The Grey Book Part 2

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 a.s.suming 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 ma.s.s 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 compa.s.sion, 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 (G.o.d 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 ident.i.ty 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 G.o.d rather than man." (Acts 5, 29).

"...and (G.o.d) 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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tudes 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 att.i.tude 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 a.n.a.lysing the contents of the statements may be of some help when a.s.sessing 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances and surroundings, but they on their part influence these circ.u.mstances 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 embarra.s.sed 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 n.a.z.i 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 fellows.h.i.+p, this contributed to their making a stand against anti-Semitism.