Susannah Heschel presented her lecture, “The Aryan Jesus in Nazi Germany: the Bible and the Holocaust,” to a room of over 150 people on Tuesday evening.

The Harper Center room was full of students, faculty, and an interested public as Heschel gave her lecture as part of The Kripke Center’s Holocaust Lecture Series. The lecture series began in 2007 with the Frances and Sam Fried Holocaust and Genocide Education Fund supporting the annual offering of an academic course on genocide studies in the Creighton College of Arts & Sciences. The annual lecture series presented for the benefit of students and the general public features the professor who is teaching the genocide studies course for that year.

Heschel is the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. Her area of scholarship focuses on Jewish-Christian relations in Germany during the 19^th and 20^th century. Her presentation focused on how theologians reacted to, and sometimes embraced, Nazi sentiment. Heschel stressed how close this topic is to her heart as her own father lost his entire family during the Holocaust.

In her presentation Heschel gave an overview of Christianity in the Nazi Germany prior to and during Would War II. According to Heschel, German theologians would manipulate parts of Scriptures and church doctrine to deny that Jesus was a Jew and to state that Jesus came to destroy the Jews as a way of furthering Nazi sentiment. Heschel also said that Hitler’s book, “Mein Kampf,” was standard reading to become a theologian and that there were often swastikas found on the altar of Christian Protestant churches. Heschel went on to say that theologians were in awe of Hitler and wanted to extend their support to him.

“What they [theologians] could offer Hitler was anti-Semitic propaganda,” Heschel said. “They said it very clearly, they know something about the Jews and Judaism; they’ve studied it as theologians, especially scholars of the New and Old Testament. So they decided to establish an institute that would provide anti-Semitic propaganda and would demonstrate to Hitler their loyalty. It also said ‘Yes, Germany is fighting against the Jews militarily as well as fighting spiritually.’”

The Rev. William Harmless S.J., professor of historical theology, said that he had only recently referenced the work of Heschel and her father in a recent scripture class. He said that he was happy to see many of his students at her lecture because he feels she offers an interesting, and sometimes unheard, perspective on a well-known tragedy.

Arts & Sciences freshman Lizzy Bersch attended the lecture and said she greatly enjoyed it.

“I have learned about the Holocaust in school since grade school but I never knew that some of the propaganda started in Christian churches,” Bersch said. “It’s sad to think that churches were furthering anti-Semitic ideas instead of stopping them.”

Heschel ended her lecture by stating that anti-Semitism and racism are still modern day issues and that she hopes that feelings of tolerance continue to grow. Her tone was hopeful but she reminded the audience to be self-aware because, “sometimes we only see what we want to see.”