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COMMITTEE ON CHURCH RELATIONS AND THE HOLOCAUST —
The United States Holocaust Memorial Council's legislation mandates Holocaust educational programming throughout the country in both religious and secular contexts. Because the religious community has a special interest in the Holocaust, a Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust was established to engage the various Christian organizations in the United States to fulfill that mandate.
Comprised of clergy and lay people from major church bodies and academic institutions, the Committee serves as a resource for individuals and groups grappling with the ethical and philosophical issues raised by the Holocaust and contemporary manifestations of antisemitism. The Committee provides information, feedback, and guidance to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council based on its experience working with the concerns of religious groups. The Committee takes special interest in how Christianity, Christian institutions, and the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust are presented in the exhibitions and educational programs of the Museum.
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The Committee assists churches and related organizations in developing educational and commemorative materials addressing the historical aspects and profound moral implications of the Holocaust. It seeks to assist schools, colleges, universities, and community organizations that sponsor special courses or programs on the implications of the Holocaust, and investigates the relationship of the Holocaust to the past history and future potential of Jewish/Christian relations.
The Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust is an integral part of the Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. The Center is a related scholarly organization of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).
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Jews and Christians: The Unfolding Interfaith Relationship
The Holocaust confronted Christian leaders at the time and after 1945 with grave ethical and theological questions. This article examines the historical record of Christian responses between 1933 and 1945, and the ways in which Jews and Christians since the Holocaust have confronted this history and their altered relationship.
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Kristallnacht: How Did Religious Leader in the United States Respond?
On November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis staged vicious pogroms — state sanctioned, anti-Jewish riots — against the Jewish community of Germany. These came to be known as Kristallnacht (now commonly translated as “Night of Broken Glass”), a reference to the untold numbers of broken windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, community centers, and homes plundered and destroyed during the pogroms. These events sparked a wave of outrage among U.S. religious leaders. In the weeks following November 9, 1938, there were numerous editorials, radio broadcasts, and sermons. Learn more about the response of Christian religious leaders in the United States to the November 1938 pogrom.
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The Interfaith Story behind Nostra Aetate
2005 is the 40th anniversary of one of the most significant breakthroughs in Jewish-Christian relations, the ratification in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council of Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
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Persecution of Jews over the Centuries
To provide background information on the subject of Christian Persecution of the Jews, the Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust asked Fr. Gerard Sloyan to address this sensitive subject. Fr. John Pawlikowski, Chairman of the Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust, provides an introduction to the excerpted piece.
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Antisemitism: Special Two-Part Presentation
In December 2003, the Center organized two programs with recognized experts who explored antisemitism in the context of Holocaust history and its troubling resurgence today.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the few church leaders who stood in courageous opposition to the Fuehrer and his policies. To honor his memory, the Church Relations department of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum asked Victoria Barnett to write an essay about Bonhoeffer spanning the years from the rise of Nazism until his death in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945...
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CONTACT THE STAFF
Additional information about the activities of the Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust is available from:
Victoria Barnett,
Staff Director of Church Relations
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Tel.: (202) 488-0469
Fax: (202) 479-9726
E-mail: vbarnett@ushmm.org
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Hon. John T. Pawlikowski
Committee Chair, Catholic Theological Union
Dr. David R. Blumenthal
Emory University
Dr. Mary Boys
Union Theological Seminary, New York
Dr. Donald Dietrich
Boston College
Dr. Robert P. Ericksen
Pacific Lutheran University
Dr. David Gushee
Mercer University
Dr. Stephen Haynes
Rhodes College
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Dr. Susannah Heschel
Dartmouth College
Dr. Henry F. Knight
Keene State College
Dr. Hubert G. Locke
University of Washington, (Emeritus)
Fr. Dennis McManus
Georgetown University
Dr. Rochelle Millen
Wittenberg University
Mrs. Margaret M. Obrecht
Baltimore, Maryland
Dr. John K. Roth
Claremont McKenna College, (Emeritus)
Dr. Kevin Spicer
Stonehill College
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