ANTI-SEMITISM AND CHURCH 2/3

EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM AND CHURCH

By Didier BERTIN – 15 APRIL 2010 - PART2/3 – TO BE CONTINUED

VI – RECONQUISTA AND INQUISITION

Spain and Portugal were an Islamic territory since 711-716 and in 1063 the Pope Alexander II called for Christian crusades in order to re-conquest Spain and Portugal by promising “Indulgences” to the volunteers. An Indulgence is a letter signed by the Pope to ease the access to Paradise of the letter beneficiary.

Indulgences are thus the step from paganism to pagan trade made by the Church.

Reconquista was finished on 2d January 1492 with the surrender of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada.

Almost immediately after the conquest of Granada, a decree of expulsion of all non converted Jews from Spain was promulgated on 31^st March 1492. Approximately 120 000 persons were expelled.

Gradually to the Reconquista, the Jews remained prisoners in the “Aljamas”

-Jewish districts- on the newly acquired Catholic lands and in 1391 many massacres occurred in Spain e.g. 4000 Jews were killed in Sevilla, and many Jews preferred to Convert.

Converted Jews were called Marranos, which comes from the word “Marrana” (Female Pork in Spanish) meanwhile converted Muslims were called Moorish;

Marranos and Moorish were accused to practice secretly their initial religion, and a new rule was applied called law of «Liempieza de Sangre» or “blood purity” -similarly to racist theories of 19^th and 20^th centuries- e.g. admission to Civil servant functions was restricted to people being able to demonstrate that their family were Catholic for at least five generations.

From 1483 to 1498, the Inquisitor Torquemada wanted to be sure of the sincerity of conversion trough death by fire and killed about 2000 Jews. During Torquemada’s era, Marranos fled Spain.

VII – RUSSIAN EMPIRE AND POLAND

Poland welcomed the Jews from 1333 to 1572 and was a real shelter from all those who were expelled from Western Europe.

Casimir III the Great invited the Jews to populate the polish eastern territories during his reign from 1333 to 1370. Jews came in the sole European shelter known as “Paradisus Judaeorum” from Western Europe countries as England, France, Germany and Spain. Jewish presence had started in Poland with the Crusades. With more or less favourable moments, Poland remained a Jewish centre where they were welcomed by many dynasties until 1572. 

The lot of Jews became similar to those of Russia when most of the territories of the Polish and Lithuanian Union were integrated to Russian Empire in 1793 and 1795.

Russian Empire inherited with the territories of the Polish and Lithuanian Union and of its very large Jewish population and had thus the largest Jewish population in the world. In 1897 (census date), 5 200 000 Jews were living in the Russian Empire.

In 1804, few years after Polish and Lithuanian territories integration, the Tsar determined restricted areas where the Jews were obliged to stay and called the “Pale”. These areas included a part of Baltic coast and of black sea (Odessa), Belarus, Ukraine, Caucasus and Astrakhan. Jews were then kept out of the territory of Holy Russia. The Jews were not authorized to own land and to travel freely. In 1897, 93% of the Russian Jewish population was living in the limits of the Pale.

The Reign of Alexander II (1855-1881)

Alexander II (1818-1881) was Tsar of Russia from 3d March 1855 and also King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland; he was the liberator of Serfs in 1861. Progressively, Alexander II relaxed the constraints of Jewish life; he authorized them to own land and properties, to freely travel in the whole Russia and broke the isolation of the “Pale”. Jews started to integrate the Russian Society and many of them started to speak Russian instead of Yiddish. Unfortunately Alexander II was assassinated in 1881.

The Reign of Alexander III (1881-1894)

Despite he was the son of Alexander II, Alexander III (1845-1894) had an opposite policy and re-introduced Russia to darkness during his reign from 1881 to 1894.

Alexander III was highly anti-Semitic; he woke up the deep-rooted anti-Semitism spread by the Orthodox Church of Russia.

Jews were “surprisingly” accused by the Russian Government of the murder of their benefactor, Alexander II. This was the start of major slaughters of Jews and destructions of their properties named Pogroms and which took place in 166 Russian cities. POGROM come from “Po” meaning “entirely” and “Grommet” meaning “destroy”.

In the sole year 1881 and 1882, one hundred Pogroms took place, the worst ones in Elizabethgrad, Kiev, Odessa, Warsaw and Balta. In 1882, an English Newspaper used the word «Pogrom» for the first time outside Russia.

Authorities, Church representatives and the agents of  Tsar‘s secret police – Okhrana  Otdeleniye (Security Section), called Okhrana - incited the mob to exactions.

