Language:
Polish
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
Zagłada Żydów; studia i materiały
Angaben zur Quelle:
5 (2009) 19-69
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Church history 20th century
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Christian converts from Judaism
Abstract:
Many apologetic works have been produced attempting to describe a sympathetic stance to Jews, and aid rendered to them, by representatives of the Polish Church during World War II. Summarizes and examines statements by Church hierarchs concerning Nazi policies toward the Jews, both public statements and internal correspondence, as well as their activities vis-à-vis these policies. During the interwar period, the position of the Polish Church was inadvertently anti-Jewish, although the Church disapproved of violence. Dwells on the activities, irresolute and unsuccessful as they were, undertaken by the hierarchy on behalf of Jewish converts to Christianity; how the higher clergy perceived anti-Jewish incidents in Warsaw in the beginning of 1940 and the massacres in the Lomża district in summer 1941; and the Church's stance toward the mass murder of Jews. Shows, for example, that the Archbishop of Kraków, Adam Sapieha, protested only against the forced involvement of young Poles in the murder actions in the Kraków district, not against the Holocaust as such; that the Polish hierarchs both within the country and abroad, failed to inform the Holy See on the mass murder of Jews which was ongoing in Poland; some of them, in a reserved format, approved of the Nazi Final Solution. Church hierarchs preserved their antisemitic attitude also after the war.
Note:
Appeared in English as "Polish Church hierarchy and the Holocaust - an essay from a critical perspective" in "Holocaust; Studies and Materials" (2010) 76-127.
URL:
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