"In a few meetings of the Confessing Church a call to protest was given. But protests were made by the few, in comparison with the millions who co-operated or kept silent, who, at best, played the ostrich or clenched their fists in their pockets." [263] <113> The following is the opinion of Dr. Freudenberg, who was the Director of the World Council of Churches' Secretariat for Refugees, during the war: "The attitude of the Christians, also of the adherents of the Confessing Church, towards the national-socialist persecution of the Jews, shows great weakness and uncertainty. The anti-Semitic outcry of the environment made a greater impression than the word of Jesus Christ, the Son of David... But even the apparently feeble witness of the Church demanded great confessional courage in the situation of that time. One wrestled to give many a witness, and one suffered when the right word at the right time was not given... It certainly is not accidental that even the Confessing Church, though offering determined resistance against the introduction of the Arierparagraph within the Church, only very hesitatingly made its stand against the anti-Semitic laws and the persecution of the Jews in the State... The fact that the policy of the State towards the Jews ultimately is the policy of the Church and that persecution of the Jews is persecution of Christ, was not acknowledged in time, and when finally it was made, it was far from adequate. Moreover, this policy was effectively veiled by the national-socialist methods of camouflage. At the beginning of the regime one simply could not believe that the rulers relentlessly pursued a plan for the annihilation of the Jews and the elimination of the Christian Church from public life... If we want to evaluate the documents correctly, we must always consider Hitler's incomprehensible terrorization in the Reich. It may disappoint us that the matter was not raised more often and more forcibly. We should, however, bear in mind under which circumstances speaking or keeping silent took place. We should keep in mind that only now, after all the atrocities have become known, has it become customary to make a categorical condemnation of national-socialism. But this phenomenon was, in general, judged quite differently, that is to say, much more positively, not only by the Germans but everywhere in the world, at the time when (some of) these documents were issued." [264]