STAR LEDGER
New Jersey's largest newspaper 1992

A Plea from Christians
CHRISTIANS MUST REMEMBER
THE HOLOCAUST!

On April 30th, Jews all over the world commemorated YOM HASHOAH, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Six million Jews were slaughtered.

Once again many Christians were uncomfortable that the Jewish community keeps insisting that we remember something that happened fifty years ago. Some Gentiles are so disconcerted that they are driven to rewrite history denying the holocaust ever happened. But their revisionist facts are exploded as fast as they are manufactured.  Perhaps latent anti-Semitism motivates Christians to forget or deny the holocaust. After all, who were the actors in that nefarious drama?

Who informed on their Jewish neighbors? Who charged into Jewish homes and dragged out terrified families? Who pulled the beards of old men violated Jewish women demeaned poor bewildered souls in every conceivable way and herded them into cattle cars? Who stripped innocent crowds of their clothes and their dignity forced them naked into mass shower rooms and turned on the gas as pandemonium filled the rooms? Who ordered bodies to be stacked in huge pyres for burning and who fired the furnaces? Who were these predators of human life? For the most part they were professed Christians who celebrated Christmas, Good Friday and Easter.

Roots of Anti-Semitism
We must never forget, observed CHRISTIANITY TODAY (March 9, 1992), that anti-Semitism had its roots in the theology and practice of the Christian church, from the writings of the early Church Fathers [100-350 C.E.] through the Inquisition, even in the comments of Martin Luther.  The Church Fathers, unfortunately, taught that as Christ killers, the Jews must be kept in degradation as living witness to the truth of Christianity.

Hitler told German Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinman that he was merely going to do to the Jews what the Church had done for 1,500 years. Hitler also took great satisfaction in quoting Martin Luther's vicious anti-Semitic statements.

In April 1992 Swiss Catholics issued a nine-page declaration that said in part, Through misguided preaching and catechisms, the church contributed to the creation of the climate that allowed the murderers of the Nazi regime to carry out their crimes against the Jews.

Where was the Indignation of Our Christian Civilization?
By 1942 leaders of the Christian West were well aware of the Holocaust. The Vatican was counting on the Nazis to defeat atheistic Communism, therefore, made no public outcry (LA POEPESSA, Paul I. Murphy). The Protestant Churches were little better.  Thank goodness, individual Christians did speak out. But where was the International Committee of the Red Cross that was supposedly investigating the Nazi concentration camps? Swiss Professor Jean Claude Favez wrote in his book, SILENT WITNESS, The ICRC knew what was happening that is quite clear. It did not dare confront the Germans. The ICRC in a statement to the JERUSALEM POST (August 31, 1988) admitted that it could have saved more Jews from the Nazis.

The delayed condemnation and action of the British and U.S. governments was feeble indeed (THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS, David S. Wyman). Jews were being brought to death camps by train. The U.S. refused to target any railroad tracks leading to the death camps while carrying out bombing missions on nearby areas.

After promising in 1917 to provide a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine, Britain in 1939 shut the doors of Palestine to Jewish immigration. Jewish refugees jammed on dilapidated ships were turned back to the death camps of Europe or perished at sea.

In 1939 four polls showed that up to 85% of the American public was opposed to increased immigration quotas that would have allowed Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany. On May 13, 1939, a refugee ship, The St. Louis, left Europe with 937 Jews. It sailed to every port in the free world including the United States. The Jews were refused entry everywhere. The ship was ordered back to Germany and the wary cargo to their doom in the death camps. The U.S. Closed Door Policy to Jews remained basically the same for the duration of WWII.

After WWII
Incredible as it may sound, Nazi war criminal hunters and U.S. government officials claim that Vatican and International Red Cross representatives aided Nazis with documents enabling them to escape to South America. Why? They hoped they would be useful in the future battle against Communism. (Department of State, Office of American Republic Affairs, July 14, 1947, Subject: Illegal Emigration Movements in and Through Italy. THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan. 26, 1986, Vatican Is Reported to Have Furnished Aid to Fleeing Nazis.)

While immigration restrictions were keeping Jewish Holocaust survivors out of the U.S., Nazi war criminals were given entry in exchange for information on Communist activity in Eastern Europe. (NAZI WAR CRIMINALS IN AMERICA: FACTS AND ACTION, Charles R. Allen: THE NEWS TRIBUNE, May 13. 1987; THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan. 26, 1984.)

Anti-Semitism Today
Anti-Semitism will continue until the Christian churches modify their theology which tends to disdain Jews and recognize that the Jews have a glorious Divine destiny separate and distinct from Christianity.

The Bible Students answer to Holocaust Revisionists is personal experience.  Nine-tenths of the Bible Students in Germany were wiped out by the Nazis. The Holocaust did happen.

BIBLE STUDENTS CONGREATION OF NEW BRUNSWICK
(A Non-Denominational Christian Church)