Pope Pius XII: The Documented Truth

POPE PIUS XII AND WORLD WAR II THE DOCUMENTED TRUTH: A Compilation of International Evidence Revealing the Wartime Acts of the Vatican Compiled and Edited by Gary L. Krupp Fourth Edition POPE PIUS XII AND WORLD WAR II Compiled and Edited by i POPE PIUS XII AND WORLD WAR II: THE DOCUMENTED TRUTH A Compilation of International Evidence Revealing the Wartime Acts of the Vatican Gary L. Krupp ii Copyright © 2012 by Gary L. Krupp. Library of Congress Control Number: 2012914486 ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4771-5704-6 Hardcover 978-1-4771-5705-3 ebook 978-1-4771-5706-0 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Th is is a work of fi ction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fi ctitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. To order additional copies of this book, contact: Xlibris Corporation 1-888-795-4274 www.Xlibris.com Orders@Xlibris.com Compiled and edited by Gary L. Krupp With special gratitude to our partner in seeking the truth Michel Yves Bolloré And thanks to Linda Simpson and Bennett Solberg For their hard work and dedication Designed by Th e Ivy League of Artists Inc. Ivy Mindlin-Epstein Th e sole copyright holder of the Vatican documents represented herein including individual documents published and Actes et documents du Saint-Siege relatifs A La Second Guerre Mondiale (or Acts and Documents of the Holy See during the Second World War) is the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Th e original documents on our website www.ptwf.org are not to be used for any commercial purpose without the authorization of both the Libreria Editrice Vaticana and the Vatican Secretary of State. © 2012 Pave the Way Foundation Inc. iii Foreward Foreword Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.—Maimonides In furtherance of our mission to eliminate nontheological obstacles between the faiths, we recognize the controversy surrounding the wartime activities of the Vatican under the Papacy of Pope Pius XII. Since 1963, this has been a major barrier to positive Judeo/Catholic relations. Pave the Way Foundation is proud to off er this compilation of information addressing this divisive issue. A large body of literature exists, which suggests and contributes to the erroneous presumption that Pope Pius XII was a virulent anti-Semite who acted only in the interest of Vatican assets. Th e distortion continues, that Pius XII was a Nazi collaborator, who endorsed the Nazi movement to defeat Communism and that he helped Nazi war criminals escape justice. Our fi ndings however provide documentary, eyewitness, and other scholarly sourced material that clearly demonstrates the error of these suppositions. Th e reality of this argument remains; the evidence is contradictory. Many premature conclusions can be attributed to diffi culties in obtaining original materials, accessing Vatican Secret Archives or even, unfortunately, anti-Catholic propaganda created by governments as a result of Cold War activities, or individual biases by both Catholics and Jews. As with all arguments, there are at least two sides to what one must consider the “truth.” It is for this reason that Pave the Way Foundation decided to make as much information available for worldwide study as possible. To date, the foundation has identifi ed and provided, on our website, over seventy-six thousand pages of research material, including original documents, news reports, video eyewitness testimonies, and previously, limited-access, Vatican materials. Our objective is to present this information fairly and accurately, in an easy-to-read format, with hope and encouragement that it will inspire further original and balanced research. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of many scholars and historians who have devoted decades to this topic and the research of original and scholarly materials. Th is book would not have been possible without the input and contributions of these dedicated people. We hope that this book will inspire the reader to seek truth and move us as a global community closer to eliminating this controversy, which has, for more than fi fty years, been a source of friction and negative commentary. We encourage all to go to www.ptwf.org. Please register online and begin your own research. Take a journey and decide for yourself. Elliot Herschberg Chairman of the Board of Directors iv Table of Contents Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................ iii Introduction ..........................................................................................................vii Clarifi cation and Time Line ....................................................................................xi Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler ..........................................................................................1 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII .................27 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People ................................47 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives ..............................71 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude ...............................................145 Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII: ............................................................149 Th e Good Samaritan: Jewish Praise for Pope Pius XII ....................................168 Tributes to Pope Pius XII. ...............................................................................177 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? ..............................................................................................................187 Moscow’s Assault on the Vatican .....................................................................189 Th e Deputy .....................................................................................................195 Cornwell’s Book Hitler’s Pope .........................................................................197 Th e Myth of Hitler’s Pope ...............................................................................200 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses.....................223 Th e Concordat: A Refl ection of the Tense Relations between the Holy See and the Th ird Reich ...............................................................................................234 Th e Hidden Encyclical ....................................................................................239 Answering the Critics. .....................................................................................241 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy ..........................................................................................267 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War ......................................................................................................................279 THE VATICAN: GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT? ...........................287 All the Secrets of the Vatican Secret Archives. ..................................................294 v Table of Contents Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) ......301 Eugenio Pacelli—Pope Pius XII ......................................................................302 A Question of Judgment:Pius XII and the Jews...............................................307 860,000 Lives Saved—Th e Truth about Pius XII and the Jews ........................308 Robert Ventresca: Rescuing a Pope’s Spiritual Legacy .....................................310 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................313 Pave the Way Foundation International Directors ..........................................314 Pave the Way Foundation International Directors ..........................................315 Contributing Scholars and Historians .................................................................317 Index ....................................................................................................................323 vii Introduction Introduction WHY DID PAVE THE WAY FOUNDATION INITIATE THIS CONTROVERSIAL PROJECT? viii Introduction Fate often unfolds in a surprising manner; but none so much as the series of events which led us to confront the controversial subject of the papacy of Pope Pius XII. In 2006, my wife Meredith, and I were having lunch with the apostolic Nuncio to Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco. He asked if we could intercede to address, what he perceived to be, a very disturbing problem. Th e Holocaust Memorial of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem had placed a “very hurtful and historically incorrect” placard under the portrait of Pope Pius XII in the “Room of Shame.” Honestly, I, like many Jewish people, grew up hating Pius XII, believing him to have been a virulent anti- Semite and a Nazi collaborator. So my wife and I shrugged off this request and felt we did not want to get involved. After all, why would I want to help change the historical image of “Hitler’s Pope”? But then providence intervened. Upon our return to New York, we received a phone call from our friend Executive Director of the NY Board of Rabbis, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik. Joe asked if we would help a Jewish author and former Washington Post correspondent, Dan Kurzman, gain access to the Vatican for his research on a book he was writing on Pope Pius XII. I told him that the mission of PTWF is to remove obstacles; however I did not want to involve us in any activity that may negatively impact Catholic-Jewish relations. He asked us to meet with Mr. Kurzman anyway. We agreed to at least hear what he had to say. On April 7, 2006, we met with Dan at a small diner in New York City. He told us that he was writing a book about the secret plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII, to kill the Curia, and to seize the Vatican. I asked him how it could be possible that a collaborator and ally of Hitler, Pius XII, would be the target of such a plan. He explained that the exact opposite was true. Dan said his information was based on research and interviews granted, by Gen. Karl Freidrich Otto Wolff , who had served as Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler) and SS liaison offi cer to Hitler, after his release from prison in 1974. Curious about this, I called my friend, who was then Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, and asked him if he had ever heard of this kidnapping plot. He had not, but stated that it would be a huge story, if it were true. I called a historian at Yad Vashem and was told, “Well, we heard something about this, but there is no documented evidence that such a plot was being planned.” Something was dreadfully wrong here. Th e Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, suggested that I should meet with a Sister Margherita Marchione. Meredith and I traveled to Morristown, New Jersey were met with this engaging nun, who has written over fi fteen books in defense of Pope Pius XII. Th rough this meeting, my eyes were opened to a shocking reality. Th roughout the war, and up until his death in 1958, Pope Pius XII was adored by Jewish leaders, Jewish organizations, and many survivors who were aided by the Catholic Church. Something occurred to cause an international reversal of these positive and genuine sentiments of aff ection seemingly overnight. Cold War Soviet animosity toward the Catholic Church and Jews was well understood. Nikita Khrushchev targeted the Catholic Church, Eugenio Pacelli personally, and intended to isolate the Jewish people from the Catholics. Eff orts to revise history began with a fi ctitious play by Rolf Hochhuth called Th e Deputy. Th e play was rewritten by Communist producer Erwin Piscator, translated into multiple languages, and then strategically performed in select theaters worldwide as an integral part of a well-crafted Soviet KGB plan called “Seat Twelve.” Soon after, a fl urry of books followed, supporting negative theories of this Papacy and era. Th is plot was timed and executed to correspond with and undermine the Vatican II famous Nostra Aetate ix Introduction declaration, which repudiated all forms of anti-Semitism. To date, few read the books that defend Pius XII, and the “black legend” has been the standard belief since 1963. Controversy was further fueled by one lingering question: Why won’t the Vatican open the archives of the war years and the Papacy of Pope Pius XII? Th e prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Bishop Sergio Pagano, fully answered this question in interview. Th e cataloguing of over thirty-one million documents is simply not fi nished. In 2003, Pope John Paul II ordered the early opening of the archives of Pope Pius XI (1922–1939). Th en again, in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI ordered all sections to be opened of this era. Pope Benedict XVI has added over twenty trained library experts to speed the process. Th e vast majority of Pacelli’s life, as Nuncio to Germany and as Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI, his predecessor, are available to all for scholarly review. As we moved our investigation further, Msgr. Robert Sarno, of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, suggested that I meet with Fr. Peter Gumpel, relator (high judge) to the cause of Pius XII, and Fr. Paolo Molinari, postulator to the cause. I had the most incredibly revealing fi rst meeting with Father Peter. He also recommended that I contact William Doino, Dimitri Cavalli, and Prof. Ronald Rychlak for more help. After connecting with these experts and learning of their extraordinary personal research, I committed myself to righting this terrible wrong. After almost two years of private research, I made a case to the Board of Directors at Pave the Way Foundation and was given permission to undertake this endeavor. After interviewing luminaries, such as Msgr. Giovanni Ferrofi no, Sir Martin Gilbert and many others, we were 100 percent convinced in our assessment of Pacelli. Th e secret actions of Cardinal Pacelli, and then as Pope Pius XII, resulted in the organized eff ort to save more Jews than all of the world’s political and religious leaders of the period combined. As a Jewish man, I was determined to make this history right, especially considering how Eugenio Pacelli had been treated after his death by the very people he acted to save. Th is is a Jewish responsibility, since, according to Jewish tradition, the worst character fl aw a Jew can have is that of ingratitude. Th e case for Pius XII must be exposed and corrected. In Judaism, one of the most important obligations is that of charity. According to Maimonides, the highest form of charity is “anonymous.” In the case of Pacelli, his anonymous charity is the very tool his critics have used to strip him of any credit for the explicit and acknowledged acts he ordered to rescue the Jews. On June 18, 2008, we brought many Jewish Holocaust survivors to the Vatican. We met these wonderful people through the work of Vincent Marmorale and Elizabeth Nicolosi who were studying the lifesaving actions of the Italian people during the war. All of these survivors wanted very much to thank the Pope personally for the individual actions taken by the Catholic Church in saving their lives during the war years. At that meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, we announced plans for a three-day symposium scheduled for September 15–17, 2008, to be held in Rome. One by one, critics declined our invitation to participate in our symposium. In the end, critics said they would not attend because it was not a “scholarly investigation.” On September 15, we convened our symposium. At that event, Pave the Way made public its fi ndings and provided a public forum for the defenders and the detractors to come together to make their case, based on documented facts and painstaking research. Despite our invitations and off er of accommodation, we were accused of having a “one-sided symposium.” We were honored to have as panelists Jesuit historian Fr. Peter Gumpel, Prof. Ronald Rychlak, William Doino, Sr. Margherita Marchione, Dan Kurzman, Andrea Tornielli, Dr. Eugene Fisher, Fr. Dennis McManus, and George Blumenthal. Hundreds of documents were reviewed x Introduction and eyewitness testimonies given. Various experts provided their and comments and analysis. At the end of the symposium, we videotaped interviews with many of the attendees. On September 18, 2009, our delegation of eighty participants traveled to the summer residence of the Pope Benedict XVI, where I delivered a statement to His Holiness on our fi ndings and a promise to continue to search out documents and seek the truth. Pope Benedict XVI then made a statement to us, which was a dynamic public defense of his predecessor. News of