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Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
History of the Word Holocaust
NOISE OF THUNDER RADIO - 10.01.2024
Today's Show: HISTORY OF THE WORD HOLOCAUST
Chris discusses the history behind the use of the word "holocaust" ... a term found almost exclusively when describing the Nazi persecution of the Jews during World War II. But what was the word's meaning beforehand? And why is the word found only in the Douay Rheims Bible -- an English translation done by the Jesuit Order back in 1582? We discuss the history of the word used by popes in centuries past, as a term for slaughtering heretics who were seen as enemies of the Church of Rome. Was it just a coincidence that the word was chosen to describe the tragic events of the Nazi regime?
Today's Show: HISTORY OF THE WORD HOLOCAUST
Chris discusses the history behind the use of the word "holocaust" ... a term found almost exclusively when describing the Nazi persecution of the Jews during World War II. But what was the word's meaning beforehand? And why is the word found only in the Douay Rheims Bible -- an English translation done by the Jesuit Order back in 1582? We discuss the history of the word used by popes in centuries past, as a term for slaughtering heretics who were seen as enemies of the Church of Rome. Was it just a coincidence that the word was chosen to describe the tragic events of the Nazi regime?
Tuesday, December 05, 2023
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Letter showing Pope Pius XII had detailed information from German Jesuit about Nazi crimes revealed
Historians have long been divided about Pius’ record, with supporters insisting he used quiet diplomacy to save Jewish lives while critics say he remained silent as the Holocaust raged.
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AP
SEP 16, 2023 - 06:10 EDT
Newly discovered correspondence suggests that World War II-era Pope Pius XII had detailed information from a trusted German Jesuit that up to 6,000 Jews and Poles were being gassed each day in German-occupied Poland, undercutting the Holy See’s argument that it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities to denounce them.
The documentation from the Vatican archives, published this weekend in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, is likely to further fuel the debate about Pius’ legacy and his now-stalled beatification campaign.
Historians have long been divided about Pius’ record, with supporters insisting he used quiet diplomacy to save Jewish lives while critics say he remained silent as the Holocaust raged.
Corriere is reproducing a letter dated Dec. 14, 1942 from the German Jesuit priest to Pius’ secretary which is contained in an upcoming book about the newly opened files of Pius’ pontificate by Giovanni Coco, a researcher and archivist in the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives.
Coco told Corriere that the letter was significant because it represented detailed correspondence about the Nazi extermination of Jews from an informed church source in Germany who was part of the Catholic anti-Hitler resistance that was able to get otherwise secret information to the Vatican.
The letter from the priest, the Rev. Lothar Koenig, to Pius’ secretary, a fellow German Jesuit named the Rev. Robert Leiber, is dated Dec. 14, 1942. Written in German, the letter addresses Leiber as “Dear friend,” and goes on to report that the Nazis were killing up to 6,000 Jews and Poles daily from Rava Ruska, a town in pre-war Poland that is today located in Ukraine, and transporting them to the Belzec death camp.
According to the Belzec memorial which opened in 2004, a total of 500,000 Jews perished at the camp. The memorial’s website reports that as many as 3,500 Jews from Rava Ruska had already been sent to Belzec earlier in 1942 and that from Dec. 7-11, the city’s Jewish ghetto was liquidated. “About 3,000-5,000 people were shot on the spot and 2,000- 5,000 people were taken to Bełżec,” the website says.
The date of Koenig’s letter is significant because it suggests the correspondence from a trusted fellow Jesuit arrived in Pius’ office in the same three weeks before Christmas 1942 that Pius was receiving multiple diplomatic notes from the British and Polish envoys to the Vatican with reports that up to 1 million Jews had been killed so far in Poland.
While it can’t be certain that Pius saw the letter, Leiber was Pius’ top aide and had served the pope when he was the Vatican’s ambassador to Germany during the 1920s, suggesting a close working relationship especially concerning matters related to Germany.
According to “The Pope at War,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning anthropologist David Kertzer, a top secretariat of state official, Monsignor Domenico Tardini, told the British envoy to the Vatican in mid-December that the pope couldn’t speak out about Nazi atrocities because the Vatican hadn’t been able to verify the information.
“The novelty and importance of this document comes from this fact: that on the Holocaust, there is now the certainty that Pius XII was receiving from the German Catholic Church exact and detailed news about crimes being perpetrated against Jews,” Coco was quoted by Corriere as saying.
However, Coco noted that Koenig also urged the Holy See to not make public what he was revealing because he feared for his own life and those of the resistance sources who had provided the intelligence.
Pius’ legacy, and the revelations from the newly opened Vatican archives, are to be discussed at a major conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University next month that is notable because of its across-the-spectrum participant list and sponsorship. The Vatican, Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust research institute, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial as well as the Israeli and U.S. embassies are all backing it, among others.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is to open the Oct. 9-11 meeting that will feature scholars including Kertzer, Coco and Johan Ickx, the archivist at the Vatican secretariat of state whose own book on the archives, “Pius XII and the Jews” published in 2021, praised Pius and the Vatican’s efforts to care for Jews and people fleeing the war.
Coco said Koenig’s letter actually was found in the Vatican’s secretariat of state archives and was turned over to the Vatican’s main Apostolic Archives only in 2019, because the secretariat of state’s papers were disorganized and scattered, with some of Pius’ documents kept in plastic containers in an attic storage space where heat and humidity were damaging them.
Undated file photo of Pope Pius XII.AP
AP
SEP 16, 2023 - 06:10 EDT
Newly discovered correspondence suggests that World War II-era Pope Pius XII had detailed information from a trusted German Jesuit that up to 6,000 Jews and Poles were being gassed each day in German-occupied Poland, undercutting the Holy See’s argument that it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities to denounce them.
The documentation from the Vatican archives, published this weekend in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, is likely to further fuel the debate about Pius’ legacy and his now-stalled beatification campaign.
Historians have long been divided about Pius’ record, with supporters insisting he used quiet diplomacy to save Jewish lives while critics say he remained silent as the Holocaust raged.
Corriere is reproducing a letter dated Dec. 14, 1942 from the German Jesuit priest to Pius’ secretary which is contained in an upcoming book about the newly opened files of Pius’ pontificate by Giovanni Coco, a researcher and archivist in the Vatican’s Apostolic Archives.
Coco told Corriere that the letter was significant because it represented detailed correspondence about the Nazi extermination of Jews from an informed church source in Germany who was part of the Catholic anti-Hitler resistance that was able to get otherwise secret information to the Vatican.
