Catholic Holocaust victims forgotten

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By Gene Walsh | Tuesday, May 06, 2008 | 10 comment(s)

Ten years ago, I toured the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. The solemn exhibits were incredibly disturbing and thought-provoking. One in particular was an exhibit that reminded visitors that an estimated 9 to 15 million people died in the camps. After learning this fact, I had to ask myself, if 6 million of these victims were Jewish, who were the other 3 to 9 million, and why don’t we know their stories?

As I delved into this mystery, I was truly surprised to learn that a majority of these forgotten victims were Catholic, including 3 million Polish Catholics.

Hitler began incarcerating Catholics after the elections of 1933 because they opposed birth control, abortion, euthanasia, eugenics and the persecution of the Jewish people. These men and women were tortured horrifically before their deaths.

I am saddened that the Church, since Vatican II, has turned her back on these Catholic men and women who died at the hands of the Nazis.

I only hope the young people who participated in the recent productions of “And then They Came for Me” will investigate the Assisi Underground, the Spanish Civil War, the Paris Underground, the genocide of 10 million Eastern Rite Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians in the Ukraine, and the true role of Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church with regards to the Holocaust.

Failure to share the entire story is to deny the scope and magnitude of the atrocities of the Communist and Fascist regimes.

Gene Walsh

Rock Island