Revelations disclosing Pope Pius XII's full awareness of the Holocaust recently reignited debates about the role and complicity of Christian Churches in the Nazi-led extermination of European Jews during World War II. The remarkable moral courage exhibited by some individual Christian clergy members who saved Jewish lives during World War II, along with the ethical integrity of many Christians who genuinely feel remorse for Christianity's contribution to Nazi antisemitism, have led many Christians and Jews to believe that Christian churches sincerely rue their past.
However, their indifference towards the Porajmos tells a different story. The Porajmos was the Nazi-led campaign during World War II aimed at eradicating Roma and Sinti populations across Europe. From a Christian perspective, the annihilation of approximately 500,000 Roma and Sinti men, women, and children is particularly disturbing because it entailed the destruction of a predominantly Christian minority. Unfortunately, most Christians continue to largely overlook this shameful chapter of their history.
This chapter is arguably even more disgraceful than historical complicity in the extermination of European Jews. During the Holocaust, pious Christians could rationalize their antisemitism with theological interpretations viewing Jewish suffering as a punishment for rejecting and even murdering their supposed savior, although nothing could rationalize the genocide and cruelty involved. Yet, no such pretexts exist for complicity in the extermination of the Roma and Sinti—like the Jews, a peaceful and powerless minority, but a Christian one embodying traits exalted by Christian Gospels.
Baptism and devotion provided no refuge for Roma and Sinti from the racial hatred and cruelty of fellow Christians. Gypsies were mercilessly massacred not only in Nazi death camps in Poland but also in the infamous Croatian concentration camp of Jasenovac. This concentration camp was operated by the Ustasha regime of Ante Pavelic, and tens of thousands of Roma were murdered alongside tens of thousands of Jews and Serbs.
Historical records confirm that Pavelic's regime enjoyed unwavering support from the Catholic Church, despite openly pursuing its aim to rid Greater Croatia of Communists, Jews, Serbians, and Gypsies. Astonishingly, the fact that most Roma massacred at Jasenovac were Catholic didn't move the Catholic Church to save them. Analogous Catholic complicity can be observed in wartime Hungary and in Slovakia, where Monsignor Jozef Tiso led a clerical-fascist regime committed to the extermination of both Slovak Jews and Catholic Roma.
Christian culpability isn't circumscribed to the Catholic Church. The Evangelical Protestant Church in Germany, which did so little to protect Jews and baptized Jews during the Third Reich, did even less to shield Evangelical Sinti and Roma from Nazi persecution. And in Romania, the wartime regime of Ion Antonescu garnered enthusiastic support from the Romanian Orthodox Church, despite being openly involved in the murder of Jews and Christian Roma in Bessarabia and elsewhere.
Regrettably, the behavior of Christian Churches in the years following World War II is perhaps even more disturbing. While the German Evangelical Church acknowledged and apologized for its sins against the Jewish people shortly after the Holocaust, apologies to the Sinti and Roma community were delivered only in 2023. These apologies appear perfunctory and lack any comprehensive measures, such as historical research commissions or new institutional dialogue frameworks, normally seen in the context of efforts to atone for past crimes towards Jews. Even more disgracefully, the apologies arrived eighty years later without any explanation or apology for this inexcusable delay.
The Catholic Church, too, has made only minimal amends for its historical sins. Pope Francis I expressed regret in 2019 for the Church's "discrimination and segregation" of Roma people. However, this apology was delivered neither in Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, or any predominantly Catholic nation where the scars of Catholic crimes run deepest. Instead, it was offered in Romania, a predominantly Orthodox Christian country, possibly with the intention of advancing missionary efforts and attracting more Roma converts, and taking advantage of the Romanian Orthodox Church's ongoing failure to acknowledge its crimes against Roma Christians.
Collective Christian indifference toward the Porajmos might seem a peripheral concern to Jews who care about Israel. Nonetheless, the historical lessons the Porajmos teaches cannot be overstressed:
Firstly, it suggests that European Churches' reckoning with their dark past is primarily driven by public relations, rather than a sincere commitment to justice. While the Jewish community has effectively disseminated its wartime suffering through numerous books, films, and theater productions, the Porajmos remains largely ignored. The absence of a sovereign state for Sinti and Roma perpetuates the indifference.
Antisemites readily exploit International Holocaust Remembrance Day to blame the world's indifference towards the Porajmos on Jewish money and influence. They conveniently ignore that widespread awareness of the Holocaust reflects Jewish historical consciousness and decades of arduous Jewish efforts, while near-universal indifference to the Porajmos exposes widespread racism, historical amnesia, and callous disregard for justice elsewhere.
The Porajmos reminds us that if Christians didn't save fellow Christians during World War II, and often fail to protect persecuted Christians in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caucasus today, there is no reason to rely on assurances and promises whose primary goal is to coax the Jewish State into signing peace agreements with murderers.
If Christians don't even save fellow Christians, why should you entrust the security and survival of the Jewish state to their benevolence?
Rafael Castro graduated from Yale and Hebrew University. A proud Noahide, Rafael can be reached at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com
