated the resistance of

the Churches". [69] Such a statement seems to me to oversimplify matters.

I believe that the Christian doctrine (or rather: the teachings of the

Bible) demanded the resistance of the Churches, but it is always possible

to find convenient excuses to escape a challenge, as for example the opinion

that the Church should not interfere in political matters.

I once tried to convince a devout Protestant (he was an elder of the Church)

that he should hide a Jewish child, by reminding him that one day he would

have to give account of his deeds to the Supreme Judge. The man, who

certainly could have hidden that child (he had a large farm) flatly

refused, not because he denied that he would have to give account of his

deeds, but because he was afraid, - too afraid to hide the child. I pointed

out to him that he should rather fear God and not man, but my words simply

had no effect.

Christian teaching did not work in this case, though that does not mean

that it did not work in other cases. Chief Rabbi Safran spoke to the Rumanian

Patriarch Nicodemus of the terrible responsibility he was taking upon

his conscience in the eyes of the Supreme Judge [70], and in this case it

worked, though there were probably other motivations as well.

Everybody's decisions are also motivated by the principles to which he

adheres, and thus a Christian's decisions are influenced by Christian

principles, though it must be admitted that mostly there are many other

influences and motivations, probably more than the person who makes

a decision, realizes.

<15>

The whole matter of the attitude of the Churches during the war was once

discussed at a conference, and one of the speakers began by expressing as

his opinion that Hitler and Eichmann were Christians, but later on he said

that Mr. Johannes Bogaard, one of the "righteous of all Nations" who saved

many Jews and whose father, brother and son were murdered by the Germans,

was "just a courageous Dutchman".

I happen to know Mr. Bogaard very well and I am convinced that he acted as

he did during the war, primarily because he is a committed Christian. Of

course this does not alter the fact that many Christians did not do very

much, if anything, on behalf of their neighbours, the Jews; nor should it

be denied that many non-Christians did do what they could, out of national,

socialist, humanist or communist convictions.

The same applies to the attitudes of a community.

A member of a left wing kibbutz stated his views very clearly to me, and

I know that many people hold views similar to his:

"Allow me to express my position which is based on dialectical materialism.

The Protestant Churches were active everywhere according to the local

circumstances, first of all according to the nature of the people amongst

whom they lived. The Churches did not act in a vacuum.

For instance, in the countries of Western-Europe, such as Holland, Norway

and Denmark, where the 'final solution' met with the resistance of all

sections of the population, the courageous stand of those nations found

its vehement expression in the attitude of the different Churches.

The non-Roman Catholic Churches merely reflected the opinion and reactions

of the people."

It seems to me that there is more than a grain of truth in such a view and

certainly no Church ever acted in a vacuum. Much in the protests issued by

Churches in countries such as Bulgaria and Greece, points to nationalist

rather than to spiritual-Christian considerations. Reading and analysing

the contents of the statements may be of some help when assessing the

motivations of Christians and groups of Christians who resisted the

persecution of Jews. <16>

If, however, one indeed believes that everything can be explained by the

influences of local circumstances etc., one should be consistent and stop

holding Churches responsible for acts of anti-Semitism committed by Churches

or by people professing to be Christians throughout the ages, for in such a

case they were also "merely reflecting the opinion and reactions of the people

amongst whom they lived". In the case of such a rigid determinism, it seems

difficult to hold anyone anywhere responsible for his acts and decisions.

In my opinion we are all influenced by the people amongst whom we live,

by social circumstances and by many other factors. We are all subject to a

kind of mimicry, but that does not necessarily mean that we are just

chameleons and nothing else. Churches are certainly influenced, just like

any other group of people, by circumstances and surroundings, but they on

their part influence these circumstances and surroundings. There is

interplay of factors.

Similar to the opinion mentioned above is the viewpoint that Churches always

tend to support the Establishment. The United States and Great Britain were

at war with Germany, and the Churches participated in the crusade against

the enemy. The same applies to Churches in occupied Europe, even when their

own Government was in exile.

I think that the Old Testament already gives us many examples of organized

religion supporting the Establishment, but it also gives us some instances

when religious leaders (the prophets!) refused to do so. [71]

It is doubtful whether the British Government was pleased with the Church's

protest against the pogroms of the "Crystal Night", just after the Munich

agreement. [72] The Archbishop of Canterbury's speech in the House of Lords

and the Bishop of Chichester's letters to The Times, in 1943, must have

embarrassed political leaders who were of the opinion that the main object

was to win the war, and that attempts to rescue Jews were of less

importance. [73]

The Swiss Churches could hardly be accused of supporting the Establishment,

when they protested against the decision of the Swiss Government to return

refugees to Nazi Germany who had illegally entered Switzerland. [74] Similar

examples can be given regarding the United States, Sweden and other lands.

The little that was said by the "Confessing Church" in Germany on behalf of

the Jews was certainly not in support of the Establishment. <17>

A Church must try to be the conscience of nation and Government, even

though this may mean that its leaders have to speak out against the seeming

interests of their nation. Churches frequently failed to do so, but we

should refrain from generalizing.

Whenever Churches were conscious of belonging to a worldwide fellowship,

this contributed to their making a stand against anti-Semitism.

Church leaders in the Netherlands followed the struggle of the "Confessing

Church" in Germany, and were on the alert when they were challenged themselves.

