Susannah Heschel analyzed the challenges Jewish-German citizens, specifically Jewish citizens who converted to Christianity, faced during the Third Reich’s reign in a lecture on Oct. 25.
“A baptized Jew that is a Christian appears in a church wearing a yellow star of David, a marker of Jewishness, [had] the label of common intruder into Christian space,” said Heschel, a professor at Dartmouth College.
Boston College’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning hosted the event, which Heschel started by explaining the isolation converted Christians faced because they were forced to wear the yellow star of David.
Heschel mentioned one woman who was an involved member in her church’s choir, but the congregation forced her to quit when she started wearing the star.
“She wore the star and went into church,” she said. “She writes, quote, ‘For a while I was a member of the church choir in our parish—singing has always given me much joy, but now I had to give it up because a few singers did not like the idea of a Jew participating.’
Many Christian officials opposed converted Jewish people practicing in their Christian churches, even if they had been baptized as Christian, Heschel said.
“One protestant pastor in Berlin was told by a congregant that he should not place his hand on her child’s head if that hand had baptized a Jew,” Heschel said. “She apparently felt that his hand was contaminated. Baptism could not overcome Nazi racism towards Jews.”
Christian pastors also discriminated against these converted Jewish people, according to Heschel.
“Some pastors suggested placing a sign on church doors, no admittance for Jews or no admittance for wearers of the Jewish star,” she said.
Christian churches judged baptized Jewish people differently depending on where the church was located, Heschel added. She said while baptism could save a Jewish person’s life in some European countries, in others it would not help people escape persecution.
“Baptism in Bosnia, under Croatian control, offered genuine security to Jews, whereas in Romania, baptism offered no protection from the state or from church authorities,” Heschel said.
Heschel also emphasized how people who tried to help Jewish colleagues escape persecution during the Third Reich’s rule were also punished. It was not easy to be Jewish or to be a Jewish ally, she said.
“It’s also important to keep in mind that those who tried to help Jews and Jews who had been baptized got into very serious trouble,” she said.
Discussing Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany is not uplifting, Heschel said, but it is essential to understanding global history and modern Christian-Jewish dialogue.
“My hope is that as we develop this Jewish-Christian dialogue, that we’re engaging in and watch it flourish—that our dialogue itself can be a form of prayer,” Heschel said.
