Catholic Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto


Father David Neuhaus writes: On my recent trip to Paris, our friend Samy Auszenkier gave me the book of Peter Dembowski about the Catholic Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, which has recently been translated into French.

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Peter Dembowski, a Polish Catholic, who was professor at the University of Chicago, published his book, “Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto” (University of Notre Dame Press) in 2005. It was translated into French by Irene Fernandez (Communio – Parole et Silence) and published in 2011.

The book is a fascinating study of the Catholic Jews who were rounded up together with other Jews and herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. Three churches continued to serve these baptized Jews until the mass deportations of the Jews to the death camps. Although the exact number of baptized Jews is not known, Dembowski estimates that there were about five thousand baptized Jews among the close to four hundred thousand Jews who passed through the ghetto.

The book is divided into seven chapters:

Chapter one is autobiographical and gives the reasons why Dembowski wrote the book. His own family suffered enormously during the Nazi occupation of Poland (his mother and sister were executed) and he was related to baptized Jews, who played an important role in his early life.

Chapter two details the sources he used in compiling his research. His sources included existing historical studiers, archival material, interviews and most importantly journals kept by certain figures in the ghetto.

Chapter three gives a history of the Warsaw Ghetto from 1940 to 1943. All the known baptized Jews were deported to the death camps before the insurrection in 1943.

Chapter four describes the three churches in the Ghetto that continued to serve the baptized Jewish population until the mass deportations. The three churches were: Saint Augustine, All Saints and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (also known as the Church of the Carmel). This chapter also describes the different priests who served in these churches.

Chapter five analyses the general Jewish perception of the baptized Jews in the ghetto. This analysis is based upon the journals and other writings of some of the leading figures in the Ghetto.

Chapter six focuses on the voices of the baptized Jews and their testimonies.

This book is a fascinating study of a little known group of Catholic Jews and who left very little trace of their existence. Their fate was that of their Jewish brothers and sisters who perished in the dark days of the Shoah.

(It is interesting to point out that the existence of baptized Jews in the Ghetto is noted in museum of Yad VaShem in Jerusalem, in the section that commemorates the Warsaw Ghetto).

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