Since antiquity, European Jewish diaspora communities have used formal appeals to secular and religious authorities to secure favors or protection. Such petitioning took on particular significance in modern dictatorships, often as the only tool left for voicing political opposition. During the Holocaust, tens of thousands of European Jews turned to individual and collective petitions in the face of state-sponsored violence. This volume offers the first extensive analysis of petitions authored by Jews in nations ruled by the Nazis and their allies. It demonstrates their underappreciated value as a historical source and reveals the many attempts of European Jews to resist intensifying persecution and actively struggle for survival.
Since antiquity, European Jewish diaspora communities have used formal appeals to secular and religious authorities to secure favors or protection. Such petitioning took on particular significance in modern dictatorships, often as the only tool left for voicing political opposition. During the Holocaust, tens of thousands of European Jews turned to individual and collective petitions in the face of state-sponsored violence. This volume offers the first extensive analysis of petitions authored by Jews in nations ruled by the Nazis and their allies. It demonstrates their underappreciated value as a historical source and reveals the many attempts of European Jews to resist intensifying persecution and actively struggle for survival.
When Germany invaded Norway on 9 April 1940, the long lasting bilateral relations changed fundamentally. Immediately, the administration of the ‘Reichskommissariat Norwegen’ responsible for culture and therein music together with the Norwegian puppet regime’s department for culture implemented the adaption to the new, official National Socialist guidelines. The diversity of music in Norway during the occupation is presented in this book by Norwegian and German authors, confronting research on collaboration, persecution, and resistance for the first time as an international endeavour. The different essays illustrate not only examples of exile and persecution and ask for the consequences of Nazi politics on prominent and forgotten fates, but depict how Norwegian artists and their organisations positioned themselves towards collaboration or resistance during and after the war, as well as contrasting it with the impressions of German musicians, both military and civilian, playing in Norway during the occupation. Including Norway into the international discourse on ‘Music and Nazism’, the articles address readers both interested in the German occupation of Norway, and the implications the German administration and its Norwegian counterparts had on the music life.
A Westerner's travels among the persecuted and displaced Christian remnant in Iraq and Syria teach him much about faith under fire. Gold Medal Winner, 2018 IPPY Book of the Year Award Silver Medal Winner, 2018 Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist, 2018 ECPA Christian Book Award Inside Syria and Iraq, and even along the refugee trail, they're a religious minority persecuted for their Christian faith. Outside the Middle East, they're suspect because of their nationality. A small remnant of Christians is on the run from the Islamic State. If they are wiped out, or scattered to the corners of the earth, the language that Jesus spoke may be lost forever - along with the witness of a church that has modeled Jesus' way of nonviolence and enemy-love for two millennia. The kidnapping, enslavement, torture, and murder of Christians by the Islamic State, or ISIS, have been detailed by journalists, as have the jihadists' deliberate efforts to destroy the cultural heritage of a region that is the cradle of Christianity. But some stories run deep, and without a better understanding of the religious and historical roots of the present conflict, history will keep repeating itself century after century. Andreas Knapp, a priest who works with refugees in Germany, travelled to camps for displaced people in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq to collect stories of survivors - and to seek answers to troubling questions about the link between religion and violence. He found Christians who today still speak Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language of Jesus. The uprooted remnant of ancient churches, they doggedly continue to practice their faith despite the odds. Their devastating eyewitness reports make it clear why millions are fleeing the Middle East. Yet, remarkably, though these last Christians hold little hope of ever returning to their homes, they also harbor no thirst for revenge. Could it be that they - along with the Christians of the West, whose interest will determine their fate - hold the key to breaking the cycle of violence in the region? Includes sixteen pages of color photographs.
This book challenges prevalent assumptions concerning the persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal in 1496-7. It pieces together the developments that led to the events of 1496-7 and presents a detailed reconstruction of the persecution itself.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Benedict Option draws on the wisdom of Christian survivors of Soviet persecution to warn American Christians of approaching dangers. For years, émigrés from the former Soviet bloc have been telling Rod Dreher they see telltale signs of "soft" totalitarianism cropping up in America--something more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to "safety". Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves our country especially vulnerable to demagogic manipulation. In Live Not By Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm sounded by the brave men and women who fought totalitarianism. He explains how the totalitarianism facing us today is based less on overt violence and more on psychological manipulation. He tells the stories of modern-day dissidents--clergy, laity, martyrs, and confessors from the Soviet Union and the captive nations of Europe--who offer practical advice for how to identify and resist totalitarianism in our time. Following the model offered by a prophetic World War II-era pastor who prepared believers in his Eastern European to endure the coming of communism, Live Not By Lies teaches American Christians a method for resistance: • SEE: Acknowledge the reality of the situation. • JUDGE: Assess reality in the light of what we as Christians know to be true. • ACT: Take action to protect truth. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can't happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not By Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.
The trial of the Knights Templar is one of the most infamous in history. Accused of heresy by the king of France, the Templars were arrested and imprisoned, had their goods seized and their monasteries ransacked. Under brutal interrogation and torture, many made shocking confessions: denial of Christ, desecration of the Cross, sex acts, and more.This narrative follows the everyday reality of the trial, from the early days of scandal and scheming in 1305, via torture, imprisonment and the dissolution of the order, to 1314, when leaders Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake. Through first-hand testimony and written records of the interrogations of 231 French Templars, this book illuminates the stories of hundreds of ordinary members, some of whom testified at the trial, as well as the many others who denied the charges or retracted their confessions.This is a deeply researched and immersive account that gives a striking vision of the relentless persecution, and the oft-underestimated resistance, of the once-mighty Knights Templar.
