Very nearly right
Sir: Richard Ingrams (5 November) challenges the point made by Elie Wiesel in the Long Search programme on The Chosen People (31 October) — and quoted in Ronald Eyre's article in the Listener (3 November) — that the genocide of the Jews was performed by Christians. Ingrams comments that 'this seemed just as dotty as the old Christian habit of blaming all the Jews for the crucifixion, if not more so'. Apart from the fact that Wiese' said not that all Christians were responsible but that all those responsible were Christian, the analogy is still false — even if the crucifixion did happen as the Gospels say (with crowds shouting 'Crucify him!' soon after shouting 'Hosanna!'), it was performed not by Jews but by Romans.
But to pursue the main point, the genocide of the Jews was performed mainly by Germans brought up as Christians ,in a Christian country, and a high proportion of those responsible were practising Christians. As Wiesel said: 'They did not become killers in a vacuum, they were an outgrowth, a result, of eighteen hundred years of a certain civilisation, of a certain teaching, of a certain tradition. . That is a Christian problem.' European anti-semitism in general and German anti-semitism in particular were largely Christian phenomena long before the holocaust.
Hitler was brought up as a Roman Catholic (just as Stalin was brought up as a Russian Orthodox), was confirmed, and still attended church after he came to power. It is true that he discarded and despised Christianity; but it is also true that he was supported by the Christian churches to the end and had good reason to despise them. The Catholics made a Concordat to please him, and the Pope refused to condemn him until after his death; the Protestants created the German Christian Church to please him, and no major denomination ever condemned him. Of course there were many brave exceptions, but they only prove the miserable rule.
Ingrains says that 'Hitler's main objection to Christians was that they failed to see eye to eye with him on the Jewish question'. On the contrary, they were all too close to him on this issue, and his main objection to them was their slave mentality. Unfortunately Wiesel was very nearly right. Nicolas Walter Rationalist Press Association, 88 Islington High Street, London Ni
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