The letter from the priest, the Rev. Lothar Koenig, to Pius’ secretary, a fellow German Jesuit named the Rev. Robert Leiber, is dated Dec. 14, 1942. Written in German, the letter addresses Leiber as “Dear friend,” and goes on to report that the Nazis were killing up to 6,000 Jews and Poles daily from Rava Ruska, a town in pre-war Poland that is today located in Ukraine, and transporting them to the Belzec death camp.
According to the Belzec memorial which opened in 2004, a total of 500,000 Jews perished at the camp. The memorial’s website reports that as many as 3,500 Jews from Rava Ruska had already been sent to Belzec earlier in 1942 and that from Dec. 7-11, the city’s Jewish ghetto was liquidated. “About 3,000-5,000 people were shot on the spot and 2,000- 5,000 people were taken to Bełżec,” the website says.
The date of Koenig’s letter is significant because it suggests the correspondence from a trusted fellow Jesuit arrived in Pius’ office in the same three weeks before Christmas 1942 that Pius was receiving multiple diplomatic notes from the British and Polish envoys to the Vatican with reports that up to 1 million Jews had been killed so far in Poland.
While it can’t be certain that Pius saw the letter, Leiber was Pius’ top aide and had served the pope when he was the Vatican’s ambassador to Germany during the 1920s, suggesting a close working relationship especially concerning matters related to Germany.
According to “The Pope at War,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning anthropologist David Kertzer, a top secretariat of state official, Monsignor Domenico Tardini, told the British envoy to the Vatican in mid-December that the pope couldn’t speak out about Nazi atrocities because the Vatican hadn’t been able to verify the information.
“The novelty and importance of this document comes from this fact: that on the Holocaust, there is now the certainty that Pius XII was receiving from the German Catholic Church exact and detailed news about crimes being perpetrated against Jews,” Coco was quoted by Corriere as saying.
However, Coco noted that Koenig also urged the Holy See to not make public what he was revealing because he feared for his own life and those of the resistance sources who had provided the intelligence.
Pius’ legacy, and the revelations from the newly opened Vatican archives, are to be discussed at a major conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University next month that is notable because of its across-the-spectrum participant list and sponsorship. The Vatican, Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust research institute, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial as well as the Israeli and U.S. embassies are all backing it, among others.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is to open the Oct. 9-11 meeting that will feature scholars including Kertzer, Coco and Johan Ickx, the archivist at the Vatican secretariat of state whose own book on the archives, “Pius XII and the Jews” published in 2021, praised Pius and the Vatican’s efforts to care for Jews and people fleeing the war.
Coco said Koenig’s letter actually was found in the Vatican’s secretariat of state archives and was turned over to the Vatican’s main Apostolic Archives only in 2019, because the secretariat of state’s papers were disorganized and scattered, with some of Pius’ documents kept in plastic containers in an attic storage space where heat and humidity were damaging them.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
The Loud Cry and The Jews
To view this email with images click here
Could the exposure of Roman Catholicism as the antichrist power pave the way for Israel’s mass acceptance of Jesus as Messiah?
David Mould
Laymen for Religious
Liberty Ministries
There’s a lot that I have to share with you today, but I’ve boiled it down into a quick, seven minute video that you can watch right here.
Laymen for Religious
Liberty Ministries
There’s a lot that I have to share with you today, but I’ve boiled it down into a quick, seven minute video that you can watch right here.
For the long story, read on.
--------------------------------
Two weeks ago we uploaded our newest clip: Charlie Hebdo And The Pope’s Visit To Congress. In it we began exploring not just the Vatican’s traditional opposition to free speech, but its shamefully (and not surprisingly) under-reported role in the Holocaust.
Years of research and weeks of diligent editing were compressed into this 19 minute presentation.
For those of you who watched it, I don’t need to tell you it’s a stick of dynamite! Should it start resonating with Jews, there’s no telling what might happen!
Having uploaded this clip at YouTube, we’re now being urged in our consciences to go much further. Further into Vatican pronouncements against free speech. Further into her role in the Holocaust.
Two videos are now in the pipeline.
TWO NEW VIDEOS
#1 has already been recorded and will soon be released as a five part series lasting almost two hours. It’s entitled: Defending God's Prophet. Much about the papacy and free speech is included in this sermon.
#2 hasn’t yet been recorded and will be our attempt at connecting several more dots in the Holocaust. In the Charlie Hebdo video we looked at two of these dots, or Vatican fingerprints, as I’d prefer to call them. God sparing our lives, in sermon #2 we’ll look at a few more.
Q.
Why?
A1
Because the mainstream media won’t!
A2
Because the exposure of the wickedness of the man of sin is a critical part of the loud cry!
What makes it so critical? I’ll tell you.
Years ago it began dawning on me that there’s a side to the loud cry that’s been totally ignored in Adventist literature. In the 42 years that I’ve been a Seventh-day Adventist, I’ve never heard or read a word about it. I’m talking about what the mass exposure of the Roman Catholic Church as the antichrist power could mean to the Jew.
If, as we’ve been told in The Great Controversy, page 606, “the sins of Babylon will be laid open” during the loud cry, and if Catholicism’s responsibility for the Holocaust is one of those sins, then what might this mean to the Jew?
Put another way: if the main stumbling block to the acceptance of Jesus as Messiah by the Jews could be removed, then what might this do to the Jewish psyche – in particular, the Jewish attitude toward Christ and Christians?
Q.
To what stumbling block do I refer?
A.
The barbarity with which Jews for over 1500 years have been treated by so-called Christians. Has not this barbarity, and the Holocaust in which it culminated, been aptly termed: “the central tragedy of Western Civilization”?
Many moons ago, in an old newsletter, I felt led to write:
“The biggest impediment to the Jews accepting their Messiah is not theology, but the false concept they have of Christianity. Tragically, as permanently as the brand of a hot iron is burned into a cow’s flesh, so permanently have the memories of the Inquisition and the ghettoes and the Holocaust been burned into the Jewish psyche … as the fruit of Christianity.
“For better or for worse, I take this personally. That my Saviour, Jesus Christ, should be associated in the Jewish mind with the likes of Hitler, Goebbels and Barbie – this is a master-stroke of the devil himself and must be undone. This horrible caricature must be removed before the Jews, en masse, will give Christianity a 2nd look.”
I hadn’t arrived at this conclusion by accident. Quotations like the one below ripped open my heart and helped fuel this perspective.
“When I look in the sky, any vision of God I might have is clouded over by the smoke spewed out of Nazi ovens. Any time I think that maybe God exists, that possibility is consumed by the same flames that consumed the tender flesh of trainloads of Jewish children. Where was God when those crying children were torn from their mothers’ arms? Where was this Jesus as they were hurled into pits of fire? Where was the Messiah when Jewish babies’ bones were crushed under black SS boots? If the Messiah were ever going to come, He should have showed up at Auschwitz. He didn’t come then, so who needs him now? For me, God, even the idea of God, is the final victim of the Holocaust.”