The Church in Sweden was moved to protest by the statement issued by the

Church of Norway. Church leaders in Hungary realized, when they did not

carry their protest before the Hungarian public, that this course would

"incur... the reproach and accusation of the leading bodies of the

Christian Churches" and stated that, if their intervention proved

ineffective, they would be obliged "to testify before the congregations

of our Church and the Protestants of the world that we did not suppress

the message of God". [75]

Many of the Church leaders who took a clear stand, knew one another

personally. [76] In view of the attempts of the Germans to deceive world

opinion as to their ultimate aims concerning the Jews, and in view of the

tendency to dismiss reports about what was going on as "atrocity propaganda",

the importance of the information given by the World Council of Churches

through its Press Service and by other means can hardly be overestimated.

The need to combine efforts and thus break through denominational barriers

in order to come to a joint stand, was understood in some countries. In the

Netherlands, Protestants and Roman Catholics began a new chapter in their

relationship by protesting together. In France and Hungary there was

consultation between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but it is to be

regretted that they did not achieve a common front. <18>

Sometimes there existed close contact between Christian and Jewish leaders,

as for example in the United States, in Great Britain, in Bulgaria and

between the leaders of the World Council of Churches and the World Jewish

Congress, in Geneva. Thus, again, information about what was going on was

communicated and action could be co-ordinated.

The negative implication is also clear: whenever a spirit of particularism,

provincialism and isolationism was strong in a Church, it did not fulfil

its duty toward the persecuted Jews.

3 RESULTS

In order to ascertain the practical effects that could be expected from

steps taken by the Churches, the political and geographical position of

the countries concerned, as well as the time factor, must be born in mind.

Where there was a national Government, as was the case in Slovakia, Hungary,

Rumania and Bulgaria, protests had a better chance of some success than in

countries under direct Nazi control. Yet even then what Jeno Levai stated

about Hungary was sometimes true:

"The Church was not in a position to promise or to threaten. Thus, in

spite of their very best intentions, they could obtain only very little.

Naturally this little meant life to the persons concerned." [77]

Typical were the differences between the Scandinavian countries: Sweden

was neutral; Finland was an ally of the Germans; Denmark was occupied but

it had its own King and was officially not even in a state of war with

Germany; Norway's King had fled and the infamous Quisling had become

Prime Minister. <19>

Geography also played an important role. The Jews in the Netherlands

were in a deadly trap; Hungary was, at least for some time, a place of

refuge for Jews in the neighbouring countries; Jews in Denmark and Norway

had a chance to flee to Sweden and the Jews in France and Italy to

Switzerland, in so far as that country was willing to admit them.

The time persecution began was a vital factor. The earlier it started,

the smaller the chance of saving at least some lives. It should be noted

that these three factors were utterly unfavourable in Germany.

It is difficult to assess the range of influence of any Church.

Figures have been given about membership in Appendix II, but one must

remember that many Churches have a high percentage of nominal members

who, perhaps since their baptism, never attended a church service.

Therefore it can be misleading to read that there were forty-five million

Protestants in Germany, or, that 96,2 per cent of the population of Norway

are members of the State Church. Only 5 per cent of the members of the

Norwegian Church regularly attend Sunday services. In many other countries

the situation is similar.

Many people who were not church goers may never even have known about the

protests of the Church, and this is especially true of occupied Europe in

those days, for there the Church could only speak from the pulpits, not

through press and radio. Moreover, many nominal Christians are influenced

by other outlooks on life, rather than by the Christian faith.

However, when press and radio were silenced and the Church alone could

voice an open and public protest, it met with the response of many people

who were outside the fold. Church services were better attended than in

times of peace. The former editor-in-chief of the Dutch communist daily De

Waarheid relates that he went to a church service in those days:

That church meant something to us in those black days, were it only to

listen to the prayer of a man, who dared make a public address on behalf

of the people tortured in the concentration camps. [78]

<20>

I myself belong to the persons who, in those days, found their way back

to the fold, attracted as we were by the Church's spiritual resistance

to the Nazis.

When attempting to assess the practical results of steps taken by Churches

or Church leaders on behalf of the Jews, we distinguish between countries

under German occupation, countries under a satellite government, neutral

countries, and countries that were at war with Germany.

In countries under German occupation, efforts made by the Churches had

hardly any direct practical result for the Jews in general. Personal

intervention did not help or, at best, could only cause some delay in the

deportations. The only step that had some effect on the Germans (as we now

know!) was the issuing of a public protest.

Again it was evident, that the German authorities did not fear or have any

step taken by the Churches as much as their protests which were read from

the pulpits. Letters of protest they could throw in the dustbin or file away.

They could listen to oral protests without taking them to heart. But they

tried in every way to prevent public protests (in those days the only form

of public protest), fearing their effect upon the people."[79]

The most effective protests were those, which clearly encouraged the faithful

to help the Jews. Others called for non-cooperation with the Germans, and

this had at least some result.

Six Roman Catholic police-agents at Utrecht informed their chief on February

24, 1943, that on the grounds of a pastoral letter read in their church on

February 21, they would have to refuse if ordered to arrest Jews.

Their chief threatened to dismiss them without pension and said that "those

who do not announce their intended refusal and yet have the impudence to

carry it out will be considered saboteurs, with all the serious consequences.