this event traveled around the world and exposed this historical “infection” to the healing power of public scrutiny. Th e documentary evidence clearly shows that Pope Pius XII was neither an anti-Semite nor a Nazi collaborator. He was certainly not “Hitler’s Pope.” As of this printing we have made available, for free, on our website, Seventy-six thousand pages of documents, news articles and eye witness video interviews along with noted historians. We are proud to begin this process, which we believe will initiate a healing of wounds borne out of malevolence and anger. We encourage anyone with original documentary evidence, both positive or negative, to please forward this information to us for inclusion in the discussion. E-mail information to offi ce@ptwf.org. Gary Krupp President and Founder xi Clarifi cation and Time Line Clarification and Time Line xii Clarifi cation and Time Line Clarifi cation Pope Pius XII was the name taken by Eugenio Pacelli when he was elected Pope on March 2, 1939. Th e term “Holy See” refers to the worldwide Catholic Church or the “see” of Rome or the jurisdiction of the Pope. Th e term “Nuncio” refers to a particular ambassador from the Holy See (Vatican) to a particular country. “Nunciature” is the term used to describe the embassy. Vatican refers to the Vatican City State. Within the text of this book, we refer to the twelve volumes of the Actes et documents du Saint-Siege relatifs A La Second Guerre Mondiale or the Acts of the Holy See during World War II (ADSS). Th ese are a compilation of documents specifi cally identifying documents from the closed section of the Vatican Secret Archives 1939–1958. Original documents contained in this book can be downloaded at http://ptwf.org/vatican_docs_register. aspx. Many of the news article featured in this book can be located at the NY Times archives at http://www.nytimes. com/ and the Palestine Post archives located at http://www.jpress.org.il/publications/PPost-en.asp. Th e reader can see the personal inspiration of Eugenio Pacelli from his early life and how this was the foundation of his ministry, especially regarding his relations with the Jewish people. Th e chronology continues with the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. Th e material contained herein documents examples of Pacelli’s hatred of the heresy of National Socialism. Th is work features documents and testimony supporting and attesting to Pacelli’s attempts to minimize suff ering, while protecting the church and its neutrality. His actions saved human lives all while being surrounded by hostile forces. Universal praise and appreciation of the Pope’s eff orts against the Nazis are well documented up until fi ve years after Pacelli’s death. Th e book then takes the reader to the origins of the current polemics, how they were artifi cially created, and how this caused the 180-degree turn around in his international reputation. Time Line of Important Dates: May 25, 1917 – Pacelli arrives in Germany. December 10, 1929 – Pacelli leaves Germany to become secretary of state. March 10, 1937 – Pacelli edits the only papal encyclical written in a foreign language, Mit Brennender Sorge. November 10, 1938 – Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) victimizes Jews in Germany. March 2, 1939 – Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope Pius XII. September 1, 1939 – War begins in Europe with the invasion of Poland. July 26, 1942 – Archbishop of Utrecht makes his speech in Holland resulting in German reprisals. July 25, 1943 – Mussolini is overthrown. September 8, 1943 – Italy surrenders to the Allies. June 4, 1944 – Rome is liberated. July 20, 1944 – Attempted Assasination of Adolf Hitler Fails. May 8, 1945 – War ends in Europe. October 9, 1958 – Pacelli dies at Castel Gandolfo. February 20, 1963 – Th e Deputy is fi rst performed in Berlin. 1 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler The Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler 2 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Vatican condemns National Socialism at every opportunity. Of forty-four public speeches Pacelli made in Germany (1917–1929), forty attacked National Socialistic doctrines. Th ese articles, dated September 9 and October 24, 1942, tells of how the Nazi Department of Public Enlightenment produced ten million copies of a pamphlet (distributed in Europe and Latin America) condemning the Vatican’s intervention protesting the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Th e Jewish Chronicle (London) September 9, 1942 - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. 3 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler November 14, 1923, Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli writes to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, of the evils and anti-Catholic nature of National Socialism and names Hitler for the fi rst time. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 4 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Above are Pacelli’s handwritten notes of May 1 and 4, 1924: “Th e heresy of National Socialism puts state and race above everything, above true religion, above the truth and above justice” (ASV, Arch. Nunz. Monaco 365, Fasc. 7, Pos. XIV, Baviera, p. 83). “It is very painful that not only a few Catholics are deceived and lead astray, what confi rms, at least for Germany, is that Nazism is maybe the most dangerous heresy of our time” (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Arch. Nunz. Monaco d.B. 396, Fasc. 7, Pos. XIV, Baviera, p. 75). NOVEMBER 13, 1938 - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann Co t f M 5 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Eugenio Pacelli spoke to Sr. Pascalina Lehnert about Hitler in 1929—four years before Hitler came to power. She explained: “On one occasion I asked the Nuncio if he did not think that this man could have some good in him, and that . . . he [Hitler] could perhaps help the German people. Th e Nuncio shook his head and said: “I would be very, very much mistaken in thinking that all this could end well.” Th is man is completely obsessed: All that is not of use to him, he destroys; all that he says and writes carries the mark of his egocentricity; this man is capable of trampling on corpses and eliminating all that obstructs him. I cannot understand how many in Germany, even among the best people, do not understand and are not able to draw the lesson from what he writes and says. Who among these has at least read his horrifying book Mein Kampf? When, later on, one of the Hitlerites of that time came to Rome, he said to me: ‘How much moral misery; how much humiliation and how much shame we and the world would have been spared if at that time we had paid attention to Nuncio Pacelli!’ “ Translated from the original German edition: Sr. M. Pascalina Lehnert, Ich durfte ihm dienen: Erinnerungen an Papst Pius XII. Wurzburg, fi rst edition, 1982, fourth edition, 1983, pp. 42–43). “Perhaps you will ask how it is that a nation of 60 million intelligent people will submit in fear and servitude to an alien, an Austrian paper hanger, and a poor one at that, and a few associates like Goebbels and Göring, who dictate every move of the people’s lives..?” – Cardinal George Mundelein of Chicago May 18, 1937 “Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti- Semitism . . . Spiritually, we are all Semites.” – Pope Pius XI September 1938 6 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Handwritten letter from Herman Goring (Goering) requesting an audience with Cardinal Pacelli in 1930. Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli fl atly refused to see him and instead sent a low-level priest to speak with him. Letter of transmittal of the written request of Goring. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 7 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler German Bishops order the excommunication of Catholics who join the “Hitler Party” (Nazis) A chronology of the events that began in 1930: In September 1930, the Archdioceses of Mainz stated that, because of the incompatibility between the Catholic faith and National Socialism, a Catholic could not be a member of the Nazi Party, and Nazis were excluded from receiving the sacraments. In February 1931, the Diocese of Munich followed this example, but it was recommended to act according to each unique case. In March 1931, the Dioceses of Cologne, Paderborn, and the Rhinish Provinces followed with a serious warning that National Socialism was against the faith and full of errors, and they strongly forbade the clergy any cooperation with the Nazis. In August 1931, the excommunication of all leading members of the Nazi Party was announced. Among the antichristian principles of the Nazis, “racism” was explicitly mentioned. As a result of this condemnation, the Nazis sent Hermann Göering to the Vatican, requesting an audience with Pacelli on April 30, 1931. Pacelli refused but requested Undersecretary Pizzardo to meet the Nazi and note what he wanted. In August 1932, the German Bishops’ Conference released general instructions regarding the Nazi Party and declared that membership in the party was forbidden. Th ose who acted against the order were excommunicated. Th e result was that 84 percent of the German Catholics voted against Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1932. Unfortunately, however, once Hitler was legally elected and a democratically elected government was in place, the German bishops were forced to lift the ban as dictated in Canon Law. All Catholics must obey the elected government, provided obedience does not entail a violation of natural law. Th e Vatican opinion of National Socialism however never changed. In May 9, 1938, the Vatican sent out instructions to all Catholic universities and seminaries to do everything possible to refute and disprove the main elements of the Nazi ideology. Th is is essentially the papal “syllabus” against the Nazi racism. In a March 1939 letter from the American Consul to Cologne, Germany indicated that Pacelli supported the German Bishops’ stand (excommunication) even if it meant the loss of the Catholic youth in Germany, who might follow Nazism and be forced out of the church. 8 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Excommunication of any Catholics who joined the Hitler party, wore the uniform, or fl ew the fl ag. Vatican newspaper article of October 11, 1930, reporting the excommunication orders issued by the German bishops for anyone who joined the “Hitler Party.” - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann - Courtesy of Daniele Costi 9 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Nuncio to Germany, Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, transmits to Cardinal Pacelli the orders and conditions of excommunication for anyone who joins the “Hitler Party” or who fl ies the fl ag or wears the uniform. Th ey banned these people from partaking in the blessed sacraments, and priests were not permitted to offi ciate at funerals for these individuals. May 9, 1938, documents also indicate that Catholic universities must condemn the principles of National Socialism in their curriculum. A March 1939 letter from the American consul to Cologne, Germany, indicated that Pacelli supported the German Bishops’ stand even if it meant that the youth in Germany would be forced out of the church. (Please see page 28 for the aforementioned letter.) - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 10 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Th is document, in its original German and Italian translation, dated February 12, 1931, is the pastoral instruction of the Archdiocese of Mainz regarding National Socialism and the church. It states: 1. National Socialism in its cultural political program contains heresies because it openly denies or misinterprets important elements of Catholic doctrine and because according to its leaders wants to replace Christian faith with a new ideology . . . Leading representatives of National Socialism consider race as more important than religion. Th ey deny the revelations of the Old Testament and even the Mosaic Decalogue . . . What National Socialism calls “Christianity” is not the Christianity of Christ . . . 2. It is strictly forbidden for Catholic priests and religious to join or cooperate with the National Socialist movement in any shape or form . . . 3. National Socialists are forbidden now and in the future to participate in religious services when they appear in groups with uniform and fl ag . . . 4. As to the question of whether a National Socialist is allowed to receive the sacraments of confession and communion, it is recommended to check in each case to determine whether the person in question is just an opportunist who does not care about the religious or cultural political plans of the movement or if he works for the party’s program as representative, editor or agent . . . 5. Th e order to excommunicate is not only for all active party members. Nazi racism and Anti-Semitism are named as the most important evidence for a heresy . . . Th e letter is an explanation from the Archbishop of Berlin to Cardinal Pacelli. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 11 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Th e response from the Vatican to the complaint by Joseph Goebbels regarding the German Bishops’ excommunication. From the letter to Dr. Joseph Goebbels, who complained about the decision of the German Bishops to refuse the sacraments to Nazis: Th e principles which are followed by the Catholic Church regarding the acceptance of the Holy Sacraments and Christian funerals are the same whether Catholics are members of socialist or liberal parties or Catholics who are members of the National socialist Worker Party (the Nazi Party). Th e criterion for acceptance to the sacraments depends upon whether the person represents consciously and publicly ideas and principles which are contradictory to the Catholic faith and ethics. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 12 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Catholic electoral statistics in the 1932 election of Hitler as chancellor. Adolf Hitler was opposed by the German Catholics 3 to 1. From the Catholic newspaper above: What happened in our country since last year is a national disaster . . . How right those were who asked for the necessary guarantees for the future, shows the latest events. With deep concern we observe the errors introduced into our people. We call it a sin against German unity to call men traitors who shed blood for the Nation just because they voted against Hitler. Chart indicates Catholic regions of Germany voted against the election of Hitler as Chancellor 3 to 1. Above the red portion of the map of Germany represents the Catholic population, which overwhelmingly voted (3 to 1) against Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1932. German Catholic organizations published this article three weeks after Hitler came into power, January 1933. It was an appeal “A serious word in serious times.” 13 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler On April 8, 1933, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, now writes to Nuncio Orsenigo of Germany just after the Nazi takeover and suggests a Vatican intervention against the danger of anti-Semitic excesses in Germany. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 14 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Th e declaration of the Bishops of the Archdioceses of Cologne (including Archbishop Joseph Cardinal Schulte) on the National Socialist movement: We, the Bishops of the Archdioceses of Cologne remembered our pastoral duties and issued in a collegial round letter on 8 January 1920 a warning against National Socialism, which is hostile toward the Catholics and Communism and we repeat that serious warning today. But it is also our duty when today we warn the Catholics of our dioceses against the dangers for Catholic thinking and life coming from the National Socialist movement . . . Together with our Bavarian brothers and with deepest seriousness we warn against National Socialism “as long as it stands for cultural political ideas, which are incompatible with the Catholic doctrine.” l al g d o t April 1933 Especially we agree with the explanation given for this warning by the Most Eminent Cardinal and Archbishop of Breslaw who in his “Open Warning at the End of the Year” wrote: “Catholic Christians do not know a religion of race but only Christ’s universal revelation which for all peoples means the same belief, the same commandments and the same sacraments . . .” Cologne, March 5, 1931 15 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Why was the Pope so cautious about making any verbal public protests against the Nazis? Pope Pius XII was fully aware of the Nazi retaliation following the papal encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge. He learned of the acceleration of the Jewish arrests and the retaliatory inclusion of the converted Jews after Archbishop deJong’s homily was read throughout Holland condemning Nazi actions in Holland. Pius XII had smuggled a papal letter of support for the Polish people and Nazi condemnation into Poland to be read throughout the country. Th e Archbishop of Krakow, Adam Sapieha, burned it, saying that it would bring too many reprisals and “there will not be enough heads to be chopped off if this is read.” In fact, the Nuremberg Report documents case after case of retaliation against clergy (Catholic and Protestant) following statements or other agitation against the Nazi regime by the Vatican. Rather than causing death with grand public gestures that accomplished nothing, Pius used churches, convents, monasteries, seminaries, and the Vatican itself to run a rescue operation for all victims, without any distinction based on race, religion, or nationality. Th e last thing a rescue operation wants is attention, particularly when it is likely to bring about reprisals against the refugees and rescuers. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann Above, after meeting with Pope Pius XI in 1938, Pacelli writes by hand of his disgust with the recently enacted Italian Racial laws. He says that he is disturbed that the Italian government is importing German anti-Semitism into Italy. Th anks to Ron Rychlak – Hitler, the War, and the Pope In a letter dated March 12, 1935, to Cardinal Carl Joseph Schulte, Pacelli referred to the Nazis as “false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.” 16 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Papal Encyclical from Pope Pius XII, written by Michael von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, Secretary of State. Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety) was one of the strongest condemnations of any national regime that the Holy See had ever published. Michael Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, wrote the fi rst draft of the encyclical by hand. Secretary of State Pacelli added sections and edited others. Th e result condemned not only the persecution of the church in Germany but also the neopaganism of Nazi racial theories. Th is was the fi rst Papal encyclical ever written in a foreign language. Th is was written in German and secretly smuggled into Germany and distributed by boys on bicycles. A shortened version of this encyclical was translated into English and published as follows during the war in a popular anthology of Catholic literature. Th at version was as follows: TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community— however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds. Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affi xed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your Infl uence on the Faithful that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infi nitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence, Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the History of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival god by His side. Th is God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God’s sun shines on every human face, so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to his word. From the fullness of the Creators—right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. Th is obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God. None but superfi cial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are as a drop of a bucket. (Isaiah XI, 15). 17 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Secretary of State Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli authorized this blistering attack on the Nazi’s in 1937–38. Th is article from L’Osservatore Romano corroborates a fi le at the Vatican Secret Archives, stemming from the Holy See’s determination through the latter part of 1937 and into 1938 to continue to criticize the Hitler government publicly, for its continued persecution of the church and its violations of the terms of the 1933 concordat. Th is is an editorial that was authored by Pacelli at Pius XI’s behest, to respond pointedly to certain statements made at the recently concluded Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in September 1937. Not only was it a strongly worded criticism of Nazi treatment of the church, but also Pius XI instructed Pacelli to have the editorial widely publicized and translated around the world, via the Nuncios and Catholic press in various countries including in the United States. an gh er nd al ly y d d d s In French, the Vatican applauds the cardinals who denounce the heresy of fascism and the absurd character of the pagan racist dogma. – L’Epoque November 21, 1938 18 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler March 3, 1939, the day after Pacelli was elected Pope, a confi dential US foreign service letter was sent to Washington by a US diplomat in Germany, reporting the new Pope’s views of National Socialism and of Hitler. “His views, while well known, surprised me by their extremeness. He said that he opposed unalterably every compromise with National Socialism. He regarded Hitler not only as an untrustworthy scoundrel, but as a fundamentally wicked person.” “Hitler was incapable of moderation.” “He supported the German Bishops in their anti-Nazi stand. Th e risk of losing part of the Catholic youth in Germany, was not as great as the consequences to the Catholic Church in general around the world in surrendering to the Nazis.” (Here, Pacelli is referring to the orders of excommunication issued by the German bishops in the early 1930s, excommunicating anyone who joined the Nazi Party, fl ew the fl ag, or wore the uniform.) 19 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler In the spring of 1940, there was a group of German generals who wanted to oust Hitler and make peace with the English. Needing a way to communicate with the Allies (mainly the British), they approached Pope Pius XII. Not only did he help with the negotiations, but also he actually went so far as to inform the Allies about German troop movements. Th ere are, however, no documents on this in the Vatican’s published collection. Th e documents were found only in the British archives. During Pius XII’s pontifi cate, and particularly during the war, important matters were not recorded on paper. Written by Ron Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope – “Customarily the most deliberate of men, Pius XII on this occasion made up his mind with little of any hesitation.” Deutsch at 120. Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Positio, appendix 25 at 271. See also Jacques Nobécourt, Le Vicaire et L’Histoire 194 (Paris, 1964) An very good account of this whole matter can be found in Conway, Th e Vatican, the Nazis and the Pursuit of Justice. 20 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Internal Nazi report, July 31, 1942, of the arrest of the Dutch Jews where it states that only the Roman Catholic Church protested. July 31, 1942, Archbishop deJong of Utrecht wrote a powerful denunciation of the deportation of the Dutch Jews in his homily to be read throughout Holland. Commissioner General Schmidt’s reactions to his remarks were to accelerate the arrests and to arrest the converted Jews fi rst. Because of this virulent Nazi reaction to the archbishop’s condemnation, Pope Pius XII burned his statement. He stated that if forty thousand Jews were killed from the remarks of an archbishop, then surely two hundred thousand would be killed with the remarks of a Pope. His secretary, Father Leiber, asked why he was not saving the statement for later delivery. Th e Pope responded that he feared his speech would fall into the hands of the Nazis and result in more deaths. – From the memoirs of Sr. Pascalina Lehnert l t f re 21 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Examples of some the statements from Pius XII about National Socialism and the Nazis: 1921 “Just as [Bavarians] were seduced during the revolution . . . into the extremes of Bolshevism, so now other non-Bavarian elements of entirely opposite persuasion have likewise thought to make Bavaria their base of operation.” 1923 (letter to Rome warning of) “Right-wing radicals” and “Followers of Hitler” 1935 (letter to Cardinal Carl Joseph Schulte) referring to the Nazis as “false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.” 1938 (repeating the words of Pope Pius XI) “Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism . . . Spiritually, we are all Semites.” 1941 (in the presence of Nazi offi cers) “You are a young Jew. I know what that means and I hope you will always be proud to be a Jew! [raised voice] My son, whether you are worthier than others only the Lord knows, but believe me, you are at least as worthy as every other human being that lives on our earth! And now, my Jewish friend, go with the protection of the Lord, and never forget, you must always be proud to be a Jew!” 1942 (radio address on the outrage of) “Hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction.” 1944 “For centuries, Jews have been unjustly treated and despised. It is time they were treated with justice and humanity. God wills it and the Church wills it. St. Paul tells us that the Jews are our brothers. Th ey should also be welcomed as friends.” 1944 “As for those who have taken advantage of the war to commit real and proved crimes against the law common to all peoples, crimes for which supposed military necessity may have aff orded a pretext but could never off er an excuse-no one, certainly will wish to disarm justice in their regard.” 1945 “To those who allowed themselves to be seduced by apostles of violence, who are now beginning to waken from their illusions, shocked to see where their servility has led them, there remains no way of salvation but to forswear once and for all the idolatry of absolute nationalism, the pride of race and blood, the lust for mastery in the possession of the world’s goods, and to turn resolutely to a spirit of sincere brotherhood, founded on the worship of the divine Father of all men.” 1945 “National Socialism really was . . . the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity.” He also referred to the “satanic specter” of Nazism. 1945 (To an audience of Jewish people) Pius referred to Nazism as one of “those ideas which history will list among the most deplorable and dishonorable travesties of human thought and feeling.” 22 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler 1945 “Th is church does not belong to one race or to one nation, but to all peoples.” 1946 August 3, 1946—Addressing an Arab delegation seeking Pius XII take sides against the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, Pacelli states, “Just as we have also several times in the past condemned the persecutions that a fanatical anti-Semitism unleashed against the Hebrew people. We have always observed this attitude of perfect impartiality in the most widely varied circumstances, and we intend also to hold ourselves to it in the future.” Religion: Vatican versus the Nazis Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932234,00.html Catholic resistance to the Nazis both inside Germany and at the Vatican waxed outspoken last week. First the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano published the vigorously anti-Nazi Lenten pastoral of the Most Rev. Conrad Gröber, Archbishop of Freiburg, which German authorities had suppressed. “Th e schism of the German people is undeniable,” the prelate declared, adding that instead of bringing unity the war has made the exclusion of confi rmed Catholics more evident. And then he bade his fl ock reject passive resignation as against “conscience and ... the example of Christ” and urged them to resist Nazi eff orts to teach their children anti-Christian doctrines. Next Osservatore published a homily by militant, anti-Nazi Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, which assured German Catholics that only the Pope’s desire to appear neutral had restrained him from more vigorous expression of his “profound unhappiness” over the situation in Germany. Simultaneously the Vatican let it be known that the Pope had lately made several spirited protests through his Berlin Nuncio over Germany’s renewal of Catholic persecution. Th en the Vatican radio swung into action, declaring that Nazis were set to establish a new church in Germany entirely independent of Rome and recalling Nazi Mystagogue Alfred Rosenber’s denunciation of Roman Catholicism as a “Mediterranean Jewish myth.” Later the Vatican broadcast that all Germans expressing a desire to become priests are liable to internment, that convents and monasteries have been closed all over Germany, that priests have trouble in ministering to soldiers and are liable to expulsion from their parishes at the slightest pretext. In a seeming eff ort to undercut the eff ect of these charges, the Nazis countered with the proud assertion that a new Catholic prayer book for the fi rst time includes special war prayers, including one for “victory in the German struggle for liberty.” But Dr. Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry slipped up, missed the obvious inference –that for the 19 months of World War II Germany’s Catholics have been praying for peace, not for victory. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 23 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Below is an internal Gestapo report of the now infamous Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler’s life, wherein the report specifi cally names Eugenio Pacelli as a co-conspirator to the plan to kill Adolf Hitler. Th e Kaltenbrunner Report to Adolf Hitler, dated November 29, 1944, describes the failed July 20, 1944, plot in detail. Th e Pope is named as a co-conspirator with his secretary, Father Leiber. Th is was in fact true, since the Pope would not intervene to negotiate peace with the allies unless Hitler was removed. Th ere are reports of secret meetings in the Vatican itself to plan the elimination of Adolf Hitler. TRANSLATION “Canaris and Oster (German Counterintelligence Admiral and General, both key persons of the German military resistance and the Operation Valkyrie) were in contact with the Pope (Pius XII) through the former Munich lawyer Dr. Josef Mueller who was made an agent of the Counterintelligence. Mueller, through Monsignore Neuhaeusler, was introduced to the former Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli and was married by him in the Crypt of St. Peter’s. Since this was quite an exception, he had a certain reputation in Vatican circles. Mueller then met Pacelli several times and built up a good personal relationship which was used for political conversations. Pacelli was always especially open and kind to him. Mueller then, during the war and already in the fall of 1939 contacted the Jesuit Father Leiber, the personal secretary of the Pope. From Leiber he received a lot of information on the position of the Pope and the enemy powers. He also talked with him about a possible move toward peace, when Leiber made clear to him that the condition for a negotiation about peace is a regime change in Germany. Th rough Leiber, Mueller came in contact with English and American circles, especially with the American Taylor . .” - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann . . 24 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Confi dential OSS documents (the forerunner of the CIA) report the link to the Pope’s involvement with the attempt to kill Hitler through Fr. Georg Leiber on August 18, 1944. – Courtesy of William Doino Jr. D i 25 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler Why Did the Church Lift the Excommunication Ban? By Michael Hesemann Th e church tried everything humanly possible to prevent the political takeover of the Nazis. But once Hitler was in power, the situation changed. He was the legal head of the state. He did not come in power by a coup d’état, but by a free election in a democratic state and the coalition with other political parties. To call for resistance at that period of time would mean to fi ght against the state itself. Th e German Catholics very well remembered the “Kulturkampf” of the Bismarck era and knew they would only lose. Also, only a few Catholics would sympathize with a radical opposition, as that would put at risk their property and status. Th e church had to prevent the worst. So they had to fi nd a way to come in terms with the Nazis. Indeed, many skeptical Germans believed that once Hitler is in power, he would “slow down” and moderate. Others thought that he was the “minor evil,” compared to Communism. And Hitler did everything to create this illusion. Indeed, in his speech at the Reichstag on March 23, 1933, he declared: “Th e National (Nazi) government views the two Christian confessions as the most important factors in the preservation of our national identify. It will respect the existing treaties and will not touch their rights. It expects, on the other side, that the work in the national and moral uplifting of our people, which is the main mission of this government, will fi nd the same tolerance . . . Also the government of the Reich, which considers Christianity the unshakeable fundaments of the moral and orderly life of our people, would highly appreciate to maintain and improve our friendly relations with the Holy See.” Th e result was that the German bishops lifted their ban. Cardinal Faulhaber explained: “Th e Chancellor of the Reich is in favor of the Church. He is the governmental authority we have to respect” (according to St. Paul: “All governmental authority was set in power by God.”). Pacelli was angry about their decision, but he had to accept it, since it was a decision of the (responsible) German bishops’ conference. History tells us that this ultimately was a mistake but one that could not be predicted. However, the church never changed its opinion of National Socialism as proven by the following instructions on the syllabus used in Catholic educational facilities. Although the legal requirement to follow the duly elected government in Germany forced the lifting of the restrictions applied by the German bishops in 1930, the following documents prove that the attitude of the church never changed. Th e following letters from April and May 1938 are instructions to all Catholic universities and seminaries to do everything possible to refute and disprove the main elements of the Nazi ideology. Here is essentially the papal “syllabus” against the Nazi racism: Th is is a call to fi ght “against the outrageous defamations and dangerous doctrines . . . which spoil the mind and uproot any true religion . . . the absurd dogma that . . . the power of the race and the purity of the blood has to be protected and preserved by any means . . . that from the blood, which determines the nature of a race, all spiritual and moral characteristics of man arose . . . that it is the main point of education to . . . fi ll the mind with glowing love to its own race . . . that religion is subordinate to the racial law . . .” 26 Th e Catholic Church, Pacelli’s Attitude Toward National Socialism, the Nazi Regime and Adolf Hitler TRANSLATION Courtesy of Michael Hesemann Very Reverend Sir, On this Christmas vigil, near the end of the year, the August Pontiff , happily ruling, spoke with deep pain to their Eminences and to the Prelates of the Roman Curia about the grave situation of the Catholic Church in Germany, known by everybody. What oppresses His Holiness the most are the calumnies and the feral doctrines, falsely sold as science everywhere so as to pervert the minds and to eradicate the true religion. Hence the admonition of this Sacred Congregation for the Studies to Universities and Faculties in order for them to stay vigil and to defend the truth with the utmost strength against manifest errors. Henceforth the professors, with all their force, should use their arms in biology, history, philosophy, apologetics and juridical-moral disciplines to denounce and combat these utterly absurd dogmas: 1. Human species diff er in their nature, forever and without change, so much so as the last one is far away from the superior of the human race as the race of inferior. 2. Th e vigor of the race and the purity of blood must be preserved and promoted with every reason. 3. From the blood, that is given in every race, comes all intellectual and moral capacity, like a perennial spring. 4. Th e ultimate scope of every education is to cultivate the race and to have the deepest love for it, as the highest good. 5. Religion must come after race, and it has to adapt to it. 6. Th e very fi rst law of all juridical order is the instinct of the race. 7. Nothing exists but the KOSMOS, or the universe, the living being; all other things, including mankind, are nothing less than a diff erent form of the living universe. 8. Every single man doesn’t exist but for the “State” and because of it; and whatever right bestowed to him is graciously given by the State. Who knows best can add to the list. Th e Supreme Pontiff , Head of this Sacred Congregation, is absolutely sure that you, Very Reverend, will do every eff ort so that these instructions will be carried out completely. With every consideration, Ernesto Ruffi ni Secretary 27 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII 28 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Nazi Propaganda Against Pius XII All these cartoons show that the Catholic Church, especially Pacelli, defended the Jews against the Nazi persecution and propaganda and was displayed to be an “instrument of the Jewish/Bolshevist conspiracy”! Without an audible defense of the Jews from the side of the church, such a counterpropaganda would have never been necessary. “We killed him, we mocked him, but his Church still likes us.” – Courtesy of Prof. Ronald Rychlak 29 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Nazi Propaganda Against Pius XII Homily: “Heavy stuff from the Reverend today! When he used to preach with love about the Jews, you don’t believe with how much hate he can curse about the Nazis.” (“Der Stürmer,” Nr. 46, 1936) “Let the Children”—“We shall not kill Hitler, but we may and shall pray that the good God takes this man from Earth soon.” (SS Magazine Das Schwarze Korps, May 21, 1936) “Hard on hard—. . . and what happens when the ‘Osservatore’ defends the Jews” (on the door is written “Racial Doctrine”) – (“Das Schwarze Korps,” August 11, 1938) 30 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Nazi Propaganda Against Pius XII “Th e Jews are the chosen people, Halleluja—Salvation comes from the Jews, Halleluja” (“Der Stürmer,” Nr. 49, 1936) - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann A cartoon of Pacelli: “Hand in Hand. Some Bishop forgot, but the Bible simply wrote: If the bad guys call you, well, don’t follow them.” (“Der Stürmer” Nr. 2, 1939 —one month before his election as Pope) “Th e Jews are our doom”—“Priests and bad Priests—A letter of an old SA-Man” Cartoon: “In the Sign of Judah” Pacelli holding a parchment “Inquisition,” standing on the Star of David, with the sign of Communism in the background. Subtitle: “What comes from Jews corrupted the World, Cultures and Peoples died from it.” (“Der Stürmer”) 31 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Th e page one article in the February 1939 issue of Reader’s Digest explained the situation in Germany for the Catholic Church on the verge of World War II. Entitled “Nazi Scapegoat Number 2,” it painted an ugly picture that too many modern commentators have forgotten: Th ere were 407 German priests sent into a concentration camp (mostly Dachau); 107 were killed there. Sixty-three further priests were executed or killed elsewhere. Th ey occupied Poland; 4 bishops; 1,996 priests; 113 monks; and 238 nuns were killed. In the death camps, further 3,642 priests; 720 monks; and 1,117 nuns were killed. (Source: Michael Hesemann, Der Papst, der Hitler trotzte, p. 160 f.) co ke x 32 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII At the trial of Major German War Criminals sitting at Nuremberg, Germany May 14 to May 24, 1946, the following testimony demonstrates that the Nazis renounced Christianity and their Christian faith, beginning with the Hitler Youth. During these proceedings this testimony was given with regard to the attitude of National Socialism toward organized religion. Th is exchange deals with the songs taught to the Hitler Youth: MR. DODD: Well, I thought perhaps we could say, anyway, that in 1935 this sort of thing was going on and perhaps save some time. Would you agree to that? Th ey were singing songs such as, “Pope and Rabbi shall yield, we want to be pagans again” and that sort of business. Are you familiar with that? Do you know that kind of thing that came to the attention of the Minister of Justice from the prosecuting authority in Baden. VON SCHIRACH: No. MR. DODD: Do you know that they sang a song published in the songbook “Blut und Ehre,” a song saying, “We want to kill the priest, out with your spear, forward; set the red cock on the cloister roof.” You know that old song?” VON SCHIRACH: Th at is a song dating back to the Th irty Years’ War and sung by the youth movement for many, many years, even before the fi rst World War. MR. DODD: I know, you have told me that before. I am trying to cut that down. Will you agree that your people were singing it in 1933, 1934, and 1935, to the extent that when clerics objected they were subjected themselves to the prosecuting authorities for interfering and criticizing? Th at is how important it was. VON SCHIRACH: I know, as I have already said, that this song dates back to the Th irty Years’ War. It was sometimes sung by young people in the years 1933-1934. I tried to abolish this song, but I cannot give you any information as to special complaints which were lodged about it. MR. DODD: I do not think that we have made clear that these songs were put out in a book which you published for the Hitler Youth to sing in these days. Do you agree to that? VON SCHIRACH: I think it is possible, as for many years this song was included in every collection. It is a song which appeared in the fi rst songbooks of the Wandervogel movement in 1898. MR. DODD: I am not really interested in the history. All I am trying to establish is that in your songbook for your young people this song was present, that it was sung, that when the Church people complained, they were subjected to the prosecuting authorities for complaining. VON SCHIRACH: I must dispute the last point. MR. DODD: Well, I will have to put this document in. It is Number 3751-PS. Th ese are extracts from the diary of the prosecuting authorities, the diary of the Minister of Justice. And that becomes USA-858. Now, the very fi rst entry that is shown to you is a note from the diary of the Minister of Justice on the Catholic Vicar Paul Wasmer concerning criminal proceedings against him, and it is a question of whether a penal 33 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII sentence should be proposed by Rosenberg because of libel Th e vicar in his sermon cited a song being sung by young people. I quoted a few words of it a moment ago about “Pope and Rabbi shall yield, out with the Jews,” and so on. Th e Minister of Justice in his diary goes on to say that this Catholic vicar also quoted from “the little book of songs published by Baldur von Schirach” a verse with the following text: “To the Lord in Heaven we’ll surely say Th at we his Priest would gladly slay.” and so on: “Out with your spear, forward march.” And he further quoted you as saying, “Th e path of German youth is Rosenberg.” Now, that is what he got into trouble for doing, and I am asking you-and all I did ask-is if you won’t admit that people who criticized the use of this kind of stuff by your young people under your leadership were subjected to possible, and in many cases actual, prosecution? You see, you told the Tribunal yesterday that you never did anything directly to interfere with the Church, Catholic or Protestant. VON SCHIRACH: Th e song quoted, which has the refrain “Kyrieleis,” which in itself shows it is a very old song... MR. DODD: May I interrupt you to say . . . VON SCHIRACH: . . . may possibly be included in the songbook “Blood and Honor.” I am, of course, unaware that a clergyman was prosecuted for criticizing it. Th at is something new which I learn for the fi rst time. MR. DODD: All right. Look at Page 192 of that same diary, and you will see where the Archbishop of Paderborn reported the incident of 12 May. In this case he was asking that something be done to stop this sort of thing, and there is a rather nasty little song there about a monk and a nun, and so on, which your young people were singing; and then it goes on to say what happened to the Archbishop when he came out into the square and what the Hitler Youth did, what names they called him, and it says there were seven Hitler Youth leaders from outside present in that city that day and they were in civilian clothing. Do you mean to say you never heard of these things? VON SCHIRACH: I know of this incident. I called the competent leader of the area, Langanke by name, to account for this. I had a good deal of trouble in connection with the incident. I shall therefore ask my counsel to question the witness Lauterbacher, who then held the rank of Stabsfuehrer and is acquainted with the details. Some lines of the song you quoted just now caused a good deal of violent feeling among the population at the time-some of those lines are quoted here-on account of the foreign currency racketeering indulged in by some clergymen. Th at is why this satirical song was sung. I should like to say in conclusion that I thoroughly and obviously disapproved of the attitude of these youth leaders. Th e whole aff air is, as I have already said, one of those incidents dating back to the years when I had to take into my organization an enormous number of youths from other organizations and with an entirely diff erent intellectual background. MR. DODD: All right, turn to Page 228 of that diary, and you will see where a Chaplain Heinrich Mueller and a town clergyman Franz Ruemmer were under suspicion because they said in a circle of Catholic clergy that a certain song was sung by the Hitler Youth at the Party Rally in 1934: 34 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII “We are the rollicking Hitler Youth; We have no need of Christian truth; For Adolf Hitler is our Leader And our Interceder. “No evil old priest these ties can sever; We’re Hitler’s children now and ever.” Wait until I get through. VON SCHIRACH: I have not found the place. MR. DODD: It is Page 228, a and b, I’m sorry. Maybe you will remember the song anyway if I read it to you. Do you remember the lines that said, “We don’s follow Christ but instead Horst Wessel”? VON SCHIRACH: Th is is the fi rst time I have seen this song. I do not know this song. MR. DODD: All right; I will not go on reading it. You noticed that in an entry in the diary, the last paragraph, it says: “Th e Advocate General notes that there is no doubt that the song in question was sung or circulated in Hitler Youth circles; he thinks that the statement that this song was sung at the Party Rally, that is, to a certain extent under the eyes and with the consent of the highest Party of fi nials, can be refuted.” VON SCHIRACH: Th e third stanza reads: “I am no Christian, no Catholic; I follow the SA through thin and thick.” 