The Clifford Goldstein Story, page 59
How sad! Yet if Jews could once wrap their minds around the thought that what happened to them in the Inquisition and Holocaust was not Christianity at work; if they could wrap their minds around the fact that neither the indignities, nor ghettos, nor mass deportations, nor forced baptisms, nor tattoos, nor burned synagogues, nor death camps, nor ovens, nor anything connected to the sadism of the Holocaust was the work of Christianity, but rather that all this was the work of the antichrist; if they could see this tragic history in its true light, then might it not remove their wariness of Christians and pave the way for their wholesale acceptance of Jesus as Messiah?
Of course it’s not so simple, is it? Notwithstanding the heroism of Corrie ten Boom and other Christians (and non-Christians too, we should add) who risked their lives during World War II to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis, and who earned the honorific, ‘Righteous Among the Nations,’ by the State of Israel, surely the Protestant churches by their widespread silence must bear some responsibility for the Holocaust too.
Can we not see ourselves in the following story?
SING A LITTLE LOUDER"
by Penny Lea
“I lived in Germany during the Nazi holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. I attended Church since I was a small boy. We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews, but like most people today in this country, we tried to distance ourselves from the reality of what was really taking place. What could anyone do to stop it?
"A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we would hear the whistle from the distance and then the clacking of the wheels moving over the track. We became disturbed when one Sunday we noticed cries coming from the train as it passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews. They were like cattle in those cars!
"Week after week that train whistle would blow. We would dread to hear the sound of those old wheels because we knew that the Jews would begin to cry to us as they passed our church. It was so terribly disturbing! We could do nothing to help these poor miserable people, yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly at what time that whistle would blow, and we decided the only way to keep from being so disturbed by the cries was to start singing our hymns. By the time the train came rumbling past the church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we'd just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more.
Years passed and no one talks about it much anymore, but I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. God forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians, yet did nothing to intervene."
Friend, God knows I never intended to go quite so long in this newsletter, but please humor me. If you’ve stayed with me this far, then let’s carry this one step further.
Consider this too, please.
Is it possible that God has given to the Seventh-day Adventist Church the very message intended to awaken the Jews? In short, are Revelation 18 and the loud cry as much for the sons and daughters of Jacob as they are for the inhabitants of Babylon?
What will it do to the Jews when that cry emanating from millions of Christian lips – i.e., the cry that Roman Catholicism is no part whatsoever of the bride of Christ – begins to sound across the globe?
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” Romans 11: 25.
What Paul is plainly stating in this verse is that Israel’s blindness is only for a season. In short, the day is coming when there will yet be a revival among the Jews, and they will turn to their Messiah.
“Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” v. 12.
“And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” V.26.Pull back the curtain a bit more and the inevitable question follows: could the burden on my heart to expose before the world the Roman Catholic Church’s responsibility for theHolocaust be but a prelude to the mass awakening of the Jews?
Did God take me to Argentina in 1993 … for such a time as this?
These are questions only God can answer. One thing I do know: as I said in our Charlie Hebdo video, connecting these dots, these Vatican fingerprints, in such a public forum as YouTube, is risky business, but it’s got to be done.
NEED
- All right, so what are our needs as far as these two sermons are concerned? Our biggest need right now is for the protection of Almighty God – protection which you can’t give us, but to which you can contribute by your prayers.
- Our second need is for funds sufficient to complete these sermons. With that in mind, let’s recap. Below are the editing expenses incurred for our most recent videos.
- Adventist Crime Scenes: $12,725.00.
- This Isn’t Your Grandmother’s Great Controversy: $3,785.00.
- Charlie Hebdo And The Pope’s Visit To Congress: Not yet invoiced.
- Defending God's Prophet: Not yet invoiced.
Of this total, we’ve paid out $11,725.00. Our zeal is a bit in advance of our pocketbook, but we’ve been encouraged by recent e-mail (and a small but steady stream of fresh, new, internet offerings) to continue going forward by faith.
As I type these lines, I can think of only one scene in the first video that poses a problem. It’s a scene that I’d really, really like to amplify. I’d like to do for this scene what we did in Argentina – i.e., I’d like to take cameras and crew to a location that will bring this entire section alive.
If you’ve watched our Charlie Hebdo clip, then I’m sure you’ll agree – those 19 minutes wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful without our having first gone to Argentina and filmed some of those formerly top secret World War II files for ourselves. That trip brought this video alive! That’s precisely what I’d like to do for the sermon being produced even now: Defending God's Prophet.
What’s really providential about the location to which I’d like to go is that it’s in a country slated to be visited by our team as we secure new photographs for the revised edition of The (New, illustrated) Great Controversy. In short, going there now eliminates the need to go later.
Three of us – our video producer, an assistant, and I – could fly, film, and return to the U.S. within a week. In fact, I’m pretty sure we could have this entire video edited and uploaded by mid April.
For those of you who know of our determination to return to Israel to shoot God’s challenge to Islam, let me hasten to add that the shoot we’re contemplating now will NOT be in Israel. That will come later. Filming God’s challenge to Islam with Jerusalem’sDome of the Rock as a backdrop will involve jib, teleprompter, and at least three cameras. It promises to be a much more complicated and expensive undertaking than this one, which, because it involves a drone, won't be a piece of cake either. Our budget is $10,000.
Please prayerfully consider what you can do to get the three of us on that aircraft and over to that as yet unnamed country. I desperately want to go. The scenes filmed there will open a multitude of eyes, especially Catholic ones.
Guaranteed!
“Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation.” Romans 15:20.
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Thursday, February 26, 2015
Charlie Hebdo And The Pope's Visist To Congress
Published on Feb 19, 2015
The Charlie Hebdo attack. While Parisians by the millions took to the streets to pour out their grief and support a free press, the Pope took a different tack. David Mould explores the Pope's reaction.
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The Charlie Hebdo attack. While Parisians by the millions took to the streets to pour out their grief and support a free press, the Pope took a different tack. David Mould explores the Pope's reaction.
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Friday, November 15, 2013
Statement of Amazing Discoveries Germany regarding the accusations of anti-semitism in Germany
In October 2012, Prof. Walter Veith presented a series entitled “Sturm aus dem Norden” [English series: “Repairing the Breach”] in the Seventh-day Adventist Church Marienberg in Nürnberg. Amazing Discoveries Germany (AD) streamed the event live on its internet channel AD TV so that as many Adventists, guests and friends as possible would be able to participate in the presentations. Our office received a lot of positive feedback.
