World War II
German teens go to Israel to atone for their families’ Holocaust history
By Michele Chabin — January 22, 2021
(RNS) — March of Life, a German movement that actively atones for the Holocaust through volunteerism, fights anti-Semitism through activism.
After 75 years, a question about race haunts Truman’s calculation on Hiroshima
By A. James Rudin — August 5, 2020
(RNS) — Much of the world focused on President Harry Truman's explanation for using the bomb 75 years ago, but the Japanese I met had a different question.
A gift of photos from a papal coronation opens a path for Jewish-Catholic healing
By Yonat Shimron — March 13, 2020
CARY, N.C. (RNS) — Howard Shulman didn’t know it at the time, but his donation of the photographs came just as the Vatican was opening its archives into Pope Pius XII's wartime conduct.
In ‘Hidden Life’, Terrence Malick says freedom is won in standing up for beliefs
By Claire Giangravé — December 11, 2019
(RNS) — God is never mentioned in the philosophical director's latest film: There is no need. God’s presence is always implied in the physical world.
In the sacred stillness of Arlington National Cemetery
By A. James Rudin — November 10, 2019
(RNS) — A visitors to the cemetery recognizes the enormous price in military dead America has paid, and continues to pay, for our freedom.
Pope Francis says key to Christian faith is to ‘obey God before men’
By Claire Giangravé — August 28, 2019
ROME (RNS) — In his weekly audience, Pope Francis noted the upcoming anniversary of the start of the Second World War and called the faithful to pray for peace.
D-Day was the beginning of American Jews’ ‘coming of age’
By Paul O'Donnell — May 22, 2019
(RNS) — When Jewish men and women returned to civilian life in 1945, they no longer perceived themselves as members of a vulnerable minority group, but rather as part of a proud, self-confident community.
A grim anniversary for Dietrich Bonhoeffer marks what might have been
By A. James Rudin — January 18, 2019
(RNS) — Eighty years ago, the anti-Nazi activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer traveled back to Germany. Had he survived World War II, he might have become a global leader in fostering respect between Christians and Jews.
The true story of a Jewish news agency that peddled fake news to undo Hitler
By Menachem Wecker — October 1, 2018
(RNS) — A subsidiary of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency also reportedly tried, in vain, to work with the FBI to plant anti-Nazi stories, and may have collaborated with the KGB.
Ukrainian city remembers Jews on Holocaust anniversary
By Randy Herschaft — September 2, 2018
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Once a major center of Jewish life, the city is observing the 75th anniversary of the annihilation of its Jewish population by honoring those working to preserve what they can of that vanished world.
Hindus chant to ‘purify’ former Nazi concentration camps
By Tom Heneghan — March 30, 2018
PARIS (RNS) — Should they be embraced as allies against racism or condemned for trying to whitewash and deny history?
Pope Francis recalls ‘the souls’ at Auschwitz
By Josephine McKenna — August 3, 2016
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Reflecting on his visit to the concentration camp last week, the pontiff said the site also reminded him 'of the cruelties of today, which are similar.'
In Germany, secular ‘confirmation’ thrives again
By guest — July 22, 2016
HAMBURG, Germany (RNS) It has been 125 years since this group of anti-church, humanist thinkers established themselves in this port city, and in an increasingly irreligious country the tradition it promoted -- akin to a confirmation ceremony without religion -- is undergoing a rediscovery.
Ex-Auschwitz SS guard convicted on 170,000 counts
By Cathy Lynn Grossman — June 17, 2016
Reinhold Hanning told the court in April, “I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it and I apologize for my actions."
Last Catholic priest to survive Dachau camp dies
By Yonat Shimron — June 15, 2016
(RNS) The priest was one of around 2,800 clergy interned during World War II at Dachau.