35 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII L’Osservatore Romano article dated January 4, 1939, reports how the last major Catholic daily newspaper in Germany, called Germania, was forced to shut down at the end of 1938 because of pressure from the Nazi government, which considered it “antipatriotic” for publicly presenting a Catholic perspective on politics and society. TRANSLATION Two days after Kristallnacht, leading Nazi (National Socialist) newspaper (left) arranges for mass demonstrations against World Jewry and its Black (Catholic Church) and Red ( Bolshevik) allies. Right: Article states that the Pope’s new Encyclical is being denied to the German people by the secret police. s y, f h In the constant battle against the Church of Rome, it is necessary that the National Socialist movement be vigilant, so as to preserve unaltered the inheritance of its ideas. We must, therefore, always keep in mind, with all clarity and a secure instinct, the National Socialist concepts of strength, beauty, joy, solidarity, national unity and socialism, in terms of their value and meaning, in order to preserve them from every clerical attempt at false interpretation. Our “joy” has nothing in common with the Catholic Christian “blessedness,” and our socialism is precisely in direct contrast with the Catholic caritas [charity]. Th ere is no need to emphasize that national unity and solidarity must be constantly reinforced and protected against Catholic universalism. Tw N( le ag C - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 36 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Fascists and Nationalists in Germany used all of their infl uence to attempt to prevent the election of Eugenio Pacelli as Pope since he was so opposed to their policies. TRANSLATION Th is article from the Kommunitische Internationale April 25, 1939, shows the reaction of the anti fascist parties on the election of Pacelli/ Pius XII. It comes from the Communist International, the organ of the Communist Parties, in this case obviously the German Communists in exile. Th e article “Th e Election of the New Pope” tells how the Italian Fascists and the Nazis tried everything to infl uence the cardinals and to prevent the election of Pacelli. Instead, they wanted a “Pope of reconciliation” and they knew that Pacelli would never play that role. Th e article describes how Pius XI who originally was anti-communist and anti-socialist, “but he was able to realize that fascism is nothing else than the doom in barbarism, which systematically tries to exterminate all moral and spiritual values of humanity . . . the cardinals who came from Germany could tell their colleagues how the German Fascism terrorizes the country, how it kills the freedom of conscience, attacks the human dignity, destroys humanity and educates the youth towards brutality and lust for murder.” “It is certainly a sign of the deep embitterment of the Faithful about the brutality and barbarism of the Fascists that the Cardinals withstood the pressure from the Italian fascists and made Cardinal Pacelli the head of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was for years the target of the lowest and most dirty attacks against his personal honor and dignity from the fascist side. His election as Pope is without a doubt a protest against the Fascist barbarism and against the war propaganda of the Axis powers. Th e entire world press, except, of course, the fascist and pro-fascist, called his election a defeat or at least a bad success of the Fascists. Th e fascist press, on the other side, is angry.” (About his fi rst message): “Every faithful, who reads the message of the new Pope have as to read it as a subtle, although veiled protest against the fascist Regime . . .” - Translation by Michael Hesemann f 37 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII On March 12, 1939, Germany was the only country that did not send a representative to the coronation of Pope Pius XII. “Th e election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism and practically determined the policies of the Vatican under his predecessor.” – Berlin Morgenpost Nazi comments in response to Pope Pius XI’s September 20, 1938 remarks, as translated by J. Derek Holmes in “Th e Papacy in the Modern World.” Go bury the delusive hope About His Holiness the Pope For all he knows concerning Race Would get a schoolboy in disgrace *** Since he regards both Blacks and Whites As children all with equal rights, As Christians all (whate’er their hues), Th ey’re “spiritually” nought but Jews. *** Th e banner is at last unfurled “Chief Rabbi of the Christian World.” “I’ll go right into the Vatican. Do you think I worry about the Vatican? We’ll take that right off . All the diplomatic corps will be hiding in there. I don’t give a damn; if the entire crew’s in there, we’ll get the whole lot of swine out. Afterward, we can say we’re sorry. We can easily do that. We’ve got a war on.” – Adolf Hitler 1943 “Th e Catholic Church . . . considers all men as brothers and teaches them to love one another . . . Th is law must be observed and respected in the case of the children of Israel, as well as of all others . . .” Letter dated February 9, 1916, from Cardinal Gasparri, then Vatican Secretary of State under Pope Benedict XV, to the American Jewish Committee, on their concerns about anti-Semitism in Poland. Th e “evident mouthpiece of the Jews,” like the Vatican, had “joined the cause of the Allies.” “If the Catholic clergy can thus ignore negotiations, then we in turn are forced to consider the Catholic full-blooded Jews as our worst opponents and to take measures to ship them off to the East as quickly as possible.” – Paul Joseph Goebbels “Catholic believers carry away but one impression from attendance at divine services and that is that the Catholic Church rejects the institutions of the Nationalist State.” – Hermann Goering - Courtesy of Prof. Ronald Rychlak 38 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Dan Kurzman’s book recounts his personal interview with General Karl Wolff , Commandant for Italy, and Deputy Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, just after the General’s release from prison. Th e book reveals the details of Hitler’s orders to General Wolff to kidnap Pope Pius XII, to kill all of the cardinals and the clergy, and to seize the Vatican. Knowing that if this plan were ordered, the German army might be confronted with massive riots through Europe, Wolff did everything in his power to keep the Pope from provoking Hitler’s anger, thus preventing execution of the order. Th e Pope eff ectively used the fear of riots with General Wolff and other Nazi diplomats and military in order to gain many objectives in his humanitarian eff orts. Germany intended to kill Eugenio Pacelli under the guise of an invitation to protect him. Article about how the future Pope Paul VI, as Secretary of State, persuaded the German ambassador to prevent the plan to kidnap Pope Pius XII. 39 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Th e affi davit of General Karl Wolff , German SS commander in Italy, where he reveals the plan he was ordered to develop, by Hitler, to kidnap Pope Pius XII. Italian news article of the recently discovered map of the invasion plan of the Vatican by General Karl Wolff . Th e most compelling testimony remains with the Nazis and Fascists themselves. Documents published in 1998 in a book of abstracts by Sr. Marchione summarize a German plan, dubbed “Rabat-Fohn,” to be executed in January 1944. Th e plan called for the eighth division of the SS cavalry, disguised as Italians, to seize St. Peter’s and “massacre Pius XII with the entire Vatican”—and specifi cally names “the papal protest in favor of the Jews” as the cause. http://www.sacredheart.edu/pages/3541_Pope_pius_xii_and_the_jews.cfm - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann - Courtesy of Rolando Clementoni 40 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII On September 6, 1943, Pope Pius XII called the Cardinals together to inform them that he would be kidnapped and probably killed. Pius XII ordered the Cardinals to leave the Vatican immediately if foreign forces entered Vatican state territory. Pius stated that when they came for him, they would take Eugenio Pacelli, not Pope Pius XII. He placed a letter of resignation in his desk. He ordered them to travel to Portugal, where they would elect a new Pope, and establish a government in exile. On the right is a handwritten note from the Secretary of State to order the commander of the Swiss Guard not to resist invading forces with fi repower. Below are documents detailing how the Vatican would protect the Vatican Library and Museum when the Germans invaded. 41 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII News articles revealing a planned attack on the Vatican and a plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII. 42 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Vatican leaders planned to move to Portugal if the Nazis captured the Pope. 43 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Salzburger Nachrichten article of January 20, 1946: Hitler Planned to Murder the Pope. Hitler Planned to Murder the Pope Hitler ordered his men “to murder or get rid of the Pope,” to depose King Emanuel, and to liberate Mussolini under all circumstances— this was the “Fuehrer’s” dreadful reaction to the collapse of the Italian war eff ort and the arrest of the Duce (Mussolini) in 1943. Th e Duce was liberated indeed, but the conspiracy against the king and the Pope—as AP reports—was stopped by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the German Counterintelligence. According to hitherto unpublished German documents and a report of the German general Erwin Lahousen, Canaris informed this offi cer, who at that time was head of the German Sabotage division, and Col. Freytag von Loringhoven, a radical anti- Hitler staff offi cer, about the plot. Shortly after, in the Venice hotel Danielli, a meeting took place in which the antifascist general Ame and members of his secret Italian organization as well as Colonel Heiferich, a personal staff member of Badoglio, were warned. Afterward, Canaris and Ame had a two-hour-talk at the Lido Club. Th e next day, Ame returned to Rome, the Vatican was informed, and countermeasures were taken still in time. Reuters (news agency) in Nuremberg reported that Hitler planned immediately after the capitulation of Italy in 1943 to invade the Vatican with German troops and to confi scate all documents of the Vatican. Th is was written in a document, which is in the possession of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trial but is not used as evidence there. Th e document refers to a conference called in by Hitler in Berlin in which Kesselring, the German high commander in Italy, participated. Hitler stated: “We will simply get in and see what happens in Italy backstage. We will not respect the immunity of the Vatican.” - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 44 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Hitler ordered the destruction of the Vatican and the kidnapping of Pius XII. Culture/Society Source: EWTN In Revenge for Papal Assistance to Jews, Says Book RIMINI, Italy, (Zenit.org). Adolf Hitler once ordered his SS troops to level the Vatican with “blood and fi re” and kidnap Pope Pius XII, a new book says. In “Pius XII, Pope of the Jews,” Italian historian Andrea Tornielli reveals that Hitler ordered the destruction of the Vatican and the deportation of Pius XII to Liechtenstein in 1943, in reprisal for the Pontiff ’s reported assistance to Jews and for the Church’s opposition to the Nazi regime. In his work, which has just gone on sale in Italy, Tornielli explains that the “Führer” was livid after the signing of the armistice between the Badoglio government and the Allies on Sept. 8, 1943, and ordered the SS to destroy the Holy See with “blood and fi re.” Hitler’s plan did not materialize, however, thanks to General Karl Wolff , then SS commander in Italy, who succeeded in dissuading the Nazi dictator from this course of action. Former Italian Minister Giulio Andreotti defended the validity of Tornielli’s thesis last week when he addressed the meeting of the Catholic movement Communion and Liberation. Th e meeting ended Saturday in this northern coastal city. Andreotti supported Pius XII and rejected the criticisms leveled against the Pontiff at the end of World War II, accusing him of passivity in face of the Holocaust. “Th e hostility against Pope Pacelli was not due to his weakness against Nazism, but to his rejection of Communism,” Andreotti said. Tornielli’s arguments had already been noted in recent years by historians and scholars, who quoted testimonies and documents from the time of the Nazi occupation of Rome. Among Pius XII’s defenders is Antonio Gasparri, author of “Th e Jews, Pius XII, and the Black Legend,” which off ers testimonies of Jews in Rome who were saved from the Nazi-Fascist persecution thanks to the help of men and women of the Church, as requested by Pius XII himself. Pius XII’s process of beatifi cation is under way, though it is opposed by some Jews and leaders of the right in the Israeli government. Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII, died Oct. 9, 1958, in the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, after a 19-year pontifi cate. Pius XII’s actions helped save 800,000 Jewish lives, either directly or indirectly, according to Jewish researcher Pinchas Lapide. Far from affi nity with Hitler, as claimed by Rolf Hochhuth in his play “Th e Vicar,” Pius XII was actively involved in the German resistance’s plans to remove the tyrant, as revealed in the British Foreign Offi ce documents on the so-called Schwarze Kapelle, which involved Admiral Canaris, Count Von Stauff enberg and other German personalities opposed to the Führer. 45 Nazi Attitude Toward Pacelli, the Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII Eichmann’s diary reveals church’s assistance to Jews and Pius XII opposed deportations imposed in occupied Rome. Jerusalem, 1 March 2000 (ZENIT) After guarding Adolf Eichmann’s diaries for almost forty years, yesterday the Israeli government made them public. Eichmann, a Nazi SS lieutenant colonel, was executed in 1962 in Israel for “crimes against the Jewish people and against humanity.” Eichmann wrote these diaries during the months following his death sentence. Th ey are especially chilling in their description of the way the Nazi regime came to the “Final Solution” against the Jews, and the way the extermination was implemented. Th e pages are also very interesting in studying the Vatican’s position on the persecution of Jews. Some people accuse the church of having done nothing in October, 1943, when the Nazis began to deport Jews from their “ghetto” in Rome. However, Eichmann wrote that the Vatican “vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, requesting the interruption of such action; to the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly.” Th is is a confi rmation of the thesis of those historians who have collected documents on the action undertaking by the Vatican to defend Jews during those dark years. It must be kept in mind that Rome was occupied and that the church was the only institution that had the courage to denounce the Nazi action. “At that time, my offi ce received the copy of a letter, that I immediately gave to my direct superiors, sent by the Catholic Church in Rome, in the person of Bishop Hudal, to the commander of the German forces in Rome, general Stahel. Th e Church was vigorously protesting the arrest of Jews of Italian citizenship, requesting that such actions be interrupted immediately throughout Rome and its surroundings. To the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly. Th e Curia was especially angry because these incidents were taking place practically under Vatican windows. But, precisely at that time, without paying any attention to the Church’s position, the Italian fascist government passed a law ordering the deportation of all Italian Jews to concentration camps,” Eichmann wrote in his diary. “Th e objections given and the excessive delay in the steps necessary to complete the implementation of the operation, resulted in a great part of Italian Jews being able to hide and escape capture,” Eichmann wrote. A good number of them hid in convents or were helped by men and women of the church. A report of a segment from the diary of Adolf Eichmann’s diary where he justifi es the excessive delays in the implementation of the operation to the church’s intervention to hide the Jews in Rome. - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. 47 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People 48 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Ambassador Meir Mendes, son of Dr. Guido Mendes (the Orthodox Jewish boyhood friend of Pacelli), wrote this book in French, describing the lifesaving eff orts of Cardinal Pacelli. Eugenio Pacelli’s understanding of the Jewish people began while he was growing up in Rome and attending the Visconti School with his best friend, an Orthodox Jewish boy Guido Mendes. Pacelli would enjoy kosher Shabbat meals with his friend’s family. He learned to speak Hebrew and would borrow the books of the great rabbis. On the left is the book written by the son of Guido Mendes, Israeli ambassador Meir Mendes, where he describes his father’s childhood and how Pacelli intervened to save his life when the Italian racial laws were adopted in 1938. Pacelli arranged for his friend to go to Palestine through Switzerland. Below contains a translation of the pertinent section. With gratitude to Michael Mendes for sharing his father’s book and Fr. Murray Watson for his translations. Th e clip above is from the archives of the foreign ministry of the State of Israel, where it indicates that Dr. Guido Mendes traveled to Rome to meet with the Pope and made diplomatic overtures on behalf of Israel as a childhood friend of Pope Pius XII. In these pages from his book Le Vatican et Israel [Th e Vatican and Israel], the Israeli diplomat Meir Mendes addresses some of the criticisms that have been leveled against Pius XII. Instead of denying the charges of silence, Mendes attempts to explain the rationale for this silence. He speaks about the Jews who were saved in Catholic institutions and by Catholic clergy (especially the well-known Pierre Benoit) and religious nuns. He speaks about the publication of ten volumes of selected documents from the Vatican’s wartime archives and some of the questions that they have raised. On pages 24 and 25, he cites a particular episode related to his father, which he believes to throw some light on the offi cial attitude of high-ranking Vatican offi cials on the eve of WWII: - Courtesy of Michael Mendes w wo lea ra Is ch I f Cou y f = In 1983, the book was published in Hebrew by Hebrew Universit y. 49 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People To complete this historical overview, I would like to report here a fact which directly concerns me, and which casts a diff erent light on Pius XII. My father, Prof. Guido Mendes, had stayed in contact with Pius XII, his friend and former classmate. Although [Mendes] was Jewish, he was