Only a few days after, an aggressive publication appeared by the private news agency European Adventist News Network [EANN]. Under the heading “Veiths gefährliches Spiel mit der Judenfrage” [Veith’s Dangerous Game with the Jewish Question – a disturbing fact-check] author Dietmar Päschel, a journalist for the EANN, suggested by means of a so-called “reality check” that a major part of the presentation was actually made up out of thin air. Päschel claimed Veith’s message based on the Khazar theory, which has only recently been further backed up by new genetic research [here in English: Science Daily and AFP], to be “scientifically disproven”. Above all, he accused the evangelist of “anti-Semitic views” and even “downplaying the [Jewish] Holocaust”.
Some facts will help put the matter into perspective. Already in November 2011 EANN had published „Die Weltverschwörung. Ein Einblick in die dunkle Ideenwelt des Walter Veith“ [English article: The Dark Fantasy World of Walter Veith], an extremely polemic, faulty and simply insulting article that styled Veith as a “religious businessman” being caught in an irrational fantasy world and assailing his audience with a crude sequence of suggestive slides. EANN then further discussed the very diverging responses of its readers under the heading “Walter Veith polarisiert EANN-Leser” [Walter Veith polarizing EANN readers], as if Veith and not their own article were the cause of the polarization. In June 2012, Päschel in a 20-page paper “Veiths Lehre bei NS-Anhängern” [Veith’s teachings among Nazi adherents] endeavored to prove that Veith was no “authentic preacher of Adventist beliefs”. Though his artificial arguments are far from valid, they reveal all the more the author’s negative attitude towards the speaker and a subtle attempt to tie Veith’s message to right-wing extremism.
Against this backdrop, Päschel’s latest attack appears as part of a planned crusade. Shortly afterwards, Amazing Discoveries Germany received word that a press organ had triggered off a preliminary investigation of the presentations at the Prosecuting Attorney’s office in Nürnberg for the potential offense of sedition and Holocaust denial. EANN editor Martin Haase commented to Norbert Zens, Treasurer of the Intereuropean Division EUD, that EANN neither filed a charge at the prosecution office nor asked the police for inspection. The Attorney’s office in Nürnberg however, after having closed the proceedings, confirmed to us that the critical impetus had indeed originated with an EANN journalist. In an email dated from November 11, 2012 to the Prosecuting Attorney in Nürnberg, the journalist intimates on grounds of EANN reader comments and the public dissociation by SDA Church leadership that Veith’s presentation had called forth great agitation and was obviously “criminally relevant”. He then asks four suggestive questions conveying the impression this was a quite serious instance that certainly would bring about a complaint and criminal investigation. His letter does not contain a direct request to launch a preliminary investigation; instead it casts the speaker and its presentation in a light so negative that the Office’s reaction was predictable.
We are sad and concerned that contrary to Bible principles, legal proceedings have been induced against a fellow believer and that this course of action has not even been acknowledged when it was addressed.
Moreover, even one day before his article “Veiths gefährliches Spiel mit der Judenfrage”, EANN journalist Dietmar Päschel had, in an urgent appeal written to the two German union conferences, demanded consequences against Veith. Under the pressure of EANN and some Adventist lawyers, the church leaders hastily drew up a public statement condemning in strong terms Veith’s alleged anti-Semitic utterances. Here is an excerpt: (translated from the German):
We dissociate from such statements and conspiracy. . . Here is a speculative worldview, there is no basis in the Bible and it distracts from the real purpose of the gospel. Moreover, that the manner of the presentation is not an ethically justifiable way of dealing with other religions. The Adventist departments and communities are encouraged to ensure that such events take place neither in our name nor in our premises.
It is quite surprising that the concerned leaders of the German-speaking territory (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) issued a declaration on a presentation that at this time had been live-aired once only without any public recordings being available. This begs the question to what extent an objective assessment of the contents was then at all possible.
Early in January 2013, the united board of the two German unions (FiD, „Freikirche in Deutschland“) renewed an earlier speaking ban without previously talking to Walter Veith or Amazing Discoveries Germany, despite the fact that Bro. Veith was (and remains) a properly ordained evangelist of the SDA Church and is therefore according to current policy legitimized as a speaker world-wide.
While the German administration repeatedly presented their point of view in the Church magazine Adventisten heute [Adventists Today] (last time in March 2013), the publication of a reply of Walter Veith and Amazing Discoveries Germany was being strictly denied. Except for a letter to the editor by AD Germany that was put on the website (!) of the Adventverlag [German SDA publishing house], not a single letter of readers was published even though whole churches sent letters of protest to the administration (SDA Church Müllheim, members of the SDA Churches Würzburg, Schweinfurt, Bad Kissingen, SDA Church Bendorf I). [In addition, many people world-wide sent letters addressed directly to Bruno Vertallier, division president of the Euro-African Division, outlining their disappointment in the way the church dealt with this issue and requesting them to rescind their ban on Walter Veith. ]
In May 2013, a motion to annul the speaking ban was supported by a great majority of the general assembly of the SDA Church Nürnberg-Marienberg and sent to the FiD. Furthermore, the obvious grievance of the German administration deviating from the universally applicable SDA Working Policy when it comes to the invitation of external speakers was being addressed. Both motions were not allowed to be heard but returned with a note that no local church but FiD members only were entitled to bring up a motion.
In contrast to the procedure of our church administration, the approach of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is remarkable: After receiving EANN’s inquiry concerning sedition and minimization of the Holocaust, the Head Elder of the organizing church Nürnberg-Marienberg was interrogated as a witness. Then they asked for legal copies of the presentations and took time to thoroughly look into them.
After six months, the Attorney’s Office has now communicated that the speaker “neither committed the criminal offence of sedition according to §130 par. 1,2 StGB, nor of Holocaust denial according to §130 par. 3 StGB. In particular the persecution of the Jews during the Third Reich is not being negated, instead only unusual views about it are being advocated … Overall, after reviewing the contents of the presentation no criminal investigation proceedings will be initiated.”
Although EANN reported in an article about the Prosecuting Attorney’s final assessment, Päschel in no wise revoked his misjudgment that Veith had downplayed the Holocaust and thereby committed a form of Holocaust denial. He even affirmed the old charge of anti-Semitism which, in light of the Attorney’s conclusion, must be counted as deliberate defamation.
Connected to this public piece of information by Amazing Discovery Germany is the request to the EUD and the German Unions to correct their condemning attitude towards Walter Veith; also to generally examine the procedure concerning the invitation of guest speakers and conform it to the worldwide conventions of the SDA Working Policy.
