Who, in the anti-Nazi Resistance, Should Religious People Admire?

[struggle4progress]

Poll question: Who, in the anti-Nazi Resistance, Should Religious People Admire?

http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/nvww2/ww2_nonviolence_germany1.html
"> Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/canaris.html"> Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/oster.html"> Hans Oster
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Mueller.html
"> Dr. Josef Mueller
http://www.luther95.org/NELCA/internos/moeller.htm"> Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/julyplot.html"> The July Plot
http://www.auschwitz.dk/docu/King.htm"> The Legend of King Christian X
http://www.auschwitz.dk/docu/Nielsen.htm"> The Danish Resistance
http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Visual___Artistic_Resources/Wolfgang_Hergeth/Janusz_Korczak_Biography/janusz_korczak_biography.html"> Janusz Korczak
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/warsaw-uprising.html "> The Ghetto Fights
http://www.raoul-wallenberg.net/historymain.htm"> The Swedish Protective Pass

[pnorman]

1. White Rose for me.

But thanks for that list; some of which I'm unfamiliar with. I'll commence Google-searching later.

I was expecting to see Pastor Niemoller's name there, but I guess the list was only those who had lost their lives over their resistance.

pnorman

[nemo137]

2. Janusz Korczak was a Jewish pediatrician

who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto. He chose to go to Treblinka with them rather than save his own life. My mother gave me a copy of his book for Christmas, and it made me cry.

[struggle4progress]

11. He really cared about those children. eom

[benburch]

3. I think you can guess my answer.

[struggle4progress]

9. I think I'll always be in love with Sophie Scholl. eom

[Jim Lane]

4. Your links don't work; can you save us the effort of Googling? (n/t)

[struggle4progress]

8. Apologies for my incompetence. Try these:

Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/nvww2/ww2_nonviolence_germany1.html

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/canaris.html

Hans Oster
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/oster.html

Dr. Josef Mueller
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Mueller.html

Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
http://www.luther95.org/NELCA/internos/moeller.htm

The July Plot
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/julyplot.html

The Legend of King Christian X
http://www.auschwitz.dk/docu/King.htm

The Danish Resistance
http://www.auschwitz.dk/docu/Nielsen.htm

Janusz Korczak
http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Visual___Artistic_Resources/Wolfgang_Hergeth/Janusz_Korczak_Biography/janusz_korczak_biography.html

The Ghetto Fights
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/warsaw-uprising.html

The Swedish Protective Pass
http://www.raoul-wallenberg.net/historymain.htm

[DemBones DemBones]

5. I want to mention the many Catholics who hid Jews and

otherwise opposed the Nazis. Pope Pius XII was at the head of those who opposed Hitler, though it has become fashionable to criticize him and Catholics in general. Some did not do enough -- maybe no one of any faith or nationality did "enough" -- but many did all that they dared to. Daring wasn't just about risking their own lives, either, but about causing more harm to the people they were trying to protect.

[struggle4progress]

15. 'Hidden Children'

... Indeed, I owe my life to a brave woman whose act of incredible moral courage ensured that I lived when so many others died. When the Nazis began to assemble Jews into the Vilna Ghetto, my parents entrusted me to my Polish Catholic nanny, Bronislawa Kurpi. She took me, baptized me and raised me as a Catholic. In a world beset by brutality, cruelty and destruction, she risked her life to save me. It is this part of the Holocaust that offers hope and redemption to humanity ...
http://www.adl.org/holocaust/oped_hidden_children.asp


... Children were often forced to live lives independent of their families. Many children who found refuge with others outside the ghettos had to assume new identities and conform to local religious customs that were different from their own in order to survive. Some Jewish children managed to pass as Catholics and were hidden in Catholic schools, orphanages, and convents in countries across Europe ...
http://www.bnaibrith.ca/league/hh-teachers/guide08.html


... The children were entrusted to the church's care to save them from the death camps. But if the parents survived the war and came forward to reclaim their sons or daughters, the children were only to be returned "provided have not received baptism", the Vatican ordered ... The instructions, contained in a letter dated October 20 1946, were sent by the Holy Office, the Vatican department responsible for church discipline, to the future Pope John XXIII, Angelo Roncalli, who at that time was the Holy See's envoy in Paris. The letter was published yesterday by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1380532,00.html


... Therefore, he often goes to the library to page through magazines of contemporary history, among which is "Zank," a publication produced in Warsaw.

"In the May-June, 1988, issue, writer Stanislav Krajewski described in detail a story about Karol Wojtyla," Wajcer explained. This is information that is not new, but that is not widely known in Israel.

Wajcer takes up the case of a Krakow Jewish couple who in 1942, feeling endangered by the anti-Semitic persecutions, entrusted their 2-year old child to Catholic friends. At the end of the war, it was proved that the child's natural parents had died. Meanwhile, the Catholic friends had become very attached to the child and wished to baptize him. They asked the advice of Fr. Karol Wojtyla who counseled them, to their surprise, that if the natural parents wanted their son raised in the Jewish faith, that is what should happen.

The couple made all kinds of difficult research to find other relatives of the child. Finally, they located relatives in the United States who agreed to receive him. "That child became an orthodox Jew," Wajcer said ...

http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/2000Mar/mar27jub.htm

[left is right]

6. Many admirable people/groups

But no such listing can be considered complete without the Ten-Booms(?) from the Netherlands. I voted for the Danish King, there is no finer example of in-your face resistance. (Even if it is only a legend.)

[struggle4progress]

10. It seems to me that a good legend is perfectly capable of saving a life.

[T_i_B]

7. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a big hero of mine. One of the great Christians of the 20th century without doubt.

[moobu2]

12. I cant see why Christians should be

singled out in the resistance for praise, except for propaganda reasons.

Most of these websites who promote the idea that Christians helped in the fight against Nazism are hosted by right-wing Christian or Jewish/Christian groups who want to re-write history.

First of all, most people who weren't Jews in Germany in the early 1900's were Christians . Of coarse you would find some Christians in the resistance, but you have to remember that if not for the Catholic church and Christianity, the Nazi's could never have come to power and done all that they did.

There were a few good Christians who eventually helped a few people, so what? It was to little, way to late.

Christianity should also be condemned for it's roll in the Nazi Holocaust.

The Nazi's appealed to Christians then because they were anti-Jewish and Christians had a deep suspicious hatred for Jews in Europe that reached back a millennia. That hatred was propagated by the Catholic church.

Also, the Nazi's talked about moral values and the traditional rolls men and women should play in society. That women were supposed to stay home and have children and be subservient to their husbands ect..The Nazi's were anti-contraceptive and anti- abortion and anti-homosexual and Hitler was against the seperation of Chrurch and State. Christians were lured into supporting the Nazi's because the Nazi's were extreme right-wing Christian racist heterosexualists views. These Nazi positions reflected the Christian ideals at that time.

One of the first things the Nazi's did when they came to power was pass a marriage law, make contraceptives illegal and abortion and homosexuality a serious crime and of coarse all the anti-Jewish laws. That's why they appealed to Christians.

I don't really have a problem with acknowledging the good Christians who did help a few people, I'm sure there were some, but really, don't re-write history for God's sake.

[struggle4progress]

13. Which of the websites that I gave do you think single out Christians ...

... for praise? I did not ask which "Christians" or even which religious people should be admired; I asked, instead, who should religious people admire, a specific question intended to invite reflection; nothing in my question presupposes that a religious person might not most admire a particular atheist, for example.

I absolutely agree with you that churches across Europe contained an appalling number of Nazi sympathizers. And I think that your complaint that "a few good Christians" did "too little, way too late" is a defensible summary of the history.

But we must know the history in order to learn from it, and we must know something of its particulars, because an overly broad brush may obscure the very details that might be most helpful. I would suggest that when you assert broadly that "hatred was propagated by the Catholic church," rather than identifying the particular bad actors, you are guilty of precisely this obscurantism.

[Igel]

14. I call foul.

Forced choice, when it's not necessary. :hi:

[struggle4progress]

16. Yes and no. As an intellectual exercise, of course, the forced ...

... choice is unfair and artificial. But the existential reality, in each of these cases, was that the people involved WERE forced to choose: moral mediocrity would have been safe, while the alternative involved mortal risk.