Again (as in 1933) the danger of anti-Semitic influences within Switzerland was mentioned. The letter also gave as an excuse for not admitting more refugees, that there were "so many unemployed citizens in our own nation". The same motive had led other Governments - as for instance the Dutch Government - to issue decrees restricting immigration.
The members of the Ministers Union of Geneva wrote a letter to the Chief Rabbi of the City of Geneva in which they expressed their deep sympathy with the persecuted Jews. This letter, together with the declaration of the Church Council of Zurich (see above) was read at a service, held in the synagogue on a Sunday and not, as usual, on a Saturday. This postponement was in order that the prayers of that day could be united with those of all the Christian Churches in Switzerland for the persecuted Jews. [153]
In December, 1938, the Synod of the Canton of Bern issued the following
Declaration:
"The Synod of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Canton Bern declares, that it views the merciless persecution of Jews and Fellow-Christians stemming from Jewry, as an expression of a spirit which has nothing in common with the spirit of Jesus Christ. It calls upon all members of our Church to intercede on behalf of the persecuted, especially our persecuted brothers; to stand up for them on every occasion; and to oppose any further attempt to poison the soul of our people with the spirit of racial hatred." [154]
* * * <57>
12 DENMARK
Leading Danish theologians - three professors and one lecturer of the Copenhagen University [155] and the Bishop of Copenhagen, Fuglsang-Damgaard - published a declaration on January 10, 1936, denouncing an anti-Semitic brochure, "The Christian Church according to the concept of the peoples of the North", based on the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Professor Frederik Torm related the history of this forgery in an informative article. The matter drew attention, even in Germany, where the "Volkische Beobachter" in its edition of January 14, 1936 reported the story as told by its correspondent in Copenhagen under the caption "Danish theologians grow nervous" and with the subtitle: "The Jewish question arises in Denmark". The report of the former German Envoy, Richthofen, dated January 13, 1936, shows the same attitude, considering the article of the theologians as an act of defence against "the ever increasing understanding of the Jewish question in Germany among the Danish public". [156]
In the autumn of 1938, Bishop Fuglsang-Damgaard said in his sermon at the opening of a new church, Lundehuskirken, that it was with deep pain that the Christian community had heard about the persecution of the Jews in Germany, which had reached a culminating-point in those days. 149 pastors of Copenhagen supported these words by a public statement and pronounced their "deep sympathy with our Jewish countrymen on account of the sufferings which at this time befall their brethren and which must fill every Christian with horror". <58> Dr. Fuglsang-Damgaard asked the pastors to pray for the suffering Jews in the services the following Sunday, and he himself declared at a service in Helligkors Church, that we must pray to God "to protect our people against the poisonous pestilence of anti-Semitism, hatred of the Jews and persecution of the Jews. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was David's Son after the flesh, and those who love Him cannot hate His people". [157]
13 SWEDEN
The Swedish Ecumenical Council sent the following letter, dated April 3, 1933, to the German Evangelical Church Council in Berlin: