This blog was written on Power of Place: 2025 European Summer Institute for Holocaust Educators – an experiential professional development for teachers where learning unfolds as they tour historical sites across Europe in order to transform their understanding of the Holocaust, WWII, antisemitism, and Jewish life today. Power of Place is planned and co-led by Humanus Network on behalf of JCRC and generously supported by the Minnesota Vikings, the Tankenoff Families Foundation, and Allianz of America Corporation.

by Peg Hodapp, Theology teacher, Benilde-St. Margaret’s (St Louis Park, MN) | June 22, 2025

In the summer of 2023, I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in the first Power of Place, an educator’s pilgrimage to Holocaust sites in three European countries. I intentionally call it a pilgrimage because it was more than a trip or study abroad, it was a holy expedition. With this group of kindred spirits I walked on sacred ground, I felt the tears of my murdered brethren and their descendants in the rain that fell from the sky, I bore witness to unimaginable atrocities, and devastating stories that crushed the deepest part of my soul. I kept thinking about my own family and friends and wondered how the survivors carried on after the war. Learning that the trip this summer included Rome, I knew I had to find a way to go. As a Roman Catholic teaching Theology in a Catholic school it was a critical undertaking for me.

I have learned more in recent years about the complicit actions of the Catholic Church and, in particular, Pope Pius XII during World War II: Actions that provided safe passage for the escape of Nazi war criminals. In 2020 Pope Francis opened the sealed Vatican archives that contained the evidence of this dark time in our Church History. Having read the book by David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War and studying other writings I felt prepared. In our first 9 days we engaged in critical thinking and learning with master teachers and grappled with the raw emotions that we felt in the physical presence of history.

It was Sunday, June 22, Day 10 of our pilgrimage and we were nearing the end of our time together. We met with Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming, who is currently leading the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Vatican Archives Initiative. Dr. Brown-Fleming shared an abbreviated history and walking tour of key sites around the Vatican. At the end of this day I was struggling with a deep sense of shame and anger at a powerful institution that I called my own. During times like this, the unbridled part of me has considered abandoning ship to find a different faith to profess but then I hear the words of my late mother who passed when I was just finishing college. She was a faithful Catholic, high school educated, farm girl, gentle and reserved. She always told me that good people cannot run away from difficult things. Good and God would always prevail. Since then, it has been my lifelong mission to assure that the young hearts that I touch will forever learn about goodness, kindness, love and the power of education. As a Church we cannot hide from the past and must always choose a path of truth, transparency and forgiveness. Pope Francis commenced this road to reconciliation by opening the archives. My prayer is that the narrative unearthed will lead to repentance and reparation.

In the early months of his papacy, Pope Frances wrote Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). In it he said, “Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians. The Catholic Church holds the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked.”