‘May their stories never fade from our hearts, and may their courage inspire us,’ Bishop Senior says
The stories of the inhumanity of the Holocaust were cuttingly poignant. So was the call to prayer, reflection and discernment of action in our time.
“We are charged to remember, to prevent, to protect the vulnerable, to bring war criminals to justice, to talk truth to power and to educate,” Elaine Culbertson, the chair of the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council said to Diocese of Harrisburg Catholic School students and members of the community.
She spoke Tuesday, January 27, during a powerful Catholic Schools Week online presentation for Holocaust Remembrance Day, “Remembering the Holocaust & Understanding and Challenging Antisemitism in Our Time.”
The Hitler regime in Germany conducted a 12-year attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Germany and every land the Nazis conquered. About 6 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust, nearly two out of every three European Jews, along with millions of prisoners of war as well as others whom the Nazis regarded as inferior.
Culbertson, whose mother survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, talked alongside Harrisburg Bishop Timothy C. Senior and Andrew Goretzky, the Senior Director of the Anti-Defamation League in Philadelphia. The diocese co-hosted the event with the ADL Philadelphia Office and the Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition.
“We call to mind January 27, 1945, when the Soviet army liberated the death camp at Auschwitz,” Bishop Senior said. “It’s a somber moment to recall that reality, the horror of the Holocaust, and for us as Catholics it’s an extremely important remembrance as we are called always to keep that in mind how evil antisemitism is and the grave form that it took during that horrific period of time from 1933 until 1945. The unimaginable occurred.”
Bishop Senior also spoke in his introductory talk about the relationship Catholics and the Jewish people have built in 60 years of greater friendship since Nostra Aetete, a declaration by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1965 for greater union with people of non-Christian faith.
“Her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jewish people, and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone,” Bishop Senior said, quoting the document.
“I am reminded of this by an incident which occurred in our diocese back in October related to a display in a Halloween parade, and it highlights the fact that we as Catholics and all people of goodwill need to be educated, constantly aware, really, as Christians, particularly the relationship, the close bond, theologically, spiritually, that we as Christians have with the Jewish people.”
Goretzky spoke next, helping students identify various tropes against people of the Jewish faith and understanding how we’re called to respond when we see antisemitism and other forms of hatred.
“First, learn it and name it when you see it. Don’t normalize it. This is where, when we make jokes, they’re not just jokes. They perpetuate the stereotypes that occur,” he says, reminding those who attended that Pennsylvania has seen the fourth-most cases of antisemitism of any state in the U.S.
“Be an upstander in safe ways (and) create spaces for belonging so ensuring that individuals, regardless of their identity, feel like they belong in that space. Challenge conspiracy theories when you see them and hear them and practice empathy and curiosity. Understand where the person is coming from, and ask questions.”
But it was Culbertson’s personal story of her mother, one of the few who made it through Auschwitz where 1.1 million died, that hit home the most.
“It was not an accident in history, it was intentional. And this particular statement, it happened because individuals, organizations and governments made choices that legalized discrimination, fostering prejudice and hatred and ultimately leading to the mass murder of six million Jewish people,” she said.
She described how her mother’s entire town, a Jewish ghetto, was “liquidated” – a Nazi term for taking everyone in the town to a camp such as Auschwitz.
“There were 1,265 people on the train,” she said, adding “866 were taken directly to the gas chamber. My mother and her sister survived.”
“There was no intention of setting anyone free,” Culbertson said. “The reality was that if you were allowed to work, it was intended to kill you.”
Yet her mother, who was transferred to a camp in Germany, was rescued by American and British forces. She was 56 pounds.
So many more never made it out alive.
Rabbi Amanda Capptauber of Temple Beth El in Harrisburg followed with a poignant lifting up of the millions of lives lost to hatred and tyranny.
“God full of mercy, you who dwell in the heights, shelter the victims of the Holocaust beneath the wings of your presence, high among the holy and pure, who shine like the brilliant heavens,” she said. “Master of mercy, drape them and keep them forever in your protecting presence. Bind their souls to living and to life. God, you are their inheritance. Where they rest, ease them with peace.”
Those words augment Bishop Senior’s prayer at the end of his talk, one which not only remembers the victims, but calls for us to bring light and God’s love to make sure such hateful violence never happens again.
“We honor the millions of lives stolen, men, women, and children whose voices were silenced by hatred and cruelty, hold their memories in the light of your eternal love,” he said. “May their stories never fade from our hearts, and may their courage inspire us to stand against injustice in every form. Comfort the survivors and their families, and grant us the strength to be witnesses to truth, so that such darkness may never again take root in our world.”
By Jay Sorgi, The Catholic Witness