In consideration of the above occurrences, we appeal to our Unions and Conferences to review their relations to EANN and their members including a critical evaluation of their public name since the abbreviation EANN is borrowed from ANN (Adventist News Network) and conveys the misleading impression of an official SDA press organ (European Adventist News Network, as the EANN vice chief editor confirmed [his statement has disappeared from his website meanwhile]). A misguidance of the reading public is to be prevented by all means. The same applies to the website “Adventist Leadership” that is adorning itself with the name “Adventist” but really is privately issued by Martin Haase. We are observing an increasing confusion through private organizations looking official to all appearances and entertaining noticeably good ties to leading SDA circles. We reject any attempt of covertly influencing our churches or the public and call upon each leader to express their views openly and by means of the official channels.
We want to emphasize that it is the intention of this document to clarify the issue and that it has been written out of concern for our Church that we love. Our brothers and sisters must not, through biased information, be led to wrong conclusions. They should be able to form their own opinions and to express their sentiments on current events. A partial gag order as in the case of Walter Veith is a virtual denial of their right to think for themselves. When confidence has thus been damaged it cannot be redeemed by just more emphatically insistence of administrative authority. We need to return to our Biblical concept of spiritual authority, and to deal with one another as humble-minded according to the word of Jesus: “You are all brothers.” (Matthew 23:8)
Nürnberg (Germany), August 15, 2013
amazing discoveries e. V.
Against this backdrop, Päschel’s latest attack appears as part of a planned crusade. Shortly afterwards, Amazing Discoveries Germany received word that a press organ had triggered off a preliminary investigation of the presentations at the Prosecuting Attorney’s office in Nürnberg for the potential offense of sedition and Holocaust denial. EANN editor Martin Haase commented to Norbert Zens, Treasurer of the Intereuropean Division EUD, that EANN neither filed a charge at the prosecution office nor asked the police for inspection. The Attorney’s office in Nürnberg however, after having closed the proceedings, confirmed to us that the critical impetus had indeed originated with an EANN journalist. In an email dated from November 11, 2012 to the Prosecuting Attorney in Nürnberg, the journalist intimates on grounds of EANN reader comments and the public dissociation by SDA Church leadership that Veith’s presentation had called forth great agitation and was obviously “criminally relevant”. He then asks four suggestive questions conveying the impression this was a quite serious instance that certainly would bring about a complaint and criminal investigation. His letter does not contain a direct request to launch a preliminary investigation; instead it casts the speaker and its presentation in a light so negative that the Office’s reaction was predictable.
We are sad and concerned that contrary to Bible principles, legal proceedings have been induced against a fellow believer and that this course of action has not even been acknowledged when it was addressed.
Moreover, even one day before his article “Veiths gefährliches Spiel mit der Judenfrage”, EANN journalist Dietmar Päschel had, in an urgent appeal written to the two German union conferences, demanded consequences against Veith. Under the pressure of EANN and some Adventist lawyers, the church leaders hastily drew up a public statement condemning in strong terms Veith’s alleged anti-Semitic utterances. Here is an excerpt: (translated from the German):
We dissociate from such statements and conspiracy. . . Here is a speculative worldview, there is no basis in the Bible and it distracts from the real purpose of the gospel. Moreover, that the manner of the presentation is not an ethically justifiable way of dealing with other religions. The Adventist departments and communities are encouraged to ensure that such events take place neither in our name nor in our premises.
It is quite surprising that the concerned leaders of the German-speaking territory (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) issued a declaration on a presentation that at this time had been live-aired once only without any public recordings being available. This begs the question to what extent an objective assessment of the contents was then at all possible.
Early in January 2013, the united board of the two German unions (FiD, „Freikirche in Deutschland“) renewed an earlier speaking ban without previously talking to Walter Veith or Amazing Discoveries Germany, despite the fact that Bro. Veith was (and remains) a properly ordained evangelist of the SDA Church and is therefore according to current policy legitimized as a speaker world-wide.
While the German administration repeatedly presented their point of view in the Church magazine Adventisten heute [Adventists Today] (last time in March 2013), the publication of a reply of Walter Veith and Amazing Discoveries Germany was being strictly denied. Except for a letter to the editor by AD Germany that was put on the website (!) of the Adventverlag [German SDA publishing house], not a single letter of readers was published even though whole churches sent letters of protest to the administration (SDA Church Müllheim, members of the SDA Churches Würzburg, Schweinfurt, Bad Kissingen, SDA Church Bendorf I). [In addition, many people world-wide sent letters addressed directly to Bruno Vertallier, division president of the Euro-African Division, outlining their disappointment in the way the church dealt with this issue and requesting them to rescind their ban on Walter Veith. ]
In May 2013, a motion to annul the speaking ban was supported by a great majority of the general assembly of the SDA Church Nürnberg-Marienberg and sent to the FiD. Furthermore, the obvious grievance of the German administration deviating from the universally applicable SDA Working Policy when it comes to the invitation of external speakers was being addressed. Both motions were not allowed to be heard but returned with a note that no local church but FiD members only were entitled to bring up a motion.
In contrast to the procedure of our church administration, the approach of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is remarkable: After receiving EANN’s inquiry concerning sedition and minimization of the Holocaust, the Head Elder of the organizing church Nürnberg-Marienberg was interrogated as a witness. Then they asked for legal copies of the presentations and took time to thoroughly look into them.
After six months, the Attorney’s Office has now communicated that the speaker “neither committed the criminal offence of sedition according to §130 par. 1,2 StGB, nor of Holocaust denial according to §130 par. 3 StGB. In particular the persecution of the Jews during the Third Reich is not being negated, instead only unusual views about it are being advocated … Overall, after reviewing the contents of the presentation no criminal investigation proceedings will be initiated.”
Although EANN reported in an article about the Prosecuting Attorney’s final assessment, Päschel in no wise revoked his misjudgment that Veith had downplayed the Holocaust and thereby committed a form of Holocaust denial. He even affirmed the old charge of anti-Semitism which, in light of the Attorney’s conclusion, must be counted as deliberate defamation.
Connected to this public piece of information by Amazing Discovery Germany is the request to the EUD and the German Unions to correct their condemning attitude towards Walter Veith; also to generally examine the procedure concerning the invitation of guest speakers and conform it to the worldwide conventions of the SDA Working Policy.
In consideration of the above occurrences, we appeal to our Unions and Conferences to review their relations to EANN and their members including a critical evaluation of their public name since the abbreviation EANN is borrowed from ANN (Adventist News Network) and conveys the misleading impression of an official SDA press organ (European Adventist News Network, as the EANN vice chief editor confirmed [his statement has disappeared from his website meanwhile]). A misguidance of the reading public is to be prevented by all means. The same applies to the website “Adventist Leadership” that is adorning itself with the name “Adventist” but really is privately issued by Martin Haase. We are observing an increasing confusion through private organizations looking official to all appearances and entertaining noticeably good ties to leading SDA circles. We reject any attempt of covertly influencing our churches or the public and call upon each leader to express their views openly and by means of the official channels.