named a consulting physician in several Vatican institutions, who did not fail, on several occasions, to express to him in writing their gratitude. In 1938, the anti-Semitic campaign began in Italy, and my father was forced to give up his responsibilities—his teaching at the faculty of medicine of the University of Rome, his role as director of the Italian Red Cross’s Cesare Battisti anti-tuberculosis sanatorium, and his responsibility as secretary-general of the Anti Tuberculosis League. He was also given an absolute discharge from the army, in which he held the rank of general in the reserve forces. Th e Holy See reacted forcefully, and Cardinal Tisserant (who was at that time the Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches) sent the following letter to my father: “Th is sacred dicastery has learned with unhappiness that you have left your role as director of the Cesare Battisti sanatorium. Recalling the attentive and more than fatherly care that showered on the young men of the Pontifi cal Ethiopian College who had to be hospitalized in the sanatorium, your trips there several times for consultations, and your attentiveness to their state of health, this sacred Congregation wishes to send to you today a word of comfort, and, at the same time, to express to you its wholehearted gratitude and its esteem for the precious work you have performed. With this in mind, please accept, Professor, the commemorative pontifi cal medal for the year just ended, as a sign of homage from this sacred dicastery, which will always be happy—if the occasion should arise—to be of usefulness to you. Please accept, Professor, the expression of my very personal and unchanged esteem, as well as my respectful wishes. Yours devotedly, Eugene Tisserant, Cardinal Secretary/G. Cesarini, Assessor From Vatican City, 14 January 1939” Given the circumstances and the timing of its writing, this letter is a document of a historic nature. It may be noted that it says that the dicastery would be happy to be able to be of usefulness; this initiative—since my father had not been asking for anything—takes on a particular value, not merely theoretical but also practical. Mendes mentions how, because of British foreign policy, it was extremely diffi cult to obtain entry visas for Palestine, and so his father appealed to the Vatican for help. Although a visa for Latin America might have been the Vatican’s fi rst choice, nevertheless eff orts were made on Mendes’s behalf, and the desired visa to Palestine was obtained in 1939. “I have preserved in my personal archives the letters of the Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione; of the apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland, Archbishop Filippo Bernardini; of the Apostolic Delegate to Palestine, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Testa; of the commissioner for the Jerusalem district, and other ranking fi gures, who were involved with these visas—and there is even a letter from Cardinal Pacelli himself” (p. 25). See, for example: Yagil Limore, Chrétiens et Juifs sous Vichy (1940–1944) Sauvetage et désobéissance civile (Pads; Cerf, 2005, pp. 300–302). 50 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People On September 4, 1917, Archbishop Pacelli made a passionate plea to the Vatican Secretary of State to intercede on behalf of the Chief Rabbi of Munich, Rabbi Werner. He requested that the Pope intercede to help the Jews of Germany get the palms used to celebrate the festival of Sukkoth. Since the Vatican had no diplomatic relations with Italy, the Vatican was unsuccessful in gaining the release. 51 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People No. 1258 Apostolic Nunciature Baviera Monaco, September 4, 1917 Re: Request for the Holy See’s intervention on behalf of the Jewish community. To His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Gasparri Secretary of State to His Holiness Your Eminence, Th e Jewish Community of the German Empire, by means of the “Free Interest Community of Orthodox Jewry” of Frankfort and Professor Dr. Werner, Rabbi of Munich, have appealed to the Nunciature for the following purpose: According to the words of the Bible, the above-mentioned communities for the celebration of Sukkoth or feast of the tabernacles (which occurs on October 1st) have need of palms, which usually arrive from Italy. Now, unexpectedly and against its own interest, the Italian Government has suddenly forbidden the exportation of the palms that are ready in Como, nor have we succeeded in obtaining them, even though they cannot serve for food nor for any other profi t. Time is of the essence, since the exportation should take place in a few days if we are to have the palms on time, especially since they will then have to be distributed throughout Germany. Th e Jewish Communities hope that this will happen through the intervention of His Holiness with the Italian Government and beg the Apostolic Nunciature to intercede for this purpose, adding that thousands of members, faithful to their religion, would be profoundly grateful for a happy ending. It seems to me that we are dealing, not with help to be given to the Jewish communities simply for a civil purpose or for the protection of natural rights common to all men (in which there would not have been any inconvenience), even though material and remote cooperation, but positive and direct for the exercise of the Jewish religion. I have therefore answered respectfully to the above mentioned rabbi that, even though it is not possible for me to telegraph for a similar aff air (which, because it is so extraordinary, requires much explanation), I would have however immediately sent an urgent report to the Holy See in this regard, but I foresaw that because of the time element, it would not have arrived on time, and besides I did not know what action the Holy Father would have been able to take in order to explain this to the Italian Government. In the meantime, I leave this to the superior judgment of Your Eminence, and kiss your ring with profound veneration. Your most humble and devoted servant Eugenio Archbishop of Sardi Apostolic Nuncio On September 18, the Cardinal Secretary of State replied that he “fully agrees with the way in which you acted in this delicate aff air, since the Holy See, obviously, cannot follow the request of Prof. Dr. Werner. Please explain to this gentleman in your reply—the choice of the words is up to you—but stress the fact that the Holy See does not entertain diplomatic relationship to the Italian Government.” Pacelli reported on September 28: “Prof. Werner fully understands the reasons which I explained him and thanked me warmly for what we did on his proposal.” 52 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People In 1917, at the request of the Swiss Jewish community Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli intervened to save the Jews of Palestine from being massacred by the Ottoman Turks. Th ere was considerable concern that the Jews of Palestine would meet the same fate as the Armenians. Pacelli obtained guarantees from the German government that the Jews would be protected even if the use of arms was necessary. In 1915, then aged thirty-nine, he (Eugenio Pacelli) helped draft Pope Benedict XV’s powerful papal denunciation of anti-Semitism in Poland, which insisted that the Christian law to love one another “must be observed and respected in the case of the children of Israel.” – Sir Martin Gilbert In May 1922, Pacelli warned the Jewish politician Walter Rathenau of an assassination plot by German anti- Semites. A month later, Rathenau was murdered. In November 1923, fi ve days after Hitler’s failed attempt to seize power in Munich, Pacelli wrote critically to the Vatican about the Nazi movement and noted with approval the public defense of Munich’s Jews by the city’s Catholic archbishop. – Sir Martin Gilbert - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 53 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People On April 4, 1933, Cardinal Pacelli intervened for Jews seeking Vatican assistance to combat anti-Semitic actions in Germany. On April 4, 1933, three days after the one-day boycott of Jewish shops, Pacelli instructed the papal Nuncio in Berlin to warn the regime against the persecution of German Jews, asking the Nuncio to become actively involved on behalf of the Jews. Four months later, he twice expressed to the British ambassador to the Vatican his “disgust and abhorrence” at the Nazi regime. Th e ambassador reported to the foreign offi ce in London—on August 19, 1933—that Pacelli “deplored the action of the German Government at home” including “their persecution of Jews.”—Sir Martin Gilbert Th is letter was written by Cardinal Pacelli to Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal Nuncio in Germany, just a few months after Hitler seized power. A number of authors, forced to acknowledge this intervention, have claimed that nothing much came of this; but as a result of Pacelli’s written instructions to Orsenigo, several German bishops made public statements defending the persecuted Jews. April 4, 1933 Most Reverend Excellency, Highly-placed Israelites have addressed themselves to the Holy Father to invoke his intervention against the danger of anti-Semitic excesses in Germany. And since it is in the tradition of the Holy See to exercise its universal mission of peace and charity towards all men, irrespective of their social condition or their religion, interposing also, where necessary, its benevolent offi ces, the Holy Father tasks your most reverend Excellency to discern whether, and how, it may be possible to intervene in the manner desired. I willingly take advantage of our correspondence to reaffi rm my sentiments of distinct and sincere esteem of your most Reverend Excellency Servant To: your most reverend Excellency Monsignor Cesare Orsenigo Apostolic Nuncio Berlin TRANSLATION - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 54 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Document reporting on religious conditions in Germany 1937. - Courtesy of Michael - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. f Mi hael Hesemann 55 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Future Pope Pius XII opposed anti-Semitic legislation in Poland. Rome, June 3, 2008 (CWNews.com)—Th e future Pope Pius XII opposed Polish legislation that he judged as anti-Semitic during his term as Vatican Secretary of State, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale has discovered. Th en, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who was Secretary of State in 1938, wrote to the Apostolic Nuncio in Poland to encourage opposition to a piece of pending legislation, Il Giornale reports. Th e future Pontiff had been alerted to the danger of the proposed legislation by another prominent Vatican offi cial, the French Cardinal Eugene Tisserant. Th e papal Nuncio then serving in Poland, Archbishop Filippo Cortesi, replied to Cardinal Pacelli that he, too, thought the legislation in question was anti-Semitic. But he assured the Secretary of State that the bill would not be passed into law—an assessment which proved correct. My Most Eminent and Reverend By your venerated letter of last April 6, your most reverend Eminence was pleased to bring to my attention a newspaper item, according to which the Government of Poland would pass a law that would prohibit butchering animals by cutting their jugular vein, which is imposed on the Israelites by their religious precepts, and that consequently would represent for the Jews a true persecution. Your letter suggested, furthermore, the utility of a gesture from the Apostolic Nuncio in order to impede such a law. I have not neglected to bring your concerns to the attention of Monsignor Cortesi, and I am happy to be able to transmit to your Eminence, here attached as a copy, his report number 89 of May 7 of the current year, I think, which contains precise news on the problem in question. I take advantage of our correspondence to express to your Eminence my sentiments of most profound veneration with which, most humbly kissing Your hands, I profess myself the most humble and devoted true servant of your most Eminence, E. Cardinal Pacelli. To His Most Reverend Eminence, Eugenio Cardinal Tisserant Secretary of the Holy Congregation for the Eastern Church with attachment TRANSLATION 56 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People B’nai Brith National Jewish Monthly magazine published in May 1940 “the Pope’s Jewish Scholars,” which speaks of Pope Pius XII’s eff orts to hire Jews who were fi red in Italy because of the racial laws. Th is telling article begins, “In the heart of offi cially anti- Semitic Italy, there is an island of tolerance where no racial laws hold sway. Th at ‘island’ is the Vatican, in whose libraries and academies fi ve famous Jewish scholars work, engaged by the present Pope Pius XII and his predecessor. All of them had been ousted from Italian universities.” Th is engaging of Jewish scholars serves as a concrete symbol of the Vatican’s rejection of Premier Benito Mussolini’s racial laws, which the late Pope Pius XI denounced with vigor.” Above is the title page of a book of subsidies and payments made to Jews who were freed from internment camps by the Commune of Lonigo (Vincenza) in February 1943. Aside from distributing its own money, the Vatican accepted donations specifi cally for the care of persecuted Jews and kept impeccable records on how this money was distributed. ial es y d 57 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People During World War I, the American Jewish Committee of New York petitioned the Vatican for a statement on the “ill-treatment” suff ered by Jewish people in Poland. Th e response came on February 9, 1916, from the offi ce of the Secretary of State, where Eugenio Pacelli was “by absolutely every account” working hand in hand with Cardinal Secretary of State Gasparri. It said: Th e Supreme Pontiff . . . as Head of the Catholic Church, which, faithful to its divine doctrine and to its most glorious traditions, considers all men as brothers and teaches them to love one another, he never ceases to inculcate among individuals, as well as among peoples, the observance of the principles of natural law and to condemn everything which violates them. Th is law must be observed and respected in the case of the children of Israel, as well as of all others, because it would not be conformable to justice or to religion itself to derogate from it solely on account of religious confessions. Th e Supreme Pontiff at this moment feels in his fatherly heart . . . the necessity for all men of remembering that they are brothers and that their salvation lies in the return to the law of love which is the law of the gospel. Th is pronouncement was published in the New York Times on April 17, 1916, under the headline: “Papal Bull Urges Equality for Jews.” It also appeared in La Civiltà Cattolica on April 28 of that year and in the London Tablet on April 29. In 1936, when he was visiting the United States as Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli met with two offi cials of the American Jewish Committee, Lewis Strauss and Joseph Proskauer, and he reaffi rmed this teaching, promising to make it better known. Th e critics fail even to mention it. - Courtesy of Ron Rychlak 58 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Nahum Sokolow, head of the World Zionist Organization, met with Pacelli in 1917 and then again in 1925 to discuss establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Pacelli arranged for Sokolow to meet with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss this ambitious project. President of the World Zionist Organization Nahum Sokolow wrote in his own words: May 12, 1917 I was fi rst of all received by Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli, Secretary for Extraordinary Aff airs and had a few days later a long conference with Cardinal Secretary of State Gasparri. Both meetings were extraordinarily friendly and positive . . . I don’t tend towards credulity or exaggerations and still I can’t avoid to stress that this revealed an extraordinary amount of friendship: to grant a Jew and representative of Zionism with such a promptness a private audience which took so long and was of such a warmth and took place with all assurance of sympathy, both for the Jews in general and for Zionism in special, proves that we don’t need to expect any obstacles which can’t be overcome from the side of the Vatican. Th e Pope [Benedict XV] asked me: Pacelli told me about your mission; do you want to tell me any more details? - Nahum Sokolow Nachum Sokolow - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 59 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Nahum Sokolow’s handwritten letter of February 10, 1925, to Archbishop Pacelli, requested another audience with him. Sokolow wanted to discuss