Holocaust survivors in the International Auschwitz Committee are sincerely hoping that the worldwide celebration of the Reformation Anniversary will also be used to focus on the anti-Semitism that the reformer Martin Luther preached and to discuss the far-reaching consequences.

All too often the facts are suppressed that the Nazis referred to Luther as an authority in their expulsion and murder of the Jewish families in Europe, and that they saw themselves justified by his vitriolic diatribes against Jews. This was also a reason why the synagogues were set on fire in Germany, specifically throughout the night of 9 November – into Luther’s birthday.

During that night of hatred, terror and destruction the mortal fear experienced by the Jewish people in Germany grew, and this fear accompanied them to Auschwitz.

In his statement in Berlin, Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee stressed:

“Luther’s hate-filled anti-Semitism in his later years is beyond dispute, and it had far-reaching consequences. It appals the survivors of the Holocaust to this day that the hatred towards them and their exclusion were also rooted and alive in the toxic anti-Semitic excesses of the reformer. Luther’s anti-Semitic rantings have also engrained themselves as an enduring message over 500 years in the minds of Christianity, and they remain a part of many people’s thoughts and feelings to this day.

Consequently, the anniversary of the Reformation has the duty to send out a special signal and create clarity, particularly in the current situation of escalating worldwide anti-Semitism.

The representatives of the Protestant Church and the states that will be remembering Luther in the coming months with profound respect and devotion have a particular obligation to acknowledge and name this dark side of the innovator and reformer and to place it in the context of the centuries-old hatred towards Jewish people.”