Thought du Jour

I am continuing to read Quakers and Nazis. It is a well-researched, fascinating history, but difficult to read. One reason the reading is difficult is that its author tends to wander away from his main subject (the Quakers in Nazi Germany). One example is his brief mention of strong Mennonite support for the Nazis. This surprised me. I found this difficult to believe, since Mennonites are pacifists, and often collaborate with Quakers in projects to promote peace. Here is the passage that disturbed me: (more…)

In the Victoria Public Library I came across a remarkable book written by the German-American historian Hans A. Schmitt. As I read it, I will post notes, limited largely to excerpts from the book, intended for my own use, and for anyone else who might find them of interest.

Hans A. Schmitt (1921-2004) was raised in Frankfurt and Berlin until 1934, when he was sent by his Jewish mother, Elisabeth Schmitt, to a Quaker school in the Netherlands, now known as International School Eerde. He attended Eerde until 1937, when he moved to the USA to attend college at Washington and Lee (USA), continuing later with graduate study at the University of Chicago (MA, 1943; PhD, 1953). He taught history successively at the University of Oklahoma, Tulane, New York University and the University of Virginia.

Source: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=uva-sc/viu01074.xml

The book that I am reading is titled Quakers and Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (University of Missouri Press, 1997). Everything that follows is copied verbatim from pages of the book, with the exception of text that I have enclosed in square brackets.

Why the title Quakers and Nazis, not Quakers against Nazis? Was not hostility part of the interaction between the two groups? On the contrary, Hans A. Schmitt’s compelling story describes American, British, and German Quakers’ attempts to mitigate the suffering among not only victims of Nazism but Nazi sympathizers in Austria and Lithuania as well. [excerpt from the jacket of the book]

[Quakers are known for their embrace of nonviolence.] George Fox [(1624-1691), founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers)] rejected

After the conquest of [the Muslims in] 1492, the [Spanish] monarchs inherited Granada’s large Jewish community. The fervid patriotism unleashed by the Christian triumph led to more hysterical conspiracy fears. Some remembered old tales of Jews helping the Muslim armies when they had arrived in Spain eight hundred years earlier and pressured the monarchs to deport all practicing Jews from Spain. After initial hesitation, on March 31, 1492, the monarchs signed the edict of expulsion, which gave Jews the choice of baptism or deportation. Most chose baptism and, as conversos, were now harassed by the Inquisition …. Under papal pressure. Ferdinand and Isabella now turned their attention to Spain’s Muslims. In 1499 Granada was split into Christian and Muslim zones, Muslims were required to convert …. But the Muslim converts (Moriscos) were given no instruction in their new faith, and everybody knew that they continued to live, pray, and fast according to the laws of Islam. ….

The first twenty years of the Spanish Inquisition were undoubtedly the most violent in its long history. There is no reliable documentation of the actual numbers of people killed. Historians once believed that about thirteen thousand conversos were burned during this early period. More recent estimates suggest, however, that most of those who came forward were never brought to trial; that in most cases the death penalty was pronounced in absentia over conversos who had fled and were symbolically burned in effigy; and that from 1480 to 1530 only between 1,500 and 2,000 people were actually executed. Nevertheless, this was a tragic and shocking development that broke with centuries of peaceful coexistence. The experience was devastating for the conversos and proved lamentably counterproductive. Many conversos who had been faithful Catholics when they were detained were so disgusted by their treatment that they reverted to Judaism and became the ‘secret Jews’ that the Inquisition had set out to eliminate.

Karen Armstrong, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (Knopf, 2014), p. 240.