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Presentation
The Editors
The widespread commemorations for the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht (1)brought home to many that we are far from comprehending the implications of the Shoah. Though it is an event of history its meaning transcends history. It defies the normal categories of analysis. In the Shoah any illusion of an inevitable upward progress of humanity was shattered forever. Theology can never be what it was before for human power and the potential for evil appeared limitless whilst God seemed silent and powerless. The very basis of morality is changed, the survival of humanity is perceived to be within human choice and responsibility. Yet for believers the encounter with the transcendent God remains vital for truly human existence (2).
This double issue of SIDIC hopes to provoke its readers to reflect on where we stand as Church, as Jews and Christians together, as human society, with regard to this "Tremendum" and to ask what it demands of us at this point in history. The moving testimony of Edith Brück, survivor of Auschwitz, writer and compassionate woman, is undeniable proof of the stark reality of the Shoah and also of the link between it and the anti-Judaism of Christians. She points out, with some anguish, the inevitable transformation in the Jewish psyche after the Shoah. The illustrations express the experience of another survivor, Regine Lichter, whose courage and endurance challenge those of us privileged to know her in Rome.
Our two main writers, Albert H. Friedlander and Eugene J. Fisher, the one a Jew and the other a gentile Catholic, are both scholars and `dialogue' theologians who are able to penetrate with empathy the self-understanding of each other's community. Out of his personal experience of the Shoah, his educational and pastoral work and his compassionate humanity, Rabbi Friedlander describes the agendas of the Jewish and Christian communities in the light of their different situations vis-a-vis the
Shoah and where they stand, separately and together, with regard to the unfinished and the new business confronting them. His call that the Church incorporate the Shoah into its own liturgy could perhaps "change its bloodstream", so to speak, and finally cleanse it of the persistent anti-judaism within it.
Eugene Fisher, in a masterly way, shows how the Shoah conditions every contemporary encounter of the Church and the Jewish People. Through the present tensions each can be led to a true understanding of the other and to real community. This struggle is revealing new theological insights important for life on earth and could result in a new way of being with each other and with God in faith and trust.
The reports from around the world give some idea of the place the Shoah has in education in universities, schools and adult programmes. The United States is far ahead in this respect but awareness of its importance is growing in Australia, Canada, Europe and, more slowly, in Latin America. The connection between the Shoah and the birth of the State of Israel has an important place in these programmes. If it is true that a new era exists for all humanity after the Shoah, the question arises as to how societies and churches outside the West can become aware of its consequences and relate them to their own distinctive experience.
Christians are only just beginning to give liturgical expression to the Shoah. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the U.S.A. has encouraged memorial services commemorating the victims of the Shoah and proposed prayer formulas to be used during the Eucharist (3). We hope other Conferences and Churches might follow suit. The book The Six Days of Destruction is important in this context (4).
From time to time further articles will be published in SIDIC to continue this reflection on the Shoah.
The Editors
(1) Two examples are published in this issue of SIDIC as well as the Joint Statement of the Bishops of the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria and Berlin.
(2) cf. John T. Pawlikowsky, OSM, "Christian Ethics and the Holocaust: A dialogue with Post-Auschwitz Judaism",
Theological Studies, 49 (1988).
(3) God's Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Teaching, Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, U.S.A., Sept. 1988.
(4) see book review, p. 50.
