NEWS FROM THE REAL WORLD

His graduate seminar on the German Church Struggle and the Holocaust at Emory University in 1959 was the first Holocaust course taught in America. His pioneering book, The Crucifixion of the Jews, was the first Christian response to the Holocaust bringing about a breakthrough, and encouraging an entire new generation of younger theologians and scholars to re-think the meaning of the Holocaust, antisemitism, the survival of the Jewish people, and a restored Israel. He authored more than two dozen scholarly books and at least 1000 major articles. His writings and teachings inspired a new generation of Christian and Jewish scholars to re-think individual responsibility in a free society.

Because of the ground-breaking role he played in his field, Dr. Littell is often regarded as “the Father of Holocaust Studies in America.” He was emeritus Distinguished Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and Emeritus Professor and former Department Chair of Religion at Temple University. For twenty-five years he was Visiting Professor in the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

His distinguished career also permitted him to serve as a college president (Iowa Wesleyan University), author, organizer of conferences and meetings and indefatigable public speaker. Most of all, he has been a champion of religious liberty and Jewish Christian understanding and cooperation.

He received the Grosse Verdienstkreuz, (distinguished service award) from the President of the German Federal Republic for his assistance to religious and educational institutions. In 1996 Dr. Littell received the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal for his work in furthering Jewish Christian understanding in Germany. Dr. Littell helped found the Societies of Christians and Jews – of which there are now 76 German chapters.

He received the Jabotinsky Medal from Prime Minister Menacham Begin, and Dr. Littell was the first Christian to be appointed to the International Governing Board of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Appointed as a founding member of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Council in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter, Dr. Littell was re-appointed by Presidents Reagan and Bush. He was a member of the Content Committee and founded and chaired the Church Relations Committee. He served as an active Council member until the opening of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in April of 1993. He also founded of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (originally named Christians Concerned for Israel), a group of concerned Christians committed to supporting the survival and the vitality of the State of Israel.

Dr. Littell was the founder of the Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, which just celebrated its 39th year. through the presentation of research true to the strict canons of scholarship and the retelling of stories powerful enough to raise the conscience and consciousness of succeeding generations This Conference endeavors to remember the Holocaust, and stave off a potential reoccurrence, and now engages the participation of a third generation of survivors’ children. The Annual Scholars’ Conference was the first gathering of its kind and remains the oldest continuing interfaith, scholarly meeting of this sort in the world. For the past decade, it has been based at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

A student of Reinhold Neibuhr, Dr. Littell was a persistent advocate for civil and human rights, and marched arm-in-arm with the Reverend Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Heschel in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. In addition to his distinguished scholarly and ecumenical contributions to the civil rights movement, Dr. Littell, often donning his trademark Stetson hat, cowboy boots and bollo tie, was a memorable presence in these world-changing activities.

Dr. Littell was President of The Philadelphia Center on the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights. His newspaper column, “Lest We Forget,” was published for more than a quarter of a century in newspapers across the country. Dr. Littell was educated at Cornell College, Union Theological Seminary, and received his Ph.D. from Yale University.

Dr. Littell saw the Holocaust as a signal event, the plumb line for assessing the moral, political and religious state of human society in the twentieth century. He referred to the Holocaust as “the Watershed Event in Western Civilization.” In his books, articles, and public lectures across the United States and throughout Europe, he raised questions, shared knowledge and offered profound insights into the meaning of the Holocaust and the lessons to be learned from the barbarous genocidal killing of six million Jews.

His lifelong research, scholarship and pedagogy led to unflinching indictments of some institutions at the core of civilized society. He rejected domesticating the genocidal horror as the result of irrational forces or merely the explosion of basic human emotions. He pointed out that the Holocaust was a planned, supervised and rationalized effort by respected leaders of society including professors, PhDs and sometimes even MDs.

In his speeches and his writings he constantly asked, “What kind of universities educated those men and women?” thus referring to “The Credibility Crisis of the Modern University and pondering whether the university of today was doing a better job in defending the dignity and integrity of the human person.”

Many religious leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, were complicit, either by active support or their silence. Dr. Littell wrote extensively on the so-called “Church Struggle in Germany,” at whose conference members decided at first to defend the integrity of doctrine and the church as an institution over a commitment to human concerns, which would have meant resistance to the Nazi movement. Thus, he coined the phrase, “The Credibility Crisis of Christianity.”

He would ask, “How can democracies like ours protect themselves against forces that debase our better instincts?” In language that is especially relevant in the current era of terrorism, he pointed out that societies attempting to “maintain the creative tension between liberty and popular sovereignty” face the fact that terrorist movements are “outside the arena of full, free, and informed discussion.” How can democracies wanting to protect the rights of the “loyal opposition” at the same time be alert to the dangers of destruction by anti-democratic elements? “Every dictator claims to represent the will of the people before he resorts to killing off, imprisoning or exiling any opposition.”

In 1989, Dr. Littell published an important paper, “An Early Warning System: Identifying Potentially Genocidal Political Movements,” which spells out fifteen predictive criteria that democracies can apply to recognize in the writing and actions of populist movements potential threats or attacks on constitutional integrity and freedom of thought.

In all his work, Dr. Littell defended academic, political and religious liberty and sought to encourage interfaith dialogue, especially between Christians and Jews. A major accomplishment was the 1970 establishment of the first “Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Church Struggle”

Dr. Littell is survived by his wife of 30 years, Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell (herself an educator and his partner in all his conference and Holocaust work), his four children and three step children, Jeannie Lawrence of Las Vegas, NV, Karen Littell of Livingston, MT, Miriam Littell of Evanston, IL and Stephen Littell also of Evanston, Jonathan Sachs of Pennington, NJ, Robert L. Sachs, Jr. of Glenside, PA and Jennifer Sachs Dahnert of LaGrangeville, NY and father-in-law of Duane Lawrence, Susan Bakewell Sachs, Teresa Ficken Sachs and Stephen Dahnert. He is survived by 11 grandchildren — Sarah L. Newton, Deborah Wilhite, Rachel Sims, Stephen Hodgson, Andrew, Evan, Betsy, Brian and Bradley Sachs, Samuel and Alissa Dahnert, and four great-grandchildren – Thomas and Roderick Newton and Megan and Zachary Wilhite. His first wife, Harriet Lewis Littell, died in 1978.

Dr. Littell constantly reminded his students that questions can be more significant than answers. Without the right questions, responses are insignificant and even misleading. It might be said that Franklin Littell’s life has been in pursuit of the proper questions.

Burial will be private. A memorial Service will be held in the Fall. Donations in his memory may be made to The Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, Post Office Box 10, Merion Station, PA 19066.