Jews were maintained into areas sometimes more restricted than the Pale. They were banned from rural areas and their access to Education was limited in the Pale to 10% of the whole population.

In 1886, Jews were expelled out of Kiev and in 1891 out of Moscow and then out of Saint Petersburg and Kharkov.

Alexander III declared often that: “The Jews have crucified our Master and have shed his precious blood."

The Jewish Russian policy was based on the 3 thirds: one third converted, one third expelled and the last third killed.

“Okhrana” wrote, “The Protocol of the Elders of Zion” in 1901, in which  24 members of a so-called secret Jewish international Government explain in 24 chapters, their plan to dominate the world, in order to stir up Anti-Semitism.

In 1924 Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf”: The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", have showed how the whole existence of this people is based on a permanent lie, Frankfurter Zeitung tries to persuade the universe that is not authentic. The book sets out clearly what many Jews can perform unconsciously.”

A wave of pogroms took place from 1903 to1906, leaving thousands of Jews dead and many more wounded as in Kishinev, Bessarabia where a 2-part pogrom was experienced in 1903 and 1905 and made 68 killed, 650 casualties and 700 houses destroyed or in Odessa where 2 500 Jews were killed in 1905.

The Pogrom of Kishinev of 1903 occurred on the rumour that a Christian man was killed to utilize his blood to prepare the unleavened bread of Passover.

Many Pogroms were organized after the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

From 1881 to 1914, many Jews fled the Pogroms and approximately two millions of them immigrate to America.

By 1917 the number of Jewish orphans amounted to more than 300 000 children.

VIII – WESTERN EUROPEAN REVERSES IN 1815 WITH THE END OF THE FIRST FRENCH EMPIRE

Napoleon emancipated the Jews in all the European countries he conquered. After his defeat, the Austrian chancellor, Metternich convinced the Europeans to cancel the Jewish emancipation obtained under French revolutionary ideas propagated by Napoleon.

Nederland and France were the only countries, which maintained the Jews rights.

IX –UNITED KINGDOM

In 1905, Lord Balfour Prime Minster obtained the adoption of the "Aliens Act" in order to prevent the Jews from Russia and Poland to shelter in Great Britain when the pogroms reached a climax.

For United Kingdom, the solution to persecution of European Jews was out of Europe as per the statement expressed by "Lord Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary Office of the Prime Minister David Lloyd George, on 2 November 1917. Despite this statement was in line with the Jewish people trying to find a shelter, it was also in line with the alien act of 1905.

As a matter of fact many Jews joined the Revolutionary movement in Russia which was opposed to Pogroms, and this was unpleasant for British. In 1917 the London Times wrote that Lenin and his supporters had Germano-Jewish blood and worked for the Germans.

Nevertheless the settlement of Jews in Palestine was suddenly opposed to the British interest; United Kingdom failed voluntarily to organize the Sharing of Palestine as this was requested by the League of Nations in 1922 and left the area in state of was after 26 years of administration.

X – USSR

The Russian Revolution gave the Jews the same rights as those of other Russian citizens. In 1917, the white Russian Armies of Tsarist Generals Koltchak and Denikine slaughtered 60 000 Jews in Ukraine. The Jewish trade Union and Zionist Workers Union: Bund and Poale Zion joined the Revolutionary Movement. From 1917 to 1920, more than 1000 Pogroms with 30 000 killed people were perpetrated by the opponent to the Revolution.A few of them were also made by anti-Semitic group of the Red army.

Despite emancipation was permitted, Jewish identity was questioned in the frame of fight against Religions.

The root of Anti-Semitism were deep in Russian population and when Russian Authorities lost control on territories because of German troops progress in 1941, civil populations started slaughters of Jews with the support of the German “Einsatzgruppen”.

From 1945 to 1953 Jews were no more victims of Anti-Semitism but of the heavy criminal paranoia of the dictator Stalin. The perverted change in Revolution permitted the Stalin dictatorship.

A “Jewish anti-Fascist committee” was created in USSR to publish a “Black Book” documenting the German anti-Jewish crimes in USSR. The Black Book was only edited in New York in 1946 and censored in USSR. In 1948 Stalin organised the murder of Mikhoels, Chairman of the anti-Fascist Jewish Committee in charge of the “Black Book» publication. Under the instructions of Stalin, the members of the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in 1952 and 13 were shot to death.

In 1948, twenty five of the leading Jewish writers arrested in 1948 were secretly executed in Lubianka prison in August 1952.