The Germans immediately tried to arrest these agents but they had gone into

hiding. The Germans then arrested their wives and children." [80]

<21>

Generally speaking, the positive indirect effect of public protests was,

that it counteracted the attempts of the Germans to separate and isolate the

Jews from the non-Jewish population, in order to break their will to resist

deportation and annihilation. [81]

It is impossible to count the lives saved through the activities of the

Churches in the occupied territories. I agree with the opinion of Dr. Visser

't Hooft:

"So far we have only spoken of public protests. But were these protests

implemented by deeds? The answer is that they were, though by no means as

generally as ought to have been the case. The full story of Christian

assistance to the Jews in their hour of great need will never be fully

told, for in many cases individuals acted quietly and behind the scenes." [82]

In the countries under a satellite government, actions undertaken by the

Churches were of some and sometimes even of much avail. [83]

Concerning the neutral countries, the steps and protests of the Churches

in Switzerland contributed to the relaxation of measures against the

refugees [84], and in Sweden the Lutheran Archbishop encouraged his government

to broadcast its willingness to take in the Jews of Denmark. [85]

It is difficult to assess how far the protests of the Churches in countries

that were at war with Germany had a practical effect. [86]

They apparently helped to combat anti-Semitic influences in these countries

(the same applies to protests issued in the countries mentioned above) and

they contributed towards "breaking the wall of silence."

<22>

"The world wide public, overburdened with the issues and the incidents of a

world conflict fraught with the gravest consequences, was not receptive to

reports which it was ready to dismiss as propaganda tales; besides, the facts

were hidden from it, not withstanding persistent endeavours by the (World

Jewish) Congress to keep it informed. A wall of secrecy concealed the terrible

tragedy...

The main difficulty was how to convince public opinion and induce the Allied

Governments to act. The battles of World War II raged fiercely on three

continents, the onslaught of barbarity was nowhere decisively checked, the

democratic nations feverishly tried to overcome their unprepared ness for a

conflict of such dimensions. The Governments in Exile were chiefly concerned

with the sufferings of their nations as a whole." [87]

The pressure exerted by Jewish and Christian leaders on their Governments did

not, however, result in effective rescue activities being undertaken by these

Governments.

It has been suggested that the protests from the Churches mostly came too

late, and thus fell flat. This is partly true. The Protestant leaders in

Hungary did speak out very late, and Bishop Wurm of Wurttemberg sent his

letters when there only remained a chance of doing something for the

"privileged" Jews.

On the other hand, Churches or Church leaders in Belgium, France, Switzerland,

Sweden, Great Britain and the United States began to protest in 1933. The

Churches in the Netherlands protested at the very beginning of the German

attacks on the Dutch Jews, in 1940. The Church of Denmark had prepared a

public protest before the deportations started.

It is, however, necessary to keep the dates of protests in mind, in order

to arrive at a fair evaluation of the moral courage which such protests

required. After Hitler's defeat at Stalingrad, at the end of 1942, and the

defeat of Rommel at El-Alamein, it became more and more clear that Germany

would lose the war.

The measure of success is in itself no yardstick for the moral value of a deed.

One can hardly say that Church leaders in Rumania behaved better than Church

leaders in, for instance, the Netherlands, because the former, contrary to the

latter, actually succeeded in saving many lives. <23>

To this it must be added, however, that the seeming absence of any chance of

success could not be an excuse for maintaining silence or for doing nothing

against the terror of the Nazis. Prince William the Silent is said to have

stated that it is not necessary to hope in order to try, nor to succeed in

order to persevere.

4 HELP TO CHRISTIANS OF JEWISH ORIGIN

Apart from the 500,000 Jews who registered as members of their community in

1933, there were some 50,000 Jews in Germany who no longer belonged to the

Jewish community. Though born as Jews, they had been baptized. In addition,

some 210,000 people had at least one Jewish parent, and another 80,000 one

Jewish grandparent; thus a total of some 340,000 people in Germany were, in

addition to the "full Jews", affected by racial legislation. [88]

Until the end of the year 1938, Christian leaders and Churches tended to

stress the necessity of helping Christian refugees of Jewish origin, rather

than calling for help for Jews in general. A notable exception to this rule

was the Appeal of the Ecumenical Council for Life and Work, in 1933, to help

"Jews, Christians of Jewish origin and political refugees". [89]

During the war, Churches in countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary and the

Netherlands, instituted steps to protect their members of Jewish origin.

It can hardly be denied that it was the right as well as the duty of the

Churches to do so, but more than once the Churches were tempted to try and

save their own members while neglecting the Jews in general.

The announcement read from the pulpits of the Hungarian Protestant churches,

on July 16, 1944, is significant:

"The Bishops... wish to inform the congregations that in connection with

the Jewish question, and particularly in the case of baptised Jews, they

have repeatedly intervened with the competent Government authorities..." [90]

<24>

A comment on the "Confessing Church" in Germany is:

"The Church took up the cudgels for the baptized Jews and that meant to the

average churchgoer that the unbaptized Jew, i.e. the Jew as such, was left

to the devil." [91]

Church leaders in the Netherlands regarded the issue as a temptation:

"Great dangers and temptations threatened continually. From the German side

came the voice of the tempter: 'do not protest; only negotiate'. 'Do not

speak on behalf of the Jews any more; then we shall be lenient to the

Christians of Jewish origin.'... It is a great miracle that, in general,

the Church recognized these voices as coming from the tempter, and boldly

rejected the temptation." [92]

That these questions were very difficult indeed, becomes clear from the

following comment of Herzberg:

"The baptized Jews [in the Netherlands], who were able to save their lives,

owed this exclusively to the resistance of the Churches, a resistance which

was especially impressive because of the principles by which it was

motivated." [93]

Quite different, however, is the sharp verdict of Presser:

"And the Churches (in the Netherlands)? With what hesitation did they begin

their resistance? How many were there, unfortunately, who were resigned to

the fatal decrees of the occupying power, even appealing to texts in the

Bible, and actually helping to carry out the decrees. How many times did

they stand up only on behalf of baptized Jews and not on behalf of others."