We want to emphasize that it is the intention of this document to clarify the issue and that it has been written out of concern for our Church that we love. Our brothers and sisters must not, through biased information, be led to wrong conclusions. They should be able to form their own opinions and to express their sentiments on current events. A partial gag order as in the case of Walter Veith is a virtual denial of their right to think for themselves. When confidence has thus been damaged it cannot be redeemed by just more emphatically insistence of administrative authority. We need to return to our Biblical concept of spiritual authority, and to deal with one another as humble-minded according to the word of Jesus: “You are all brothers.” (Matthew 23:8)
Nürnberg (Germany), August 15, 2013
amazing discoveries e. V.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Operation Rat Line
Operation Rat Line
VASSAGO183
Uploaded on Jun 3, 2011
The Rat Line was an underground railroad that helped Nazis and their allies escape to Latin America, often with gold and jewelry taken from concentration camp prisoners. Did the Franciscan order and the Vatican assist war criminals?
.
.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Gingrich: U.S. Must Back Israel Against Iranian Nuclear 'Holocaust'
Tuesday, 15 Nov 2011 05:20 PM
By Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says the United States has a “moral obligation” to support Israel if it launches an attack on Iran to prevent a “second Holocaust.”
The former House speaker has called for the United States to take military action against Iran if sanctions do not stop their nuclear weapons development program. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, he was asked how much longer the U.S. can afford to wait before striking.
http://www.newsmax.com/video/viewid/f57e68c1-3f8f-4f32-88c8-75f69fb6c6ac
“I think what the Iranians have to understand is that we are not going to allow them to develop that program,” Gingrich responds.
“And frankly the Israelis, who are much more threatened than we are, may decide to do that much earlier than we would, in which case I think we have a moral obligation to back the Israelis.
“If the Iranians gave up their nuclear program, nobody in Israel is going to attack Iran. But if the Israelis allow them to get a nuclear program, there’s a very real danger that they are going to annihilate Israel and create a second Holocaust by wiping out millions of people.
“So I think the Israeli prime minister is under enormous pressure to not allow that to happen.”
“And frankly the Israelis, who are much more threatened than we are, may decide to do that much earlier than we would, in which case I think we have a moral obligation to back the Israelis.
“If the Iranians gave up their nuclear program, nobody in Israel is going to attack Iran. But if the Israelis allow them to get a nuclear program, there’s a very real danger that they are going to annihilate Israel and create a second Holocaust by wiping out millions of people.
“So I think the Israeli prime minister is under enormous pressure to not allow that to happen.”
Friday, October 28, 2011
Israel hater in Vatican?
Op-ed: Pope’s chumminess with Holocaust deniers raises questions about his intentions
Giulio Meotti
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The controversy goes back to Jan. 21, 2009, when Pope Benedict revoked the excommunication of four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). The Pope had already worked for two decades, starting when he was a cardinal, to bring the group back into the Vatican’s fold in an effort to prevent further schism.
The excommunication and its revocation was an internal church matter until one of the excommunicated bishops, Richard Williamson, gave an interview on Swedish television in which he denied the Holocaust. “I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but that none of them via gas chambers,” he said just a few days after the excommunication was lifted. Mr. Williamson has yet to retract his statement.
So what kind of Christians are members of the SSPX? The Society of Saint Pius X was founded in 1970 by the soft-spoken but uncompromising French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who opposed the then-recent modernizations of the Catholic Church. In 1988 Lefebvre violated an explicit command by Pope John Paul II not to consecrate the bishops at his church in Econe, Switzerland. He and the four prelates were excommunicated by the Vatican. It was the first break with the Holy See in 118 years.
Divine retribution against Jews?
The Vatican is now pushing forward with the rehabilitation of the society. During the summer the Holy See had unity talks with the group and few days ago Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, presented “the path to full reconciliation with the Church” to Bishop Fellay, the superior general of the fraternity. No deadline has been set for them to accept the deal, but Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, confirmed that the group is expected to sign it “within a few months.”
European rabbis are urging the pope to suspend talks with the society. If the Catholic rebels accept the deal, the most plausible solution would be for the society to become a “personal prelature” of the Roman Catholic Church, not unlike Opus Dei, whose superior is appointed by the Pope.
Williamson’s hatred is not an isolate case. A radical anti-Jewish ideology and practice permeate the entire Society of Saint Pius X, and in offering its sympathies to the fraternity, the Vatican is inviting serious doubt about its commitment to friendly relations between Catholics and Jews. The Pope’s unity with Lefebvre’s group is a renovation of Vatican’s Adversus Judeaos teachings and 2,000 years of enmity.
Consider that, when Pope John Paul II made his first visit to Rome’s synagogue in 1986, the society distributed a placard saying, “Pope, don’t go to Caiaphas,” a reference to the Jewish high priest who organized the plot to kill Jesus, according to the New Testament.
In 2005 Franz Schmidberger, the German head of the Society of Saint Pius X, asked the pope to convert Jews: “St. Peter, the first pope, preached to the Jews and told them that ‘If you want to be saved you must do three things: You must regret your sins and convert, believe in our lord Jesus Christ and, thirdly, be baptized.’ We expect that every pope who claims to be the successor of St. Peter . . . should take the same stand.”
A few days after Mr. Williamson’s tirade about the gas chambers, Mr. Schmidberger wrote to German bishops to remind them of the supposed Jewish original sin. “With the crucifixion of Christ, the curtain of the temple was torn and the old alliance destroyed. The Jews are complicit in deicide, as long as they do not distance themselves from the culpability of their forefathers by acknowledging the divinity of Christ and the baptism.”According to Lefebvre’s pupils, the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem confirmed divine retribution for Jewish misdeeds.
‘Zionism is satanic’
Last month, Régis de Cacqueray, the head of the French SSPX chapter, also accused Jews of deicide. "How can one imagine that God is pleased with the prayers of the Jews, who are faithful to their fathers who crucified his son and deny the Trinitarian God?" wrote the Lefebrist superior.
This is the revival of the “replacement theology” that underpinned centuries of Christian anti-Jewish hatred arguing that because of their denial of the divinity of Christ, the Jews have forfeited God’s promises to them which have been transferred to the Church. This calumny also underlay Europe’s anti-Jewish pogroms, which consisted of massacres and forced conversions.
