The Church in Germany failed to discharge its duties with respect to the fate of the Jews in the Third Reich 50 years ago, Kurt Scharf, the former Protestant Bishop of Berlin charged.
Addressing an audience in West Berlin, Scharf declared, “We did protest, but we should have shouted. In 1933 we should have demonstrated in the Kurfuerstendamm (Berlin’s main thoroughfare) in solidarity with the Jews.”
Scharf acknowledged that there were many cases where church officials helped Jews find refuge and ultimately saved lives. But there was no excuse for the failure of the church as such, he said. According to the former bishop, there was still a chance in 1933 to save many Jews and even to influence the fate of European Jewry as a whole. But by 1938, it was too late to change the course of events.
Scharf criticized early anti-Semitic tendencies in the church. Even before Hitler came to power there were calls to eliminate Jews from public life and to undermine their cultural contribution, he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
