The Grey Book: A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers ruleSnoek, Johan M.
Religion
The Grey Book: A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers rule
Snoek, Johan M.
Antisemitism; Christianity and other religions -- Judaism; Judaism -- Relations -- Christianity; Protestant churches -- Europe
"I believe that part of our difficulty in arousing ourselves and our fellow-
countrymen to the degree of indignation that it would seem to merit is the
fact that the imagination recoils before it. It is impossible to hold such
things at all before the mind. But we are all agreed in this House on the
main purpose of this Motion, to offer our utmost support to the Government
in all they can do; but with all sympathy for members of His Majesty's
Government, I am sure they will forgive some of us who wonder whether quite
everything possible has really already been done."
The Archbishop recalled "the solemn statement of the United Nations made
public on December 17", and contrasted "the solemnity of the words then
used, and the reception accorded to them, with the very meagre action that
had actually followed".
"It is the delays in the whole matter while these horrors go on daily that
make some of us wonder whether it may not be possible to speed up a little.
One must admit that some of the arguments hitherto advanced as justifying
the comparative inaction seem quite disproportionate to the scale of the
evil confronting us.
As reasons for no further action, "the great part that has been taken by this
country and other countries in the relief of the refugees" was pointed out.
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"That, of course, would be relevant if the people in the other lands were
suffering great discomfort or great privation, but when what you are
confronted with is wholesale massacre, it seemed to most of us not only
irrelevant but grotesquely irrelevant."
The Secretary of State for the Colonies had given a promise with regard to
the admission of Jews to Palestine, on February 3, but on February 24 no
attempt to move these persons had yet taken place. The Archbishop made a
plea that action should be taken as promptly as possible to carry out the
promises given by the Colonial Secretary. He also urged, "that we should
revive the scheme of visas for entry into this country".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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