[94] <25>

It makes a difference, whether Churches on their own initiative stressed

the importance they attached to the fate of Christians of Jewish origin,

or were forced into a compromise by the tactics of the Germans. The latter

was the case when the DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH failed to read the telegram of

protest publicly in the church services. [95]

The Protestant Christians of Jewish origin in the Netherlands indeed

survived. We should not pass judgment lightly and we must realize that

we now have the benefit of being after the events, Church leaders in

those days were not always aware of the fact that the Germans, who

offered not to deport the Christians of Jewish origin, were not just

making a concession, but were also providing themselves with a means

of exerting further pressure on the Churches.

It is most regrettable that on several occasions certain Churches

interpreted the saying "charity begins at home" as they did.

5 "MERCY-BAPTISMS"

Christian clergymen in many lands were prepared to baptize Jews if the

ceremony of baptism meant that lives could be saved.

The following is related of the Lutheran Church in Slovakia:

"Many Jews who tried to escape persecution sought rescue by giving up

their religion and by requesting to be received into the Evangelical

Church, for the Catholic Church did not receive them. [96] The Evangelical

Church did not refuse them, which was an act of courage in those days,

but enabled them to become members of the Church...

Here some examples follow: <26>

In 1940, 20 persons, most of them adults, became Christians in Bratislava.

For the year 1941 the number was 83; for the first half of the year 1942: 47

persons; for the second half: 7.828 persons were admitted in 1943; only 2 in

1944.

In Horne Zelenice (near Hlohovec), 169 persons became Christians in 1942; 39

in 1943; in 1945 only one. In Frencin 120 persons; in Kochanovce (near Treucin)

45; in Banska Bystrica, 202 persons became Christians in 1942.

This help aroused the anger of the rulers, of the Gestapo and of the Hlinka

Guard. They began to arrest Evangelical Christians and pastors. 9 pastors were

sent to the concentration camps in Germany. Joseph Bucko, minister at Martine,

perished in the camp." [97]

It is reported that in Bulgaria,

"... Ministers of various Christian denominations engaged in mass 'mercy

baptisms'; several of them were removed from office because of this (one of

these ministers, with a community of about 200 souls, managed to baptize 200

additional persons between January 1 and September 1, 1940).

High dignitaries of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church declared that 'conversion

to Christianity' and 'formal baptism' were two different acts, the first of

which necessarily preceded the second, sometimes by a considerable period;

because the law spoke of conversion and not of baptism having to have taken

place before September 1, 1940, Jews baptized later could also be saved if

the minister declared that they had expressed their will to adopt Christianity

before that date.

Many courts accepted this reasoning. In this way, a number of baptized Jews

and offspring of mixed marriages escaped the provision of the law." [98]

The following is quoted from the testimony of Richard Simantov: <27>

"... It must be admitted that, with a few exceptions, all the Christian

religious institutions [in Bulgaria], as also their clergy, behaved with

sympathy towards the Jewish victims of the anti-Jewish legislation.

When issuing the required legal documents to the Christian Jew, the clerk

of the court or the judge himself interrogated the priest, whether he had

indeed carried out all the religious formalities, and how long the teaching

of the catechism had lasted for the person of Jewish origin concerned.

The priest would always reply in the affirmative and would declare that

the man had received instruction for 3, 4 or 5 months, and that he regularly

attended church services etc., although often these documents, which were

issued by the Church, were given only in exchange for a payment, without

the ceremony having been performed..." [99]

We have the following particulars about Greece :

"Many tried to evade the racial laws through baptism. More than 500 Jews

embraced the Orthodox religion; some scores preferred to become Catholics.

it was clear that it was not out of conviction that these Jews entered into

the Church. It was well-known, that only the desire to escape persecution

moved them to seek refuge in the shadow of the cross.

Out of compassion, the priests did not hesitate to accept the new converts.

They were on friendly terms with them in different ways. Out of noble feelings

and not in order to receive a reward, the priests also distributed baptismal

certificates to Jews who had never attended a church service..." [100]

The biographer of the Archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos, relates:

"Later on, when the persecutions started affecting the Jews of Athens,

the Archbishop decided on the following measures. He summoned the Director

General of the Administrative Services of the Community of Athens, Mr. P.

Haldezos, and said to him:

"I have made the sign of the cross and have spoken to God, and have decided

to save as many Jews as I can, even though I run a great risk. I am going to

baptize them, and you must give certificates enabling them to obtain the

identity cards of Christian Greeks. Mr. Haldezos agreed to this. With the help

of a Municipal official, they opened a register wherein they registered 560

Jews as Christians, all of whom were saved. There was no treachery." [101]<28>

Rev. J.J. Buskes discussed the considerations, which led clergymen in the

Netherlands to provide Jews with false certificates of Baptism:

"We are well aware that many pastors had conscientious objections to giving

forged baptismal certificates. But, thank God, there were other ministers

who had conscientious objections about not doing so.

Such a certificate was, of course, false. But the man who wrote it out and

gave it to a Jew, did service to the truth and helped his neighbour. The one,

however, who would not write it and thus refused help to a Jew, served

falsehood and failed the Jew.

There is a truth which is like a lie and there is a lie which is like the

truth. God commanded us to lie in the service of the truth. Not the end, but

the obedience to God's commandment (to love our neighbour as ourselves)

justified the means.

Thus the humble and scrupulous Dr. Oorthuis wrote in a pamphlet of the

underground movement: even forged passports can be safe-conducts from the

Lord, and stolen ration cards be gifts of mercy from God, which we accept

with Thanksgiving." [102]

Many people may feel horrified when reading the views of Rev. Buskes. The

same author stated in another publication:

"If I can save a man whose life is threatened by a scoundrel by saying to

that scoundrel that two and two make five, I shall say so to him, in

obedience to the ninth commandment. In such a case I am even prepared to

declare that two and two make ten." [103]

A personal friend of mine, who is a devout Christian, took the oath

declaring that a child in his house was not Jewish but his own child born

out of wedlock. He saved the child.

People who are horrified at such behaviour, probably never lived under

German occupation. At any rate, they should remember St. Paul's saying:

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another

hath fulfilled the law". [104]

In my opinion, it was morally permissible and even laudable to baptize Jews

in those days in order to save their lives, as long as it was mutually

understood that this was in order to deceive the persecutors and that the

baptism in fact was invalid. <29>

II

BEFORE THE WAR

6 HISTORICAL EVENTS

a. Hitler's Rise to Power - the Nuremberg Laws. (Jun., 1933-Sept., 1935)

President Hindenburg entrusted Hitler with the Chancellorship on January 30,

1933. The Reichstag fire, on February 27, was followed by a wave of arrests.

The "Ordinance for the Protection of the People and the State", issued on

February 28, suspended the sections of the Constitution which guaranteed

individual and civil rights. The "Enabling Act" (March 23) stripped

Parliament of its power and handed it over to the Reich Cabinet. Laws

enacted by the Cabinet were to be drafted by the Chancellor (Hitler) and

might deviate from the Constitution.

On April 1, Jewish shops throughout Germany were boycotted. Jewish civil

servants were dismissed on April 7. On the same day the exclusion of

"non-Aryan" lawyers was ordered. According to a decree of April 22, no

Jewish physicians were allowed to work for sick funds anymore. At the end

of April another decree restricted the admission of Jewish children and

students to schools and universities.

In the following months Jews were excluded from working in the fields of art,

music, literature and journalism. The "Law on revocation of naturalizations

and deprivation of German citizenship" (July, 14) robbed Jews, who had been

naturalized before or had been born outside Germany, from their citizenship.

In January, 1934, it was decreed that Jews could no longer be members of the

Labour Front. When President Hindenburg died, on August 2, 1934, Hitler became

President and Supreme Commander of the Army.

On May 21, 1935, it was decreed that only "Aryans" could serve in the army.

It is estimated that 37,000 Jews emigrated from Germany in 1933; in 1934,

the number was 23,000, whilst 21,000 Jews left Germany in 1935. [105] <33>

b. The Nuremberg Laws - Crystal Night. (Sept., 1935-Nov., 1938)

On September 15, 1935, two fundamental laws were adopted by the Reichstag

meeting at Nuremberg. One, the "Law Respecting Reich Citizenship", decreed

that only a national of German or kindred blood, who proved by his conduct

that he was willing and likely to serve the German people and Reich faithfully,

could be a citizen. The second, the "Law for the Protection of German Blood

and Honour", specifically referred to the Jews and singled them out as

undesirable aliens, impure of blood and dangerous to the honour and security

of the German people. There followed seven paragraphs, the first of which

dealt with the prohibition of marriages between Jews and nationals of German

or kindred blood. Paragraph three prohibited Jews to employ in domestic

service female nationals of German or kindred blood, under the age of

forty-five years.

On April 26, 1938, it was decreed that all Jewish assets in excess of 5,000

marks should be registered. On June 15, 1938, about 1,500 Jews were arrested

and deported to a concentration camp. On July 25, it was decreed that Jewish

physicians were no longer permitted to treat non-Jewish patients. In the same

month, Jews had to apply for special identity cards. On August 17, 1938, the

first name "Israel" for Jewish men and "Sara" for Jewish women was made

compulsory in addition to their own names. In October, all passports of Jews

were stamped with the letter J.

Austria had been incorporated into the Third Reich, on March 13, 1938.

The German anti-Jewish laws were also enforced in Austria, where about

180,000 Jews were living.

It is estimated that 25,000 Jews emigrated from Germany in 1936, and 23,000

in 1937. [106]

In March, 1938, President Roosevelt invited thirty-three governments to join

in a co-operative effort to aid the emigration of refugees from Germany

and Austria. On July 6, 1938, the Intergovernmental Conference met at Evian,

France. Nearly all the delegates expressed their sympathy for the refugees

but were very careful not to assume any obligations on behalf of their

Governments. <34>

It is important to keep some of the major political events of those days in

mind. Italy attacked Ethiopia on October 3, 1935. In May, 1936, the Ethiopian

emperor went into exile into Great Britain. On March 2, 1936, the Rhineland

was remilitarized. On November 25, 1936, the anti-Comintern Pact with Japan

was signed. On July 16, 1936, civil war in Spain broke out. On September 30,

1938, the Munich agreement was signed by Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini and

Daladier. As a result, Sudetenland was occupied by Germany. Poland and

Hungary also occupied part of Czechoslovakia.

c. Crystal Night - the Outbreak of the War. (Nov., 1938-Summer, 1939)

On October 28, 1938, 15,000-17,000 Jews of Polish origin were rounded up and

expelled. On November 7, a seventeen-year-old Jewish boy, Herschel Grynspan,

whose parents had been among the people expelled to Poland, shot Ernst vom

Rath, a minor Nazi official in the Paris Embassy. He died two days later.

This was the pretext for unleashing a pogrom that has entered history under

the name Crystal Night: 7,500 Jewish shops were looted and windows of shops

and houses were smashed; many synagogues were burned; more than 26,000 Jews

were arrested, many of whom were sent to concentration camps; at least 91

were killed. [107]

On November 12, the Jews in Germany were ordered to pay a collective fine of

thousand million Reichsmark. On November 15, Jewish children were dismissed

from German schools. Jews were prohibited from visiting theatres, cinemas,

concert halls, museums and public baths. On December 8, a decree was issued

expelling Jews from the universities.

At the beginning of January, 1939, the "Aryanisation" of Jewish enterprises

began. Since January 17, 1939, Jews were forbidden to be employed in the

professions of dentist, pharmacist and veterinary surgeon. On January 30, 1939,

Hitler publicly declared that the Jewish race in Europe would be annihilated

if war broke out. <35>

Hitler annexed Czechia, on March 15, 1939. Slovakia became "independent".

In April, 1939, Mussolini occupied Albania.

From the beginning of 1938 until October 1, 1941 (when further emigration was

forbidden) an estimated 170,000 Jews left Germany. [108] Jews in Germany at

the beginning of the Hitler regime, numbered 499,682. The 1939 census,

registered within the borders of the pre-Hitler Reich, amounted to no more

than 213,930. [109]

7 GERMANY

The vast majority of the Protestants of Germany belonged to one of the 28

Landeskirchen (Lutheran, Reformed or Uniate), of which the largest was the

Church of the Old Prussian Union, with 18 million members. The Landeskirchen

were independent members of the German Evangelical Church Union, founded in

1922. In all, there were forty-five million Germans who were, nominally at

least, members of the Protestant Church.

In 1932, members of the Church who supported Hitler had founded the "German

Christians' Faith Movement". These "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" demanded the creation

of one Protestant Church, the application of the Fuehrer principle in Church

affairs, the introduction of racialism within the Church, the "Germanization"

of Christianity (the "Aryan Jesus"!) and the elimination of "Jewish influence"

from teaching, liturgy and preaching. In 1933, some 3000 pastors belonged to

this group. Church elections took place on July 23, 1933. On the eve of the

elections, Hitler made an unexpected radio appeal asking the electorate to

vote "GERMAN CHRISTIANS". They won a decisive victory.

On September 21, 1933, Rev. Martin Niemoeller and others created the

"Pastors' Emergency League", which opposed the "GERMAN CHRISTIANS". In the

beginning, Niemoeller's group was definitely in the minority. By December,

1933, its membership had grown to 6,000. Between the two groups, a majority

tried to remain neutral while more or less sympathizing with the group of

Niemoeller, but in practice obeying Hitler's orders without open protest.

<36>

After a protege of Hitler, Ludwig Mueller, had been elected as Reich Bishop

under pressure of the Government, Niemoeller's opposition group constituted

the "CONFESSING CHURCH" which declared itself to be the legitimate Protestant

Church of Germany and set up a provisional Church government. [110]

The "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" had, in the meantime, gained control in several

Landeskirchen, sometimes with the active help of the national-socialist

party. In April, 1933, the Landeskirche of Thuringia required of its clergy

a formal oath of allegiance to Hitler; the "Thuringian Christians" wanted to

give this symbol of unconditional obedience to Hitler as a birthday present.

There was a division in other Landeskirchen, as for instance in the largest:

the Church of the Old-Prussian Union. In the summer of 1933, a law had been

issued forbidding the appointment of pastors or Church officers of "non-Aryan

descent" and ordering the dismissal of such pastors and Church officers. [111]

In its session on Sept. 5, 1933, the Synod of the Old Prussian Union accepted

this law; the opposition party protested and, when this was of no avail, left

the meeting. Later on the opposition organized the "CONFESSING Synod of the

Evangelical Church of the Old-Prussian Union". <37>

It is not, as has been stated in the Preface, my intention to record the

contents of statements issued by Churches or Church leaders on behalf of

Christians of Jewish origin. It is of importance, however, to know to what

extent the "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" supported discrimination against these

members of the Church, and, also, to know that the CONFESSING CHURCH

defended them. Thus I mention the more important statements, which were

issued, without recording their full contents. [112]

There was sharp controversy and much discussion as to whether the

anti-Jewish laws should be applied within the Church. The following

persons and institutions protested against such a measure: the Theological

Faculty of the University of Marburg (Sept. 19, 1933); the Theological

Faculty of the University of Erlangen (Sept. 25, 1933); Rev. Martin

Niemoeller (Nov. 2, 1933), and Prof. Rudolf Bultmann (Dec., 1933).

On the other hand, the "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" declared at the beginning of

April, 1933, that only those who were "of pure German blood" should be

admitted to the ministry. On May 26, 1932, they had already decided to

consider Missionary work amongst the Jews as a great danger "as it is the

entrance gate for foreign blood into our national body". The example of

the Synod of the Old-Prussian Union (see above) was followed by other

Landeskirchen, as for instance in Saxony, Thuringia and Braunschweig:

ministers of Jewish origin were to be dismissed. The Church in Saxony

even voted, on Dec. 10, 1933, to accept the principles of blood and race,

and that only those who according to the laws of the State were compatriots

should be members of the national Church! <38>

The decision of the Church of Saxony was publicly rejected by the Theological

Faculty of the University of Leipzig, and by the Pastors' Society of the Rhine.