The Society of Saint Pius X has also a record of collaborating with France’s most wanted war criminals. In 1989 Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie’s right-hand man in Vichy France, was arrested at a Society of Saint Pius X’s priory in Nice. The society stated at the time that Touvier had been granted asylum as “an act of charity to a homeless man.” When Touvier died in prison in 1996, a church operated by the fraternity offered a requiem mass in his honor.
The Saint Pius X spoke also approvingly of the “Catholic order of Pétain”, referring to the pro-Nazi Vichy head of state. The Society organizes pilgrimages to Pétain’s tomb. In 1990, one year before his death, Lefebvre gave an interview to the journal of the National Front in France, suggesting that opposition to a Carmelite convent at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp was being “instigated by Jews”. Lefebvre also defined Zionism as “satanic.”
According to Ansa news agency, in 1997 Ugo Carandino, the head of the Italian Society of Saint Pius X community, refused the Vatican’s request of forgiveness to the Jewish people: “It’s the Jews which should ask our pardon for their usury.” Another of the bishops pardoned by Pope Benedict, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, has said that “the Jews are the most active artisans for the coming of Antichrist.”
If Pope Benedict brings these anti-Semitic bishops back into the Vatican’s fold, he may also bring the Jewish-Catholic dialogue to an insurmountable impasse. As with the opposition to the Vatican’s canonization of Pius XII, Israel’s current religious and political leader should bravely speak against the Pope's course with the gas chambers' deniers.
Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism
Friday, May 27, 2011
Church Leaders Say "We're Sorry"
German and Austrian churches apologize for Holocaust actions
BY MARK A. KELLNER, assistant director for news and information of the General Conference Communication Department
oting the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, Seventh-day Adventist church leaders in Germany and Austria have released a declaration saying they "deeply regret" any participation in or support of Nazi activities during the war. The church bodies "honestly confess" a failure "in following our Lord" by not protecting Jews, and others, from that era's genocide, widely known as the Holocaust. Millions of people perished from war atrocities, including more than 6 million Jews who were exterminated in Nazi persecutions during the 12-year period of 1933 to 1945.
The declaration was initially published in the May 2005 issue of AdventEcho, a monthly German-language church magazine, and also will appear in other German publications, said Günther Machel, president of the South German Union Conference and one of three signatories to the statement.
A copy of the statement has been provided to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, added Rolf Pöhler, a former North German church area president who is now that region's theological advisor and was involved with the drafting of the declaration.
"We deeply regret that the character of National Socialist dictatorship had not been realized in time and distinctly enough, and the ungodly nature of [Nazi] ideology had not clearly been identified," the statement, as translated from German, reads. The church says it also regrets "that in some of our publications . . . there were found articles glorifying Adolf Hitler and agreeing with the ideology of anti-Semitism in a way that is unbelievable from today's [perspective]."
Church leaders also expressed regret that "our peoples became associated with racial fanaticism destroying the lives and freedom of 6 million Jews and representatives of minorities in all of Europe" and "that many Seventh-day Adventists did not share the need and suffering of their Jewish fellow-citizens."
A paramount regret, the statement indicated, was that German and Austrian Adventist congregations "excluded, separated and left [church members who were] . . . of Jewish origin to themselves so that they were delivered to imprisonment, exile or death."
Under various racial decrees, some Adventist congregations expelled members of Jewish heritage. One, Max-Israel Munk, was placed in two concentration camps by the Nazis and survived and returned to his church after the war. He said he did not wish to act toward his congregation in the way in which he had been treated, according to Daniel Heinz, a church archivist at Friedensau Adventist University who has studied Adventist activities during the National Socialist era.
Along with Machel, the other leaders who signed the statement were Klaus-Juergen van Treeck, North German Union Conference president, and Herbert Brugger, president of the Adventist Church in Austria. Pöhler and Johannes Hartlapp, church historian at Friedensau, drafted the statement on which the declaration is based. All three church geographic areas voted to approve the text, Pöhler said.
In the statement, the three assert that the "obedience we owe to the state authorities does not lead to giving up biblical convictions and values." They said that while only God can judge the actions of prior generations, "in our day, however, we want to take a decided stand for right and justice-towards all people."
Brugger, in a telephone interview, said, "Our church members really appreciated the publishing of this document." No indication of a reaction from Austria's Jewish community has been received, but Brugger said the Adventist Church is not as well known in Austria as some other movements are.
Asked how a church that considers keeping the Sabbath as one of its core beliefs could forsake Jewish Sabbath-keepers during a time of persecution, Brugger suggested that it was political, not theological, considerations that may have led to the strategy.
During World War I a portion of the German Adventist church had split off, opposing any military service. This led the National Socialists in 1936 to ban the so-called "Reform Movement" during their time in power. Brugger said concern over a Nazi closure of the main Adventist churches may have weighed on leaders in that era.
"I think during these times the official leaders of our church were afraid of losing the control over the church and losing the church because the political authorities had already . . . [confused] our church with the Reform movement," he explained. "I think our leaders were afraid to lose the official recognition of our church, so therefore maybe they were not [as faithful] to our beliefs as would have been necessary."
The main Seventh-day Adventist church in Germany was also briefly banned under the Nazis, notes Pöhler. A quick reversal by the regime led to relief among Adventists but also to a level of cooperation with the government that was unhealthy.
"We not only kept silent, but we also published things we never should have published. We published anti-Semitic ideas that, from our perspective, weren't really needed," Pöhler said in a telephone interview.
"We had to realize that one wrong statement, one wrong move by a person meant he could end up in a concentration camp," Pöhler said of that era. "[That was the] reason why we excluded and disfellowshipped Jewish-born Adventists from our midst: If a local church had not done this, [the Nazis] would have closed the church, taken the elder to prison, and it would have meant the whole church would be forbidden."
While some European Adventists took courageous stands to protect Jews, others went along in part because of concern for their families and churches. It would be difficult enough for an individual to reach out to a Jewish person, Pöhler explained, but to risk the lives of those in a congregation was an added burden. Such caution was even reflected in the nomenclature used by German Adventists, he said.
Daniel Heinz, director of church archives at the Adventist university in Friedensau, Germany, said his research into the stories of Adventists who helped Jews during the war led to his discovery of those who acted less honorably.
Resistance to Nazi policies, as well as the compassionate yet brave response of many Christians, among them Seventh-day Adventists, to protect lives of those under Nazi persecution, have been documented throughout Europe, including Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Denmark.
"I found some very impressive stories of Adventists who helped Jews in the Third Reich, risking their lives, and I found the opposite," Heinz said. Among other church members, one Latvian Adventist family took in a Jewish man, hid him during the war, and survived. The refugee became an Adventist believer and church pastor after the war ended.
According to Machel, "Sixty years after World War II is late-but we saw it as the last chance for a declaration."
