»Against Catholics«: Kristallnacht and its Aftermath in the U.S. Catholic Press

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

William Collins Donahue

Published:

2024

Publisher:

Transcript Verlag

to mark the launch of the University's participation in the »Holocaust Unfolded« Project sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.In attendance were volunteers from the local Jewish community, as well as professors, students, staff, and librarians from the university, which reports a student body consisting of 80% -and a faculty of at least 50% -Catholics.The publication of this speech is offered as an invitation to explore a still compelling topic from a somewhat uncommon perspective.The more familiar matter with respect to Catholics and the Holocaust is surely the failure of the Vatican to adequately and forcefully condemn the genocide at a time when it was sufficiently informed to do so.This topic first erupted into controversy with the production of Rolf Hochhuth's Der Stellvertreter (1963, The Representative) in Berlin, a play that itself made history with its indictment of Pius XII, and that prompted numerous historical studies including, most recently, Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (2000), by Susan Zuccotti.The focus here is quite different, namely, the Catholic press in the United States in 1938-39 -a point in time already deep into Nazi antisemitic policies, but still prior to the Holocaust itself.A time, as Erich Kästner insists, when Nazi policy might still have been successfully confronted, and the genocide possibly avoided.

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