Posted on 02/15/2003 4:50:26 AM PST by Clive
I count Sir Martin Gilbert, one of the world's leading historians, as a friend as well as a mentor. Thus, when I say his latest book, The Righteous (Key Porter), is a superb piece of work I suppose I could be biased. In fact, I am. Biased toward fine scholarship and honest research.
Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill, a Fellow of Merton College Oxford and the author of more than 30 books. Simply, there are few better chroniclers of modern history alive today. Thus, when he writes about those non-Jewish people who rescued Jews during World War II, we ought to take notice. A great deal of notice.
Because there has been far too much angry, tendentious and unfair material written on this issue recently. And as a Christian with three Jewish grandparents, all of whom lost relatives during the Holocaust, I have a duty and a responsibility to speak out.
The first thing one notices in The Righteous is the massive work done by Roman Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Christians. Rather than the caricature of apathy or hostility that some have believed for years, churches frequently risked and gave everything to shelter and save Jewish lives from the Nazis. Of course there were collaborators, of course there were traitors, but these were the exceptions.
It could well be argued that Italy was the most Catholic nation in the world in the 1940s. Gilbert devotes an entire chapter to the work of the Italian people. The Nazis were incredulous that even the Italian Army saved Jews - ordinary soldiers as well as generals going so far as to arm Jewish men and to threaten their captors with death. Italian diplomats gave out citizenship documents en masse to foreign Jews, and wherever the Italians held power - parts of Greece, Croatia and France for example - the Jews were safe.
HITLER COMPLAINED
Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, lamented in his diary how the Italians had no sense of anti-Semitism, attacked Mussolini for the "pro-Jewish zeal" of his people and complained the Italians were hindering the Final Solution whenever and wherever they had the opportunity.
He also attacked the Vatican and the Pope. Vatican Radio, for example, broadcast that, "He who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God and is in conflict with God's commands."
Believe me when I say I have read more books on the Pope and the Jews than is altogether decent, and that as a non-Catholic I have no sectarian axe to grind. But it pains me that some critics so blithely condemn the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy so unfairly.
An example: Gilbert points out that Hitler's SS were in control of Rome by early October, 1943. By the morning of Oct. 16 almost 5,000 Jews had been given sanctuary in a whole variety of monasteries and convents and in the Vatican itself. When the roundup came, just over 1,000 unhidden Jews were caught. In other words, 80% of Rome's Jews were saved by the direct intervention of the Pope and his Church.
Poland has always presented a dilemma because of the tangled relationship between Pole and Jew. There were more than three million Jews in Poland, and as a result the country had more than its fair share of anti-Semites. But I for one stood and wept at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem when I saw the 5,632 names of Poles counted amongst the Righteous who saved Jews. The largest by far of any occupied country.
Ukraine has more than 1,700 names, Lithuania more than 500, France more than 200, tiny Belgium more than 1,300, brave Holland more than 4,000. Every place, every town with rescuers. In Denmark, almost the entire Jewish community was smuggled away to safety. Many of these rescuers were tortured and executed for their efforts, many more have never even been acknowledged.
Even in Germany there were legions, with 358 so far listed. They included soldiers, civil servants and even former hardened Nazis who suddenly realized what they had begun.
Yes, we recall the brutality and the brutes, but let us dwell on the saints and the saintliness too. That, surely, is what defines us as human beings and what is so crucial in this troubled, addled time.
Not yet. I went online to the Toronto Public Library and reserved the book for pick-up at my local branch.
I am 47 on the list and the library has 12 copies, all in circulation, so it may be about a fortnight or so before I get it.
I shudder to think of this. Good article.
BTTT
Thank you for posting this excellent article.
Gosh--no one would read that book where I live. They're all too busy imbibing all the the propaganda in the NY Times
Gosh, few would read that book around here. They're all too busy imbibing the latest from the NY Times.
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