The majority of the Theological Faculty of the University of Berlin, however,

supported the racialism of the Saxonians. This all happened in the years

1933-1934. In those days, it certainly needed courage to stand up publicly for

the rights of Christians of Jewish origin in the Church. It should be noted,

however, that the publications mentioned above did not publicly oppose

discrimination against the Jews in general, nor even discrimination against

Christians of Jewish origin outside the Church.

In March, 1935, the CONFESSING Synod of the Evangelical Church of the

Old-Prussian Union sent a "Word to the Congregations", which was read from

the pulpits. We quote the following:

"We believe that our nation is threatened by a mortal danger. This danger

lies in a new religion.... in it, racial and nationalistic ideology becomes

supreme. Blood and race, nationality, honour and freedom become its idols.

... Whoever substitutes blood, race and nationality as the creator and source

of authority instead of God, undermines the state." [113]

The Government struck back with arrests. 500 pastors were imprisoned.

* * *

After the notorious Laws of Nuremberg had been promulgated, only individuals

in the CONFESSING Church pleaded for the issue of a public declaration.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said : "Only the man who loudly cries out on behalf

of the Jews, is at liberty to sing the Gregorian chants". [114]

The "Council of Brethren" of the CONFESSING Church stated, in a declaration

in defense of the right to baptize Jews, in September, 1935: "We only say

the necessary minimum (alas, perhaps even not the minimum) concerning things

about which we are not allowed to keep silent..." [115] <39>

The Provisional Church Council of the CONFESSING Church sent a Memorandum

to Hitler, in May, 1936. We quote the following from it:

"... When blood, race, nationality and honour are thus raised to the rank

of qualities that guarantee eternity, the Evangelical Christian is bound by

the first commandment to reject that assumption. When the Aryan human being

is glorified, God's word bears witness to the sinfulness of all men.

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 command to love his neighbour..." [116]

The Memorandum, which was published in the foreign press without the consent

of the CONFESSING Church, resulted in the arrest of Dr. Weissler who worked

in the office of the Provisional Church Council. He perished in a

concentration camp. [117]

On June 23, 1937, several members of the Reich Brethren Council were

arrested, and on July 1, 1937, Rev. Martin Niemoeller also. He remained a

prisoner until the end of the war. The office of the Provisional Church

Council was closed by the authorities, and thus the CONFESSING Church was

to a large extent forced into underground resistance.

* * *

No public protest was voiced after the Crystal Night pogroms. In September,

1938, an office for helping persecuted Jews, but mainly Christians of Jewish

origin, was opened under the direction of Rev. Grueber.

Rev. Grueber also contacted the Jewish and Catholic relief-organizations.

Repeated journeys to Switzerland, the Netherlands and Great Britain were made

to find places for Jewish refugees. <40>

At the end of 1940, Rev. Grueber was arrested and the office in Berlin was

closed. The branches in Heidelberg, under Rev. Maas; in Breslau, under Vikarin

Staritz; and in Kassel, continued to function, though under the pressure of

fierce hostility.

On the initiative of Rev. Werner Sylten, Grueber's deputy, an attempt was

made to continue the work of the Berlin office on a smaller scale.

Conversations with the Evangelical Church Council of Berlin took place;

negotiations with the Gestapo were held. This eventually led to the arrest

of Rev. Sylten, who perished in the concentration camp of Dachau, at the

end of 1942. Only a few of the 35 members of Grueber's office, most of

them of Jewish origin, lived to see the end of the war. Most of them died

in the gas chambers. [118]

In Dec., 1938, the Kirchentag of the CONFESSING Church stated:

"... We again face the fact that many servants of the Church are being

hampered in the execution of their ministry and are being expelled from

their offices. In the hour of threatening war some fulfilled the duty of

the Church, doing penance for the whole nation and beseeching forgiveness

and deliverance from God's judgment. Thereupon, they were charged with

high-treason. in view of what happened to the Jews others earnestly

preached the Ten Commandments and were persecuted for it..." [119]

The Thuringian Church, followed by Mecklenburg, Anhalt and Sachsen (all

directed by "GERMAN CHRISTIANS") promulgated (February, 1939) a law which

eliminated Jews from membership in their Churches. <41>

In April, 1939, the infamous declaration of Godesberg was published. It

accepted National-Socialism and stated that "the Christian faith is in

irreconcilable opposition to Judaism". The declaration was accepted by

the leaders of 11 Landeskirchen in which the "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" were

the ruling party.

The CONFESSING Reich Brethren Council sharply opposed the Godesberg

declaration in a statement issued on April 13, 1939. One day later,

it also opposed the law of the Thuringian Church (see above) which

denied permission to Christians of Jewish origin to be members of the

Church. The Reich Brethren Council stated:

"... The men responsible for these laws thereby show themselves to be

enemies of the Cross of Christ. They cannot exclude anybody from the

Church of Christ. They have, however, separated themselves from the

holy Christian Church, by the promulgation of these laws..." [120]

The fundamental difference between "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" and the

CONFESSING CHURCH is obvious: the former completely identified

themselves with national-socialist racialism, the latter repudiated it

verbally but showed weakness of action. One feared that, by an all-out

intervention on behalf of all non-Aryans, the theological protest against

the separation of Christian non-Aryans from the community of the Church

would be politically misinterpreted, and that thus the intervention on

behalf of them would become even more difficult. [121]

That the CONFESSING Church hardly spoke out at all was not the worst fact;

it seems infinitely worse that the so-called "GERMAN CHRISTIANS" supported

Hitler and his racialism. One may agree with the words of the German Lutheran

pastors in England: "It is not for us who now live in safety to criticise

those who, under fire, have done their utmost not to bow to Baal". The fact

remains, however, that so many did bow to Baal. [122]

8 THE NETHERLANDS <42>

Before the second world war, no Church in the Netherlands publicly protested

against German anti-Semitism, as distinct from Churches in Great Britain,

France, Sweden, the United States etc. The following reasons for this can be

given:

1. There was little co-operation between the Protestant Churches.

2. The Churches did not speak out publicly on any subject.

3. The spiritual life of many Churches was at a low ebb.

4. Many people were afraid of endangering Holland's precious neutrality and

its economic interests with Germany.

