According to an archbishop in Brazil, Jews are not the only Holocaust victims during World War II. Catholics and gypsies suffered many times more during that period, he claimed.
Archbishop Dadeus Grings, from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil said this controversial statement to
Press & Advertising magazine.
The Jews talk about six million people killed. But how many Catholics were victims of the Holocaust? They were 22 million in all.
He then disputed the Jews' theory that they were the main victims of the
Holocaust. He said the gypsies were the primary victims, not the Jews. In the gypsies’ case, he said they were exterminated altogether.
The Jewish federation of the state of Rio Grande do Sul responded to the Archbishop’s statement and released the following in a press statement:
To diminish the Holocaust is an attack against the millions of people killed in a war unleashed by fanaticism and intolerance.
This follows another church figure, Bishop Williamson, who
said there were no Jewish gas victims during the Holocaust. The Vatican, however, has excommunicated him since then.
