Common Sufferings of Jews and Christians Will Forge Good-will, Says Detroit Bishop

Hope that the common sufferings of Jews and Christians in Europe under German rule will forge “new bonds of human solidarity and good-will” was expressed here last night by the Most Rev. Edward Mooney, Archbishop of Detroit, addressing a memorial meeting for the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, arranged by the Jewish Community Council of Detroit.

Stating that he had “no thought of extenuating the lapse from ideals of Christian conduct so often evident in the part which Christians have played in the age-long tragedy of Israel’s wanderings,” Archbishop Mooney pointed out that the Nazis are anti-Christian as well as anti-Jewish. “May we not hope,” he continued, that in the fires of a common tribulation new bonds are being forged between Christian and Jew.

“In the heroism of Christians who have so often risked and not infrequently given their lives to rescue their even more unfortunate Jewish brothers, may we not find an augury that when the agony is over Jews and Christians will work together to write a brighter page of history in liberated Europe, and particularly in Poland which has, at least, the historic glory of having offered the Jews a haven of refuge when they were driven out of other countries?”

Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations appealed to the Jews of the United States and to the governments of the United Nations to intensify their efforts in behalf of the oppressed Jews. He praised the activities of the War Refugee Board and urged immediate establishment of “free ports.” Mayor Edward J. Jeffries also spoke.