5. Many Christians considered National-Socialism a bulwark against Communism.

[123]

The exceptions to the rule were provided by inter-denominational Church bodies.

In April, 1933, the Dutch Council of the "World Alliance for International

Friendship through the Churches" adopted and published the following motion:

"The Dutch Council of the World Alliance for International Friendship through

the Churches, aware of its duty to promote friendly relations among the

nations, and convinced that the anti-Jewish measures taken and carried out

in Germany must be regarded as a manifestation of racial hatred which

considerably prejudices such an understanding, requests the International

Executive Committee to define publicly its position with regard to these

measures and, subsequently, to do everything in its power in accordance with

the aims and principles of the Alliance, to disperse the tension and

indignation which these measures have provoked in the Netherlands as well

as in the entire civilized world, and to work towards the establishment

of those relations which, according to the principles of the Christian

conscience, ought to exist among the different races." [124]

This appeal to the International Executive Committee was successful. [125]

The same Council also sent a letter to the "Permanent General Committee of

the Dutch Israelite Community", informing them that they had heard with a

sense of shame and distress of the treatment of the Jews by the German

government on grounds of racial hatred. The Council expressed its conviction

"that this hatred is contrary to the Christian conscience" and quoted the

letter sent to the International Committee. [126] <43>

In May, 1933, a Manifesto was published, signed by many individual Dutchmen,

denouncing anti-Semitism. [127] In the same month, Christians of Jewish origin

turned to the "Synodal Committee of the DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH", requesting

that on one particular Sunday the Jewish question should be the main theme

of the sermon. The Committee replied that "they were convinced that it is

the duty of the Church to pay attention to Israel and pray for it, but that

in the present circumstances it would not be wise to set apart a special

Sunday for this purpose". [128]

On May 23, 1933, a public meeting of protest was held. Amongst other speakers

was the Rev. J.J. Buskes, who later became one of the leaders of Church

resistance during the war. He then spoke "as a member of a Christian Church".

Dr. W. Banning also protested against the Nazi terror, "in the name of

Socialism and of the Gospel". [129]

* * *

On September 19, 1935, a meeting of protest was held at Amsterdam. There

were three Protestant speakers, one of them, Rev. J.J. Buskes. [130]

In 1936, the Synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands declared that

members of the Church who were members of the Dutch National-Socialist Party,

must be advised to terminate their membership of the party. If they would not

heed this admonition, they must be barred from participating in Holy Communion.

This measure was maintained throughout the war. The report to the Synod on

the N.S.B. (National-Socialist Movement of the Netherlands) says:

"Even though the N.S.B. rejects idolization of the race, the manner in which

it stresses in its Program the unity of the Aryan race [131] shows, that it

is not blameless in this respect." [132] <44>

A Protestant Committee for help to Protestant refugees of Jewish origin was

formed on May 5, 1936.

* * *

In 1938, 7,000 Jewish refugees were admitted into the Netherlands. The

Government was of the opinion that Holland could not bear too heavy a strain

on the labour market. The Protestant Prime Minister declared: "If an unlimited

stream of foreign Jews were admitted, public opinion regarding the Jews

will take an unfavourable turn". [133]

Thus the border was closed and Jews who had "illegally" entered into Holland

were sent back to Germany, unless they could prove that their life was in

danger there. Of course it is easy to be wise after the event, and in those

days it was not yet clear to everybody that the life of all Jews in Germany

was in mortal danger. The fact remains that these inhuman measures were taken

by a Government of which most of the members were professing Christians.

And no Church protested. Prof. D. Cohen states:

"Our Committee [for help to Jewish refugees] had clashed vigorously with the

Government on this point, notwithstanding our good relations and good

co-operation with it. However, we had public opinion with us." [134]

The last part of his statement is doubtful, at least regarding a large

section of the Protestant press. [135]

A national collection was held on December 3, 1938, and recommended by the

Synodal Committee of the DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH:

"The Committee, concerned about the bitter sufferings resulting from the

persecution of the Jews, considers it to be the duty of the Church to

practise Christian mercy. It urgently recommends that all local churches

should take up a special collection, on behalf of the victims of this

persecution, so that their suffering may be alleviated." [136] <45>

Here help to the persecuted Jews in general was recommended, not just to

Christians of Jewish origin.

In November, 1938, the Executive of the Dutch Ecumenical Council turned

to the World Council of Churches, Geneva, requesting it to organize

immediate action on behalf of the German Jews. [137]

9 BELGIUM

The Protestant Churches in Belgium are minority Churches, together comprising

less than half a percent of the population.

The following statements are all from the year 1933. To the best of my

knowledge no other statements were issued after this year.

On April 4, 1933, the Federation of Protestant Churches of Belgium sent the

following letter to Dr. Kapler, the President of the Protestant Federation of

Germany: