Pray the News » Holocaust

Go in person to the hurt party

Denis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:47:43 +0000

Pius 12th and the Jews is one of those issues that is impervious to logic, healing, even facts. The whole question of the Jews and the Vatican is overlaid by the great tragedy of the European holocaust. There is the moral authority of the Papacy, and what might have been if the wartime Pope had spoken out. The Italian Jews are still holding their view that Pius’ silence still hurts as a failed action. It makes little difference to point out what was actually done in secret to save Jews from the Nazis. What Pope Benedict has done is really the only way to proceed – go in person to the hurt party’s place, the synagogue, and quietly state the truth as he knows it. He did not mention Pius’ name, but spoke of what was done. He and his successors may have to do this several more times before healing begins. The truth will eventually become through, and will set everyone free The deep hurt held by the Roman Jewish community is based on the holocaust catastrophe and the ambiguity of Pius 12th’s silence, and these cannot yet be separated. Only prayer and the working of God’s Holy Spirit will make that happen. Meanwhile the complete opening of all archival material will ensure transparency

Act against present injustice

Denis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:20:03 +0000

The Nazi regime’s systematic, industrialized killing of Jews and other people seen as undesirable was abominable. So was the earlier Armenian genocide and the more recent genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, East Timor and other places. To remember these is to be vigilant now. To ask questions about the actions of Pius XII during World War II and the wisdom of his canonization is fair enough. It’s also essential to honestly examine Christian theology and practice for anti-Jewish currents. But perhaps the most effective way to remember past oppression is to act against present injustice. Hedy Epstein is an example of this. Hedy is a survivor of the WW II Nazi-organized Jewish Holocaust. Now living in the USA she worked at some of the Nuremburg trials and is an activist in various causes. Epstein recently took part in the non-violent protests marking the one-year anniversary of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. Gaza is still under Israeli blockade and Hedy was part of the large group that sought to bring hope and help by entering it from Egypt.

Gaza is a giant prison for 1.5 million Palestinians. This time Egyptian authorities prevented the protestors from approaching Gaza’s Rafah gate. Like Israel, Egypt receives huge amounts of US aid. This ‘reward’ for its peace agreement with Israel also means Egypt works in tandem with Israeli/US policy. Thus the Palestinians continue to be cornered and stateless. Epstein is part of a number of Jewish people speaking out against the Israeli occupation and control of Palestinian lives and territory. Another is historian Ilan Pappe whose book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (1997), exposes the myths around the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

Pope Benedict visits Rome synagogue

Denis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:04:00 +0000

Pope Benedict chats with chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Sengni

Pope Benedict XVI defended his predecessor Pius XII against Jewish critics on Sunday, telling the audience at a Rome synagogue that the Vatican worked quietly to save Jews from the Nazis during World War 2.

Many Jews object to Benedict moving Pius toward sainthood, contending the wartime pope didn’t do enough to protect Jews from the Holocaust. The Vatican has maintained that Pius used behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a bid to save Jewish lives.

While he didn’t mention Pius by name, Benedict told Jewish leaders in the synagogue that the Vatican “itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way.”

Benedict said Catholics acted courageously to save Jews even as their extermination “tragically reached as far as Rome.” He spoke shortly after Jewish Community President Riccardo Pacifici criticised Pius, saying Italian Catholics worked to save Jews but the “silence” of Pius “still hurts as a failed action. “Pacifici said his grandparents were killed at the Auschwitz death camp while his father was saved by Italian nuns in a Florence convent.

We have to move on

Denis — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:57:12 +0000

As a Kiwi it’s difficult to understand traditional enmity between one group and another. Of course we pretend to have a rivalry with the Australians at Sport. But when pushed the average Kiwi will tell you that Australians are, “pretty much like us” our “closest neighbours” and our “best allies” and anyway Aunty Marg and my cousins are Aussies as are my brother and his wife and kids. As well Kiwis have never really been into identifying people as Jewish.

I saw a programme on TV a few years ago and was astounded by my own naiveté at never having realised that many of the barons of business in NZ were in fact ethnically Jewish and/or religiously as well. In fact I felt proud of the fact that I’d never even heard that household names like Hallensteins, Hannahs, Myers, the beer magnate of Lion Nathan, and several others were of Jewish origin.

So when I read that the Pope has recently been trying to mend fences with the Jewish people of Rome and at the same time promoting the cause of Pius XII I start to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Forgiveness leads to closure
No I am not at all a holocaust denier – Of the atrocities that happened in the last century there is none worse than the systematic genocide of the Jewish people across Europe. And I know that at the funeral of every serviceman or woman I’ve attended I have heard or seen two phrases “Lest we forget” and “We will Remember.”

It is indeed wonderful that we remember those who gave their lives for the sake of freedom, and that we do not forget those who had their lives taken from them in the same conflagration. But, we also need to be able to forgive and almost forget – we cannot forever live hating everyone from Germany or Japan. We have to move on. It has become a commonplace saying now that people need to be able to grieve and move on. We call that experience “closure”.

In countries where people cannot reach closure we are doomed to repeat over and over the same rivalries that have fuelled conflicts in the past century in the Middle East, in Ireland, in the Baltics and elsewhere. Until there is forgiveness it is impossible to reach closure on hatred.