In 1952 Stalin imagined that Jewish Russian Physicians might utilise their Medical position to kill Soviet leaders. On 13 January1953, 9 physicians called “Saboteurs-Doctors” were arrested, including 6 Jews. They were suspected to have killed Jdanov an important Soviet leader and to prepare other murders of Soviet leaders with the support of Jewish Organizations. These Events were known as « The Doctors Plot. » Stalin would have envisaged to deport all Jews to Siberia but fortunately died before on 5th March 1953.

USSR supported Israel in 1947 more than USA expecting it can be an ally of the Socialist block. In 1947 Andreï Gromiko - Foreign affairs Minister of USSR-  accused western world to have been unable to host safely Jews in his speech at UNO and Czechoslovakia provided arms to Israel till 1949, meanwhile USA organized an embargo. When Stalin decided that Israel will not play the part he expected, his madness struck Jewish members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Fourteen people were arrested in November 1951, including Rudolf Slansky, former Secretary General of the Communist Party and Vladimir Clementis, former Foreign Affairs Minister; they were accused to have given too many positions in the communist Party and Government to people called "bourgeois nationalists and Zionists." Out of the 14 people, 11 were Jews. Rudolf Slansky and Vladimir Clementis were shot to death in 1952.

XI – GERMANY

In 1879, the word Anti-Semite was created in Germany to describe the racist agenda of the Protestant Clergyman Adolf Stöcker (1835-1909). Adolf Stöcker was before Hitler a fanatic German anti-Semite who attracted many Protestants to his ideas. Adolf Stöcker was the representative of the German Conservative Party which attracted the Social Christian Party.

In 1880, the anti-Semite book of Heinrich Gothard von Treitschke “Noch einige Bemerkungen zur Judenfrage” and of Eugen Dühring “Die Judenfrage als Frage der Racenschaedlichkeit” became best sellers because they showed that the Jewish problem originated from Race. As a result of their books a public protest was signed to request the restriction of the freedom of Jews.

Many anti-Semitic Movements were created in Germany, which led to steps against Jews. The renewal of the Medieval Christian belief of the “ritual murder of children” culminated with the scandalous court cases of Xanten in 1892 and Könitz in 1900.

In 1924 and 1925, Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf “in which he presented his pan-Germanic, racist and anti-Semitic doctrine. He found inspiration in the racist literature very popular in that time including Eugen Dühring, Heinrich Treitschke, Arthur Gobineau, Georges Vacher de Lapouse,  Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

Hitler adopted the existing racist theories of an anti-Semitism based on racist theories as a key part of his Pan Germanic agenda. He found in Church doctrine a good support for his own conscience as shown at the end of the second Chapter of “Mein Kampf” “Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna”: “Nature takes revenge when we transgress its commandments, so I think to act in the spirit of the Almighty, our creator, because in defending myself against the Jew, I fight to defend the Lord's work.”

The allies of WW1 and especially France imposed gigantic payments of indemnities to a totally ruined Germany, which involved the collapse of the German Democratic Republic of Weimar, ruined the efforts for peace of Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand, and paved the way to power of Hitler.

On 17 October 1933, the Nazi party became the unique party after dissolution of others and obtained 92% of votes to the general elections.

In 1938, the Crystal night (Kristal Nacht), an anti-Jewish Pogrom was organized in whole Germany. Crystal made reference to the pieces of glass from broken Jewish shop windows.

In September 1939 Germany and USSR invaded Poland as a result of an agreement between the two countries. In 1918, Poland had acquired territories from Prussia and after a conflict with Russia from1919 to 1922 obtained Russian eastern territories which were in the past taken from Poland and given to Russian Empire.

As a result of these territories acquisition from 1918 to 1922, Poland gathered in 1939 the highest Jewish population in the world before USSR: 3 300 000 Jews lived in Poland in 1939. As a result in 1939, the German troops penetrated in the most Jewish populated country. Heinrich Himmler opened Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1940.

In addition to extermination made in concentration camps, the German “Einsatzgruppen” were squadrons following the German troops and in charge of slaughters in Poland and USSR. The victims of “Einsatgruppen” amounted   1.4 million. This was achieved directly or by the organization of Pogroms and with the support of regular German troops.

On 20^th January 1942, a Conference was organized in “Wannsee” which decided of the implementation of the “Final Solution”, meaning a systematic extermination of all Jews mainly through the dedicated Camps.

From 1940 to 1945, 63% of the Jewish population of Europe was destroyed i.e. 6 000 000 people.