Six Million Crucifixions

Six Million Crucifixions

Author	Gabriel Wilensky
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	History, Holocaust, antisemitism
Publisher	QWERTY Publishers (1st edition, hardcover)
Publication date	April 11, 2010 (1st edition, hardcover)
Pages	390 pages (1st edition, hardcover)
ISBN	(hardcover)

Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust is a 2010 history book by author Gabriel Wilensky. The book examines the role Christian teachings about Jews played in enabling the racial eliminationist antisemitism that gave rise to the Holocaust. In Six Million Crucifixions Wilensky argues that from the earliest days of the Christian movement an attitude of contempt toward Jews and Judaism emerged, which over time evolved into full-blown hatred. Wilensky argues that it was this foundation that made the various peoples of Europe ultimately receptive to the genocidal message of the Nazis, and made large numbers of them willing collaborators in the extermination of two thirds of European Jewry in what is known as the Holocaust.

The book concludes by arguing that following the Allied victory in the Second World War, the Allies should have tried any members of the Christian clergy who may have been complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich and its allies before, during and after the war.

Six Million Crucifixions has a foreword by Holocaust scholar John K. Roth, who wrote “By now, numerous books by Christians, Jews, and others have taken Christianity to task for its many failures before, during, and after the Holocaust. But few, if any, hit harder than Wilensky’s.” The book is divided into five parts. Part I provides a brief overview of some key events in the history of Christian-Jewish relations from the time of Jesus until the end of the Second World War. Part II specifically describes and discusses the phenomenon of Christian antisemitism. Part III covers the role of the Protestant and Catholic churches during the Nazi period and beyond. Part IV offers a short introduction to some legal concepts and provides an overview of criminal acts that Catholic and Protestant clergy, and the churches as institutions, may have been guilty of, and provides material that might have been used for an indictment had the Allies pursued another set of international prosecutions at the end of the Second World War. Lastly, the Epilogue covers post-World War II events including positive steps taken by the Catholic and Protestant churches after the Second Vatican Council.