THE
HOLOCAUST DID NOT JUST HAPPEN
Hugh
Fogelman
In the
beginning was the anti-Judaic word! In
the end was the Final Solution!
The
study of anti-Jewish incidents in history clearly shows that the arguments, accusations
and actions of the anti-Semites of our day are not new, but old and very
dangerous.
The
historical incidents related here are examples only taken from a variety of
locations. Sometimes Jews were protected by the church against the civic authorities.
At other times these authorities protected them against a raging church. And at
times both the church and the civic authorities persecuted them, or both could
or would not stop mob attacks, sometimes incited by the lower clergy against
the will of the bishops.
The
following list of incidents is meant to create an interest in the study of the
troubled Christian-Jewish relationship. It may also serve to show that the Nazi
Holocaust was preceded by a long history of ill-treatment of Jews in so-called
Christian countries and that the Christian church through its "teaching of
contempt" contributed in great measure to Jewish suffering.
Categories
of anti-Jewish behavior reach from hateful words to mass murder. It can never
be said that just one incident caused the Final Solution; rather, it was years
and years of conditioning. For centuries, the Jews were made to appear
sub-human.
Hateful words in writings, sermons, plays
(especially passion plays), tales, jokes, lies about conspiracies, Christ killers,
and scapgoating;
Accusations of deicide (murder of God/Christ),
ritual murder, desecration of the host (of the Eucharist), conspiracies;
Threats
or coercions to
extort ransom money, excess special taxes, to drive from home, to convert;
Restrictions on Jewish religious practice, social
interaction, trade and professions, civil and political rights, residence (ghettoization), ownership;
Force used to make Jews pay higher taxes,
take away their children (to raise them as Christians), lootings, vandalism,
expulsions;
Violence in the attack of individual Jews and
whole communities, in beatings and torture;
Murder
and mass murder in
"judicial" hangings, burnings, slaughters in riots, mob attacks,
Crusades and pogroms; and
The Nazi "Final Solution" to the so-called "Jewish
Problem" in the Holocaust.
It turns out to really have been a
Christian problem throughout history.