Page 19 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

For most of my life as a Catholic, the anniversary of Kristallnacht came and went unnoticed. It took its place in my consciousness as one of many human tragedies with no direct relevance to me personally. After all, I am not Jewish, I was born in a time and place remote from the events of that fateful night, and there has been plenty of human suffering in the world of the 20th and 21st centuries to occupy my mind and heart.
Over time, however, the memory of Kristallnacht has come to strike a deep chord, and specifically as a Christian. Of course, all human suffering should be the concern of the Christian. What the specific memory of 9 November 1938 has helped me to understand is that Kristallnacht is regarded by historians as being a critical step on the path to the implementation of Hitler’s ‘final solution’. In the absence of international outrage, it was a moment when there was still time for good people to speak up, yet too many allowed it to pass in silence.
Further, I learned that one of the factors that allowed the Nazis’ ideology to flourish was the influence of anti- Jewish images, stereotypes and tropes, deeply buried in the social and cultural fabric of European societies. Most days, their poisonous presence could be overlooked; but in a time of crisis they came rushing to the surface, turning neighbours into enemies overnight. Such prejudice had a long history, infiltrating Christianity and contributing to terrible humiliations and brutalities inflicted upon Jewish communities in Christianised societies over many centuries.
From the standpoint of the Catholic Church, it took the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) for this ‘teaching of contempt’ towards Jews to be decisively and officially repudiated. Vatican II taught that the church ‘decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews
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