Young adult church members reacted positively to the statement's expressions of concern and contrition.
"To humbly reveal our sins and failures is the most important thing God wants us to do," said Sara Gehler, 25. "And even though 60 years have already passed, I think it was necessary for us as [the Seventh-day Adventist] Church to take a stand on the Second World War." She added, "It is our duty as Christians to protect and help those who are weak, helpless, and in need."
Said John Graz, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty director for the Adventist world headquarters, "For those who believe in God's love for every member of the human family, against any kind of discrimination based on race, religion, or gender, this declaration written by a generation which had no responsibility in the Holocaust and the war, but endorse the responsibility of their parents, will stand as a positive landmark and great encouragement."
Source
BY MARK A. KELLNER, assistant director for news and information of the General Conference Communication Department
oting the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, Seventh-day Adventist church leaders in Germany and Austria have released a declaration saying they "deeply regret" any participation in or support of Nazi activities during the war. The church bodies "honestly confess" a failure "in following our Lord" by not protecting Jews, and others, from that era's genocide, widely known as the Holocaust. Millions of people perished from war atrocities, including more than 6 million Jews who were exterminated in Nazi persecutions during the 12-year period of 1933 to 1945.
The declaration was initially published in the May 2005 issue of AdventEcho, a monthly German-language church magazine, and also will appear in other German publications, said Günther Machel, president of the South German Union Conference and one of three signatories to the statement.
A copy of the statement has been provided to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, added Rolf Pöhler, a former North German church area president who is now that region's theological advisor and was involved with the drafting of the declaration.
"We deeply regret that the character of National Socialist dictatorship had not been realized in time and distinctly enough, and the ungodly nature of [Nazi] ideology had not clearly been identified," the statement, as translated from German, reads. The church says it also regrets "that in some of our publications . . . there were found articles glorifying Adolf Hitler and agreeing with the ideology of anti-Semitism in a way that is unbelievable from today's [perspective]."
Church leaders also expressed regret that "our peoples became associated with racial fanaticism destroying the lives and freedom of 6 million Jews and representatives of minorities in all of Europe" and "that many Seventh-day Adventists did not share the need and suffering of their Jewish fellow-citizens."
A paramount regret, the statement indicated, was that German and Austrian Adventist congregations "excluded, separated and left [church members who were] . . . of Jewish origin to themselves so that they were delivered to imprisonment, exile or death."
Under various racial decrees, some Adventist congregations expelled members of Jewish heritage. One, Max-Israel Munk, was placed in two concentration camps by the Nazis and survived and returned to his church after the war. He said he did not wish to act toward his congregation in the way in which he had been treated, according to Daniel Heinz, a church archivist at Friedensau Adventist University who has studied Adventist activities during the National Socialist era.
Along with Machel, the other leaders who signed the statement were Klaus-Juergen van Treeck, North German Union Conference president, and Herbert Brugger, president of the Adventist Church in Austria. Pöhler and Johannes Hartlapp, church historian at Friedensau, drafted the statement on which the declaration is based. All three church geographic areas voted to approve the text, Pöhler said.
In the statement, the three assert that the "obedience we owe to the state authorities does not lead to giving up biblical convictions and values." They said that while only God can judge the actions of prior generations, "in our day, however, we want to take a decided stand for right and justice-towards all people."
Brugger, in a telephone interview, said, "Our church members really appreciated the publishing of this document." No indication of a reaction from Austria's Jewish community has been received, but Brugger said the Adventist Church is not as well known in Austria as some other movements are.
Asked how a church that considers keeping the Sabbath as one of its core beliefs could forsake Jewish Sabbath-keepers during a time of persecution, Brugger suggested that it was political, not theological, considerations that may have led to the strategy.
During World War I a portion of the German Adventist church had split off, opposing any military service. This led the National Socialists in 1936 to ban the so-called "Reform Movement" during their time in power. Brugger said concern over a Nazi closure of the main Adventist churches may have weighed on leaders in that era.
"I think during these times the official leaders of our church were afraid of losing the control over the church and losing the church because the political authorities had already . . . [confused] our church with the Reform movement," he explained. "I think our leaders were afraid to lose the official recognition of our church, so therefore maybe they were not [as faithful] to our beliefs as would have been necessary."
The main Seventh-day Adventist church in Germany was also briefly banned under the Nazis, notes Pöhler. A quick reversal by the regime led to relief among Adventists but also to a level of cooperation with the government that was unhealthy.
"We not only kept silent, but we also published things we never should have published. We published anti-Semitic ideas that, from our perspective, weren't really needed," Pöhler said in a telephone interview.
"We had to realize that one wrong statement, one wrong move by a person meant he could end up in a concentration camp," Pöhler said of that era. "[That was the] reason why we excluded and disfellowshipped Jewish-born Adventists from our midst: If a local church had not done this, [the Nazis] would have closed the church, taken the elder to prison, and it would have meant the whole church would be forbidden."
While some European Adventists took courageous stands to protect Jews, others went along in part because of concern for their families and churches. It would be difficult enough for an individual to reach out to a Jewish person, Pöhler explained, but to risk the lives of those in a congregation was an added burden. Such caution was even reflected in the nomenclature used by German Adventists, he said.
Daniel Heinz, director of church archives at the Adventist university in Friedensau, Germany, said his research into the stories of Adventists who helped Jews during the war led to his discovery of those who acted less honorably.
Resistance to Nazi policies, as well as the compassionate yet brave response of many Christians, among them Seventh-day Adventists, to protect lives of those under Nazi persecution, have been documented throughout Europe, including Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Denmark.
"I found some very impressive stories of Adventists who helped Jews in the Third Reich, risking their lives, and I found the opposite," Heinz said. Among other church members, one Latvian Adventist family took in a Jewish man, hid him during the war, and survived. The refugee became an Adventist believer and church pastor after the war ended.
According to Machel, "Sixty years after World War II is late-but we saw it as the last chance for a declaration."
Young adult church members reacted positively to the statement's expressions of concern and contrition.
"To humbly reveal our sins and failures is the most important thing God wants us to do," said Sara Gehler, 25. "And even though 60 years have already passed, I think it was necessary for us as [the Seventh-day Adventist] Church to take a stand on the Second World War." She added, "It is our duty as Christians to protect and help those who are weak, helpless, and in need."
Said John Graz, Public Affairs and Religious Liberty director for the Adventist world headquarters, "For those who believe in God's love for every member of the human family, against any kind of discrimination based on race, religion, or gender, this declaration written by a generation which had no responsibility in the Holocaust and the war, but endorse the responsibility of their parents, will stand as a positive landmark and great encouragement."
Source
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