36 TERRITORIES IN WHICH THE CHURCHES REMAINED SILENT
The heading of this Chapter must be regarded with some reservation, firstly because I may have failed to find statements which were issued, and secondly because even the admission by a Church that it did not speak out, cannot always be trusted. In fact, I have in my possession a letter from the official representative of an important Church in Europe, stating that his Church had not publicly protested against the persecution of Jews; yet later on much material was found proving that it had done so. It is notable that the Churches which, as far as we know, kept silent, were minority Churches, with the exception of the Lutheran Church of Finland which was, however, not directly confronted with the challenge of the persecution of the Jews.
a. Austria <281>
On March 12, 1938, German troops entered Austria; it was then absorbed by the German Reich. The Jews in Austria were subjected to all the horrors which the Jews in Germany suffered.
The legend that Austria was the first victim of Hitlerian aggression, to which official endorsement was given by the victorious Allies, is slow to die. In fact, the people in Austria were more national-socialist than in Germany proper: the frenzy with which the "aggressor" Hitler was received by the Viennese is proof enough of this. Many of the leaders of the Third Reich were Austrians, as for instance Seyss-Inquart, Kaltenbrunner, Globocnik and Rauter. Hitler himself originally came from Austria.
Little is known about the attitude of the Protestants in Austria with respect to anti-Semitism during the war. [604] In 1966, the General Synod of the Lutheran Church adopted a "Message to the Congregations on Jews and Christians". The message stated that:
"…Unfortunately, however, the Christian conscience of our people has not been strong enough to withstand a hatred based on racial differences. This is an alarming sign of the demonic powers of darkness to which we have been exposed and which have not been sufficiently resisted by our Church. Because the Church was entrusted with the Word of reconciliation and the message of peace, its guilt is much greater than that of all other groups. We must acknowledge and confess this guilt. The miracle of God's forgiveness makes our repentance possible…" [605]
b. Belgium
Professor W. Lutjeharms, who teaches Church history at Brussels, communicated to me why, in his view, the Protestant Churches did not publicly protest against the persecution of the Jews during the war. Part of the reasons he advances are, in my opinion, also applicable to minority Churches in other lands. <282> 1. The Protestants comprise less than half percent of the total population. 2. The Protestants nowhere formed a sufficiently concentrated group among the population. 3. The Protestants in those days had very few representatives in cultural and political circles. 4. The Protestant voice was not heard outside its own group before 1940; hardly at all over the radio and certainly not through daily newspapers. 5. The Protestant Churches represented a distinctly foreign flavour: many pastors and members were foreigners. 6. An official public protest would neither have impressed the authorities nor the population. The Protestants could only act effectively on the personal level. In this respect pastors as well as lay members time and again risked their lives, to help Jews as much as they could.
There remains the question, why the small Protestant Churches in Belgium undertook official and public steps in 1933, and not, for instance, in the years 1935 and 1938. It is possible that such steps were undertaken, but that they were not sufficiently published, and thus forgotten (Cf. above, point 4).