Preface
As I write these words, Christians and Jews are quietly marking the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, regarded by many as the opening scene in the tragedy we have come to call the Holocaust.
We, both Christians and Jews, cannot reverse the course of time and undo the horror of those dark days which saw the senseless destruction of millions of human beings. But we can learn many lessons from the record of that tragic period of history.
The Holocaust was a shared horror in which millions of Christians and Jews perished. And while it was truly a shared calamity, we must acknowledge that although not all the victims were Jews, all the Jews were indeed its victims.
The past can be a great teacher for those of us who are willing to take the time to seek out the truths which it hides and the lessons that are there to be learned. This small book attempts to manifest some of those truths with particular regard to one man who has been much maligned by those who would choose to make him the scapegoat for the failings of nations and diplomats and countless others who through indifference or inaction saw the Holocaust loosed on the world.
The two authors we have chosen to help set the record straight are men of impeccable credentials and eminently qualified to serve as our guides in this study. Father Robert A. Graham, S.J. is a scholar in the fields of international affairs and Vatican history. The late Dr. Joseph L. Lichten was a Polish diplomat who experienced first-hand the brutal destruction of his homeland and the senseless killing of his Jewish brothers and sisters.
As Dr. Lichten so eloquently puts it, "It is our sacred duty to establish what happened — what was not done but also what was done, not merely for the sake of consolation but in order to understand the truth and to do justice to those who stretched a helping hand to Jews in those tragic days."
Pope Pius XII stretched out a helping hand. That gesture of compassion and love was followed by countless others.