The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians and the Holocaust

The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians and the Holocaust (1992; boldly examines the tragedy of Christian Anti-Semitism that may have directly or indirectly paved the way for the Holocaust. The documentary argues that the ideological seeds which developed in the Nazi Nuremberg laws and then the death camp at Auschwitz may very well have been sown in Christian dogma many centuries prior to the rise of the Third Reich.

The film asks where the foreign governments, the institutional Church, the Christian neighbors were while the Nazi atrocities were being committed. The Cross and the Star comes to conclusions which generate both dismay and hope, pointing out such examples as the Second Vatican Council of the Sixties in which the Church recognized its unfortunate rapport with Jews, sparking the initiation of a new Jewish-Christian dialogue. Some Interviewees:  Dr. James Luther Adams (American Theologian in Nazi Germany)  Dr. Jacob Birnbaum (Holocaust Survivor)  Dr. Helen Fein (Accounting for Genocide)  Prof. Lawrence Langer (Holocaust Scholar)  Rev. Michael McCarry, C.S.P. (Christology After Auschwitz) Mr. Pierre Sauvage (Weapons of the Spirit)  Prof. David Wyman (Abandonment of the Jews)