"...It may rightly be said that after what has happened, after all that we allowed to happen in silence, we have no authority to speak now. We are distressed about what happened in the past, and about the fact that we did not make any joint statement about it. We have not forgotten that a number of pastors and churches did speak out, and suffered for doing so; we thank God for it, and we thank them. We thank all who, in our own country and abroad, have helped us with old and new insights into the Word of God, and who have taken action by setting up warning signs. Today when retribution is meted out to us for what we did to the Jews, there is increasing danger that we may take refuge from God's Judgment in a new way of anti-Semitism, thus conjuring up all the old evils once again. In this perilous situation and amid this temptation God's Word speaks to us and helps us to find the right attitude to the Jews. It is under pressure of this Word that we speak, because we are filled with anxiety about the future and burdened by the past, and because we feel obliged to express our gratitude to all those individual people who spoke out, took action and suffered doing so... It was a disastrous mistake when the Churches of our time adopted the secular attitude of mere humanity, emancipation and anti-Semitism towards the Jewish question. There was bound to be a bitter retribution for the fact that anti-Semitism rose and flourished not only among the people (who still seemed to be a Christian nation), not only among the intelligentsia, and in governmental and military circles, but also among Christian leaders. <291> And when finally this radical anti-Semitism, based on racial hatred, destroyed our nation and our Churches from within, and released all its brutal force from without, there existed no power to resist it - because the Churches had forgotten what Israel really is, and no longer loved the Jews. Christian circles washed their hands of all responsibility, justifying themselves by saying that there was a curse on the Jewish people. Christians no longer believed that the promise concerning the Jews still held good; they no longer preached it, nor showed it in their attitude to the Jews. In this way we Christians helped to bring about all the injustice and suffering inflicted upon the Jews in our country. This is what the Word of God teaches us, so that we recognize with shame and grief what a great wrong we have done to Israel, and how deep our guilt is. As a Church we have failed to be the witness of salvation for Israel. Now we have to face the judgments of God which are coming upon us one after the other, so that we may bow beneath the mighty hand of God in sincere repentance, both as a Church and as a nation..." [619] On April 27, 1950, the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany, meeting at Berlin-Weissensee, issued a "Message of Guilt towards Israel", from which we quote the following: