All Protestant churches in the Berlin-Brandenburg area presented their congregants today with a text indicting all adult Germans as possible accomplices to the Nazi mass-murder of Jews.
The Protestant Church officials for the area, which includes a section of East Germany, ordered the reading of the text which begins: “All Germans who were old enough to recognize the National Socialist atrocities and the extermination of the Jewish people–even if they themselves helped their Jewish fellow-citizens–must admit that they too made themselves accomplices because of their lack of watchful and self-sacrificing love. “
The text ends with this sentence: “With God’s mercy we must confess to having lived for a long time in grave aberration. From now on, we turn to our Jewish fellow-citizens with feelings and deeds such that they may confide in us again. “
Passover may be over, but your chance to support independent Jewish journalism isn't. Help JTA keep reporting the stories that define our era.
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.
