"The Nazi Holocaust"

Orthodox Churches and the Holocaust

Page 179

Romania was a pro-German ally which afforded a measure of protection of Rumanian Jews in its Regat heartland... The Bulgarian authorities went to great length to protect their own Jews but were ready to surrender Jews residing in those parts of Greece and Yugoslavia over which they assumed control.

...The astonishingly high number of Greek Jews who perished also reflects the harshness of the regime the Nazis imposed on the Greek population as a whole. In Yugoslavia Nazis launched a relentlessly murderous onslaught against the Jews of Serbia; in the territory of Croatia a Fascist government (the Ustashi) obedient to the will of Hitler, was established: the Jews were consequently driven into concentration camps and either slaughtered there by their Croat captors or deported to the Nazi death camps. The minority of Yugoslav Jews who survived were fortunate enough to be in that part of Croatia which fell under Italian control. Once again, Italian officials defended the Jews by successfully resisting attempts to have Jews deported from their area of jurisdiction...

Page 220

Prominent leaders of the Greek Orthodox church in Athens and Salonica vigorously opposed the abuse of Jewish life and the transportation of thousands of Jews to Auschwitz, but to no avail. In Yugoslav Croatia, too, there is evidence that officials of the Orthodox Church [that is - the Serbs] pleaded with the authorities [that is to the Nazi Croats - Ustashi] to curtail the vicious treatment meted out to both Orthodox Serbs and Jews.

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More to come: The role of Croatian Catholic clergy in the massacres...