Madam, - Peter Thompson (October 30th) quotes from the writings of the young Eugenio Pacelli, later to be Pope Pius XII, illustrating the kind of anti-Semitism that was common among some Catholic clergy of the early 20th century.
The British historian Niall Ferguson wrote at length about European anti-Semitism in his book The War of The World. He quoted from Polish Cardinal Hlond's pastoral letter of February 1936: "Jews have a disastrous effect on morality and their publishing-houses dispense pornography. . . Jews commit fraud, usury and are involved in trade in human beings."
Ferguson also referred to the numerous anti-Semitic articles that appeared in Polish newspapers throughout the 1930s and, in particular, to one which appeared in the Catholic newspaper Pro Christoin August 1934 under the pseudonym "Swastika".
Selective quotations can be misleading but there appears to be too much evidence to deny that the anti-Semitic attitudes of some people within the European Catholic establishment contributed to the atmosphere of fear and distrust which allowed the Jewish community to be isolated and subjected to pogroms in so many European countries even before war broke out in 1939.
Ferguson also makes the point that one of the great dilemmas for German Jews was where to go if they left Germany as "it was by no means clear that the Nazis were the worst anti-Semites in continental Europe".
Post-war Germany has made great efforts to come to terms with its past. Perhaps we who belong to the wider European Catholic and Christian tradition need to do the same. - Yours, etc,