a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Th e Jewish Daily Bulletin in New York reported on the most cordial meeting Nahum Sokolow had with Monsignor Pacelli. February 10, 1925 Your Eminence! Encouraged by the great kindness that Your Eminence so kindly showed me during my stay in Rome in 1917, I dare to beg you to honor me with a very short interview for the cause I represent. I fi nd myself passing through here [Berlin] and I must leave for London tomorrow evening. I have heard that Your Eminence is extremely busy, but I would be infi nitely grateful to you, even for an interview of a few minutes length. Please accept, Your Eminence, the assurance of my deepest devotion, Nahum Sokolow TRANSLATION - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 60 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Pope Pius XII policies and actions resulted in the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. Th is 1925 letter confi rms the 1917 meeting between Nachum Sokolow, President of the World Zionist Organization, and Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli. Sokolow discusses establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Pacelli was positive about this idea. Pacelli arranged a private audience for Sokolow with Pope Benedict XV in 1917. His personal feelings about a Jewish homeland are further sustained by his actions to urge all Catholics to join the pro-Palestine organization in Germany. In the letter to the left, dated February 15, 1925, Pacelli is writing to the secretary of state to arrange an audience for Nahum Sokolow. Pacelli confi rms the 1917 meeting where he discussed the notion of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Based on Information provided by Sokolow, the Jewish Chronicle of November 25, 1949, wrote: “For the preparation of this talk (with the Pope) the main advisor and the person who set it up was Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Vatican Secretary of State and now is Pope Pius XII.” - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann I Ft Nachum Sokolow 61 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People In 1926, in Berlin, the German pro-Palestine committee to promote the Jewish settlement of Palestine was established. Its members included Albert Einstein, Th omas Mann, and numerous others. Th ese include prominent politicians of the Weimar Republic, including Konrad Adenauer and Pacelli’s friend Prelate Dr. Ludwig Kais (center). Pacelli explicitly encouraged Catholics to join the initiative and held during this time the pro-Palestinian position. - Pinchas Lapide’s book Rome and the Jews tee in, de c, te d s s Th is article (left) discusses Israel’s desire for diplomatic recognition by Spain. Pope Pius XII encouraged Spain to recognize Israel. 62 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Although the Vatican called for the internationalization of Jerusalem, the Pope rejected the plan that Jerusalem should be turned over to King Abdullah. Th e Pope recognized the rights of the Jews. Th e Arabs felt that were betrayed by the Vatican’s position on Israel. J. Herzog said the Pope had a positive attitude toward Israel. According to the Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, Dr. Guido Mendes acted as a diplomat in meetings with the Pope because of their childhood friendship. m, oe - Courtesy of Dimitri Cavalli Above, Pope John XXIII states that like his predecessor Pope Pius XII, his attitude toward the president and his people will be one of good will and loving kindness. He believes that the Catholic Church will be able to fulfi ll its task in Israel in such a manner that would contribute to the success of the people of Israel. Th is document dated November 21, 1958, reveals that Secretary of State Tardini, under Pope John XXIII, was against establishing diplomatic relations with Israel and led the opposition to this early on. 63 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Th is speech was made by Pope Pius XII on August 3, 1946, to the Arab delegation from Palestine. Th ey stated that after this meeting, they felt betrayed by the Vatican. Th e speech was published in the ACTA APOSTOLICAE SEDIS COMMENTARIUM OFFICIALE. Below, is the speech made to a delegation of Arabs of Palestine who came to Rome to try to convince Pope Pius XII not to remain neutral but to take sides against the Zionist in Palestine. Bottom left is an excerpt from the documents from the foreign ministry of Israel recalling this meeting stating the Arabs were “disillusioned and felt betrayed” because of the Pope’s condemnation of anti-Semitism. Below right is a New York Times article. To the delegates of the Supreme Council of the Arab People of Palestine: First and foremost, we are happy to welcome a commission, which comes in the name of a people whose generous character we know, as well as their attachment to certain principles which form the basis of religion and, for that reason, constitute the conditions which are indispensable for social order, and for civilization. Furthermore, we cannot fail to take into consideration the way in which the Commission present here has been composed—a Commission that we are pleased to greet as a sign of social solidarity and of that peaceful community which, independent of one’s belonging to various ethnic families, ought to have its home (so to speak) precisely in Palestine, where Jesus, the Prince of Peace, announced and brought peace to the human beings of every time and every place. It is doubtless the case that peace can only take shape within the context of truth and justice. Th is presupposes respect for the rights of the other, for certain positions and traditions (especially in the religious realm) which are a given, just as each group of inhabitants is bound to a strict fulfi llment of [their own] duties and obligations. Th is is why, having received—even in these last several days—numerous appeals and requests from various parts of the world, and for various motives, we do not need to tell you that we condemn all recourse to force and violence, whatever the source, just as we have also several times in the past condemned the persecutions that a fanatical anti-Semitism unleashed against the Hebrew people. We have always observed this attitude of perfect impartiality in the most widely varied circumstances, and we intend also to hold ourselves to it in the future. But it is clear that this impartiality—which our apostolic ministry imposes on us, and which places us above the confl icts that, especially in this very diffi cult time, have shaken human society—cannot mean indiff erence. We also assure you that, to the degree that it depends on us, and according to the possibilities provided to us, we will make every eff ort in order than justice and peace in Palestine become a reality, creating—through the eff ective cooperation of all the interested parties—an order which will guarantee to each of the parties currently in confl ict, a secure existence, together with . . . – Translation courtesy of Fr. Murray Watson PTWF Canada n lt e s nf 64 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People In November 1947, the United Nations voted for the partitioning of Palestine; eleven states were against and thirty-three in favor. Of the thirty-three in favor, seventeen were Catholic countries, some of whom asked Pope Pius XII what they should do, and he stated that he did not object to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Twelve Latin American countries supported partition. Six abstained. Only Cuba voted against it. In fact, Pius XII personally supported a Jewish homeland, which was opposed by many high-ranking Vatican offi cials, including Secretary of State Tardini. Because of the large number of Catholics living in Arab countries, the Vatican had to maintain its neutrality in this issue, but Pope Pius XII privately enabled a positive vote. Below left is a Jerusalem Post article interview with the Jewish childhood friend of Pope Pius XII, Dr. Guido Mendes, dated October 10, 1958, wherein he states that Pius XII reportedly told a group of seventy Jewish survivors in 1945, “Soon you will have a Jewish State.” Recent research of the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation states that Nuncio Angelo Roncalli interceded to infl uence Pius XII for a positive vote at the UN. We also know that Secretary of State Tardini was not enthusiastic about this eff ort. In the highlighted section of the Jerusalem Post article to the left, Dr Guido Mendes, Orthodox Jewish childhood friend of Pacelli, recalls that in a 1945 audience with Jewish survivors, Pope Pius XII told the group, “Soon you will have a Jewish homeland.” Th is was three years before the birth of the state of Israel. 65 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Eugenio Pacelli and the Zionists New discoveries in the Vatican Secret Archives confi rm that the man who became Pope Pius XII intervened in favor of the Jewish settlers in Palestine. © 2009 by Michael Hesemann CSC No Pope of the twentieth century, with the exemption of John Paul II and maybe Pius XI, so openly showed his love for the Jewish people as Pius XII. Th is makes it even more incomprehensible that no historical evidence but just a stage play was enough to change and even pervert the public image of this great pontiff . Suddenly he became “Th e Deputy,” “the Pope who remained silent,” or even “Hitler’s Pope,” with authors like John Cornwell or Daniel Jonah Goldhagen calling him a latent or even open anti-Semite. Th e only reason is that during World War II and the Holocaust, Pius XII considered it wiser to act than to speak out. He preferred to save as many Jews as possible quietly rather than worsen their situation through loud but useless protests. He tried to avoid anything that would endanger the effi ciency of the only institution, which was able and willing to help the persecuted Jews in the times of the Shoah, the Catholic Church. His apparent silence, his feigned neutrality became the perfect cover for the biggest help—and rescue campaign in history, when more than 850,000 Jews were protected from the certain death in the Nazi gas chambers. But he who wants to understand the man Eugenio Pacelli must look further back into his past. Already in his adolescence, he had a Jewish school friend, whose parents invited him to join their weekly Shabbat celebrations, discussed their faith with him, and lent him the works of important Jewish philosophers, which he read with enthusiasm. After he studied theology and canon law and underwent his ordination, Pacelli accepted a job in the secretary of state of the Holy See. He made a rapid career and was promoted undersecretary of the “Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Aff airs,” the papal “State Department,” in 1911. In this position, in May 1917, he came in contact with the Zionist movement. Nahum Sokolow, author, journalist, and board member of the Zionist World Congress, came to Rome to gain support for the plan of a Jewish state in Palestine. Th at Pope Benedict XV (1914–22) had vehemently condemned anti- Semitism a year before was seen as a good omen. Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri sent him to Monsignor Pacelli who received him in a friendly mood and took the time to listen to him with patience and great personal interest. Later, in his report to the executive committee of the Zionists, Sokolow praised the heartfelt openness he experienced during his meeting with the monsignor. And he admitted that he was completely surprised when Pacelli asked him, in the most friendly way, if he would not like to present his issue to the Pope. Sokolow would have never dreamt that this would be possible for a Jew. But then, on May 6, 1917, he was received for forty-fi ve minutes—longer than many heads of state—by Benedict XV. “I don’t tend towards credulity or exaggerations,” Sokolow assured on May 12 in his report to the Zionists executive committee, “and still I can’t avoid to stress that this revealed an extraordinary amount of friendship: to grant a Jew and representative of Zionism with such a promptness a private audience which took so long and was of such a warmth and took place with all assurance of sympathy, both for the Jews in general and for Zionism in special, proves that we don’t need to expect any obstacles which can’t be overcome from the side of the Vatican.” In a completely informal way, the Pope asked Sokolow to explain him the program of Zionism just to assure him that “is a wonderful idea” and “providential. God willed it.” Also in the question of the Christian sanctuaries in Palestine, the Pope had “no doubts that a satisfactorily agreement will be reached.” When Sokolow obviously reached the fulfi llment of his wildest dreams, Benedict XV released him by repeating several times, as a confi rmation, the words “Yes, I believe we will be good neighbors.” 66 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Only a week after this encounter, in the Sistine Chapel, Eugenio Pacelli was ordained as an archbishop by Benedict XV. Another week later, he already sat in a train on the way to his new destination, Germany. Th e Pope had made him his new Nuntius in Munich, the only Nuntiature in Germany. His fi rst mission was to present a Papal Peace Plan to the government of the Imperial Reich in Berlin, to end the senseless slaughter of World War I—unfortunately without any success. About another and this time successful intervention of the new Nuntius Pacelli during that time, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide wrote in his book Th e Last Th ree Popes and the Jews (1967). In the Zionist Archive in Jerusalem, Lapide had located a copy of an offi cial letter, sent by Pacelli as Nuntius in Munich to the Bavarian secretary of state, Otto Ritter von Dandl, on November 16, 1917: “Th e undersigned Apostolic Nuntius has the honour to inform Your Excellency that the Israelite Congregations of Switzerland asked the Holy Father to appeal for the protection of the sites and the Jewish population of Jerusalem. His Eminence, the Cardinal Secretary of State had ordered the undersigned to act accordingly and with all care and to draw this subject to the attention of the Imperial Government. Th e Undersigned requests from Your Excellency to enforce the realization of this purpose with everything in your capacity. In advance gratefully, signing with the assurance of my highest appreciation, . . . Eugenio Pacelli, Archbishop of Sardes, Apostolic Nuntius.” Th e Jews had all reason to be worried. Th e Ottoman Empire—modern-day Turkey—was an ally of the Reich and England had instigated the Arabian rebellion to force it into a two-frontline war. Th e Turks suspected the Jews were collaborating with the British. After the Turkish genocide against the Armenians, who were believed to be on the side of the Russians, they could expect the worst. In April 1915, the Turkish secretary of war, Enver Pasha, ordered the deportation of great parts of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire into the Syrian Desert. What was offi cially declared a strategically necessary “evacuation” of a politically unreliable minority turned out to be the fi rst great genocide of the twentieth century. Th e Young Turk movement, which had taken over political power, intended to transform the multiethnic Ottoman Empire into a national state according to the Panturkish ideology, which left no room for the Christian Armenians. Genocide became the fi nal solution of this minority problem. Its executive became the commander in chief and gouverneur of Syria, General Cemal Pasha. In total, the number of victims exceeded 1.5 million. Some became victims of the Turkish massacres; most were forced into the Syrian Desert where they died of thirst, starvation, exhaustion, or diseases. In 1917, Cemal Pasha turned brutally against the Jewish-Zionist settlements in Palestine. After Jewish settlers in Jaff a were accused of collaboration with the British, the Ottoman gouverneur ordered their deportation. Over eight thousand Jews were expelled from their houses without permission to take any of their belongings or even food. In front of their eyes, their houses were looted by the Turks. Outside the Jewish quarters, two Jews were hanged as a warning for all who dared to resist the looters. Eyewitnesses reported about the excessive cruelty of the soldiers. Later, dozens of Jews were found dead in the dunes of Jaff a. By the end of March 1917, the “Reuters” news agency reported that “masses of Jews” were expelled “to share the fate of the Armenians.” A report of the Zionist offi ce in Copenhagen ends with the warning that after the threats of Cemal Pasha, the Jews of Palestine could indeed expect the same treatment as the Armenians—being sent into the desert to die of thirst, starvation, and epidemics. On May 7, 1917, the German member of Parliament Oskar Cohn brought the anti-Jewish violence in Palestine on the agenda of the Reichstag in Berlin. Only one day later, Deputy Secretary Arthur Zimmermann of the State Department played the matter down. He called the order to evacuate Jaff a a mere “protective measure.” Furthermore, the government of the Reich had no interest to get involved into aff airs, which were solely in the responsibility of the Turkish forces. Obviously, it did intend to bother Germany’s Ottoman ally. Th is makes 67 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People the intervention of the Apostolic Nuntius, quoted by Pinchas Lapide, even more signifi cant. Unfortunately, at least as far as I know, no other historian ever tried to investigate and verify it. Cornwell and company completely ignored the incident, since it does not fi t into their claim of Pacelli being an anti-Semite. Th e majority of the defenders of Pius XII either just quote Lapide or concentrate on his position toward National Socialism. Instead, the Pacelli-debunkers simply question Lapide’s credibility. Without any reason, still, since he backs all his quotes with perfect citations, as this one, too. Th e quoted document, Lapide states, can be found on “Microfi lm K 179 90 293 in the Zionist Central Archive, Jerusalem.” I trust Lapide, but still prefer to verify. I soon had the opportunity, when in November 2008, I was granted permission to do research in the Vatican Secret Archive. After I wrote a biography on Pius XII, Th e Pope who Defi ed Hitler, I wanted to learn more about Pacelli’s position toward the Jews and his dealings with anti-Semitism and National Socialism. Th e verifi cation of the incident quoted by Lapide had a prominent position on my wish list. After I introduced myself to the prefect of the “Archivio Secreto,” Bishop Sergio Pagano, my work in the “Sala Studio,” the study room of the Archive, began. Th e complete inventory of the Vatican Secret Archive—at least until 1939—are catalogued. If you want to study one of the fi les, you fi rst have to go through these voluminous catalogues, before one of the friendly co-workers gets the fi le for you. In one of these catalogues, which carefully lists the inventory of the “Archive of the Nuntiature Munich/Bavaria,” I found the promising entry: “Guerra Europ., Palestina # 1. Pop. Giudaica e della Citta Santa della Palestina”—“World War I, Palestine # 1, Jewish Population and those of the Holy City of Palestine.” After I wrote down the fi le title and number (Arch. Nunz. Monaco d.b. 385; Fasc. 2: Pos. XIII), I asked for it. I was not disappointed. Indeed not only did it contain Pacelli’s handwritten draft for the letter quoted by Lapide, but I also learned more about the background of this intervention. On November 15, 1917, at 4:30 p.m., the papal cardinal secretary of state, Pietro Gasparri, sent an encoded message to the Nuntius Pacelli in Munich, which was received and decoded it on the next morning at seven thirty. It stated: “Th e Israelite Community of Switzerland asked the Holy Father to commit himself to the protection of the sites and the Jewish population of Jerusalem. He asks Your Excellency through us, to infl uence the German government accordingly in the name of the Holy Father. Card. Gasparri.” Th e decision to delegate this diffi cult aff air to Pacelli was wise indeed. It was more than questionable if an intervention by the Pope himself would have any impact in Constantinople. Only Germany as their most important ally was able to stop the Turks from performing a massacre. Th at Pacelli always had an open ear for Jewish aff airs he had already demonstrated when he met the Zionist leader Sokolow. Indeed, Pacelli immediately acted. Still, it was a rather diffi cult aff air. At that time, no diplomatic relationship existed between the Emperor’s Germany and the Holy See. Th e only Nuntiature on German soil was the one in Munich, the capital of the still semi-independent Kingdom of Bavaria. Any diplomatic approach had to go through the Bavarian government. Th erefore, Pacelli presented his case on November 16, 1917, to the Royal Bavarian secretary of state, Sir Otto Ritter von Dandl, and urgently requested an intervention of the Imperial State Department. Th is time, unlike half a year before, the Berlin State Department acted. Eleven days later, on November 27, 1917, we fi nd the following note in their fi le “Jews in Turkey.” According to the reply they received from Constantinople, “there is no reason to fear that the Turkish authorities in Palestine order measures against the Jewish population. We learned from the Turkish side that the Holy City and all sites which are subject of Christian and Jewish veneration are spared and respected as far as the military necessities by all means allow.” 68 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People Consequently, the German government declared two days later: “According to the available information from the Turkish side, care was already taken for the protection of the holy sites of Jerusalem which are also subject of veneration by the Muslims and also for the population. Of course this includes the Jews, who don’t have to fear any exemptions.” Eventually, Ritter von Dandl reported to the Apostolic Nuntius on December 8, 1917: “Your Excellency allow me to reply to your precious note of the 16th of last month and to inform you that I did not miss to bring the request of the Israelite Communities of Switzerland regarding the protection of the sites and the Jewish population of Jerusalem to the attention of the State Department in Berlin. With regard to this, I received the reply that according to the information received, there was no reason to worry that the Turkish authorities apply any measures against the Jewish population.” Only three days later, on December 11, 1917, the British Forces under command of General Allenby conquered Jerusalem. Th e Jews of Palestine could indeed feel relieved. According to Pinchas Lapide, the intervention of the Nuntius Pacelli contributed to “save the Jews of Jerusalem as well as the holy sites from an almost certain doom.” It was even more signifi cant, since at that time, the Turkish troops in Palestine were under command of a German general, Erich von Falkenhayn. About him, his biographer Holger Affl erbach stated: “An inhuman excess against the Jews in Palestine was only prevented through Falkenhayn’s conduct, which has a special signifi cance in respect to the German history of the 20th century.” Since von Falkenhayn was a man who strictly followed orders, it is reasonable to assume that his “conduct” was ordered from Berlin. Indeed, Pinchas Lapide quotes a letter written by Dr. Jacob Th on, at that time leader of the Zionist offi ce in Jerusalem, in December 1917: “It was an special stroke of good fortune that in the last critical days General von Falkenhayn had the command. Cemal Pasha in this case—as he announced often enough—would have expelled the whole population and turned the country into ruins. We and the whole population, Christians as well as Muslims, must remember P.(acelli) with deep gratitude, since he saved the civil population from doom when he prevented the planned evacuation of this area.” Nine years later, in December 1926, in Berlin the “Deutsches Komitee Pro Palästina zur Förderung der jüdischen Palästina-Siedlung” (German Committee Pro Palestine to Support the Jewish Settlement in Palestine) was founded. Among the founding members were Albert Einstein, the president of the Reichstag (Speaker of the House) Paul Loebe, the Cologne major (and post-WWII chancellor) Konrad Adenauer, and the novelist and Nobel Prize laureate Th omas Mann. Th e question arose if it was an opportune time for prominent Catholics to join this initiative. During the vehement discussion of the Balfour Declaration at the League of Nations the idea of a Jewish state was controversial in Catholic circles. Th e socialist ideas of some Zionists led to irritations in the Vatican. Its organ, the “Osservatore Romano,” on June 1, 1922, called for “the protection of the holy sites against Jewish bolshevism.” At that time, the Holy See had already established diplomatic relations to the fi rst German democracy, the Weimar Republic, and Pacelli resided as the fi rst Apostolic Nuntius in Berlin. As Pinchas Lapide stresses, he “represented during that period the position of Pro Palestine.” He explicitly refused the Zionism-skepticism of leading Vatican circles and instead not only pleaded in favor of the Jewish settlements but even encouraged prominent German Catholics to join the initiative supporting them. Even Pacelli’s closest friend, the Reichstag member and Catholic prelate, Dr. Ludwig Kaas, became a board member of this committee. How deep his sympathy was for the Zionists is revealed in the memoirs of the German Zionist Kurt Blumenfeld. In his autobiography, Living the Jewish Question (1962), he describes how Nahum Sokolow, who was indebted to Pacelli for his papal audience in 1917, visited Berlin in 1926. Sokolow at this point served 69 Eugenio Pacelli’s Historical Relations with the Jewish People as the president of all Zionist Congresses. When he planned a new initiative at the League of Nations, he remembered the former undersecretary of the Papal State Department. His plan was to ask Pacelli for an instruction to the representative of the Holy See at the League of Nations in Geneve. But when Blumenfeld called the Nuntiature to set up an appointment, he learned that Pacelli was severely ill, staying in the Hedwig Hospital in Berlin and was momentarily not available. Only when he eventually mentioned the name “Sokolow,” he was called back: His Excellency, the Nuntius, would be delighted to see Mr. Sokolow for fi ve minutes. Together Blumenfeld and Sokolow drove to the hospital. At the front desk, the doctor in charge welcomed them but insisted: “Mr. Sokolow alone and just for fi ve minutes.” Blumenfeld walked in the hospital library and started to read a book. After one and a half hours, Sokolow returned. “It was obvious how interesting and uplifting the conversation with the Nuntius was, a discussion of historical questions, Jewish as well as Catholic,” Blumenfeld remembered. Once again, the man who became Pope Pius XII proved to be a friend who always had an open ear for the aff airs and problems of Jews. *Michael Hesemann is a German historian and author. In 2008, his book Th e Pope Who Defi ed Hitler: Th e Truth About Pius XII was published in Germany. An Italian translation will follow soon. 71 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Pius XII and the Catholic Church Efforts to Save Jewish Lives 72 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives. When one examines the Vatican’s documented interventions on behalf of those persecuted by the Nazis, one observation must be addressed. A commonly held belief is that these actions seem only to be credited to individual priests, bishops, or Vatican offi cials. Th e credit for these directives, which, under any other circumstances would be issued by the Pope directly, has been strategically stripped from Pius XII. It is akin to saying an individual soldier won the war, while the commander did nothing. However, when negative accusations are made, such as the existence of the “Vatican Ratline,” they are skillfully blamed directly on Pope Pius XII. When the actions of rogue Catholic clergy, who helped Nazi criminals escape from Europe are reported in current documentaries and books, one often sees the image of St. Peter’s Basilica and that of Pope Pius XII accompanying the story. Ironically, evidence we have gathered demonstrates the abhorrence Pius XII had for the Nazis, further sustained by his eff orts to support the assassination of Hitler. Pius XII was also aware of the Nazi plot to kill him and seize the Vatican. In light of this information it is simply illogical to claim that Pius XII and the Vatican helped Nazi criminals escape justice. Lifesaving tactics were, in many cases, similar in unrelated regions of the world. In other words, actions in Budapest are similar to those in Istanbul, Assisi, Campagna, Portugal, and elsewhere. Th e circumstance and threats were diff erent, but the same drive to save Jewish lives, utilizing whatever methods possible is evident. Whether through political intervention with government leaders or secretly transporting refugees off the European continent, the objective was the same. It is unrealistic that these actions could have taken place without some sort of central authority directing and supporting them. Vatican documents from the secretary of state support that these actions were centrally coordinated, and individual initiatives were approved by the Pope. Not all of the eff orts of every bishop or priest were the same. Anti-Semitism existed then, as today. Th ere were many who, because of their personal prejudices, did not follow papal instructions with equal dedication or, in some cases, did not at all. 73 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Many of the critics of Pope Pius XII accuse him of only acting to save “converted Jews.” However, we believe that the Pope was forced to use code words and phrases to save all the Jewish people. Th e Concordat of 1933 enabled the church to justify helping converted Jews, since it specifi cally states that Jews who converted will be considered Christians. For this reason, the Vatican protected its neutrality and intentionally used these phrases in case their documents fell into Nazi hands. Th roughout this book, in many instances, you will read the phrase “non-Aryans,” “Converted Catholics,” “Converted Jews,” “Converted Italians,” and so on. On the face of this, one might conclude the Holy See’s eff orts were only to save baptized Jews. Th is argument has been used for decades by the critics of Pope Pius XII. Th e reality of war and that of the political and legal status of the Vatican suggests otherwise. Th e Vatican: German concordat signed in 1933 contained a clause dealing with intermarriage, which enabled the church to recognize Jews who had converted to be considered Christians. To the church, anyone who is baptized a Catholic is a Catholic. Using the concordat, the church could legally protect these “Jews” while protecting the church from risking its neutrality if these documents fell into enemy hands. Th e Holy See was well aware that many of those who worked in the Vatican were spies. Obviously, all documents that might be deemed “helping the enemy” had to be encrypted and destroyed in order to protect the church. A loss of neutrality would result in massive direct attacks against church facilities, including those that protected Jews throughout Europe. In a true Catholic conversion, the convert is required by canon law to be of a minimum age of awareness. Second, they must undergo several months of religious training. Once completed, the next step is that of baptism, and the new Catholic chooses a new name and usually has a godparent. A certifi cate of baptism is then issued. In spite of these strict regulations and laws, the Vatican issued thousands of false baptismal to simply save as many innocent lives as possible. 74 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In the history of the Catholic Church, no one has ever been referred to as a “Jewish Catholic” or a “Non- Aryan Catholic” or a “converted Jew.” Once baptized, they are simply Catholics. Another interesting note is that by decree, Pius XII ordered that any Jewish children protected by Catholics could not be baptized while they were under the protection of someone other than their parents. Th ere were in fact many instances where these children were taught Hebrew and Jewish traditions by their Catholic caretakers. When inquiries were made to various countries through the Vatican diplomatic service, the question “How many Jews can your country take?” was always asked. Most of the countries worldwide said none. Th e prime minister of Canada even said, “None are too many.” Mindful of this, the only way Pope Pius XII could save what he called “this vibrant community” was to mislead the host countries. He handed out tens of thousands of false baptismal papers. He referred to the people as “Non-Aryan Catholic Jews.” Morally he would not lie, but by doing this, he would accomplish his objective. Had these refugees actually been converted and baptized, they would simply have been Catholics, and the Pope would not have used these unusual phases to describe them. Th is descriptive phrase has never been used in Vatican correspondence or language before or since. We discovered 2,335 pages of wartime documents in Campagna, Italy. From that collection, below is an example of letters from Signore Steiner and Dr. Silberstein who were referred to as “non-Aryans” when they requested Vatican intercession to obtain visas to travel to South America. 75 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Inside the Vatican Magazine Press Release Monday, January 9, 2012 NEW EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE ON POPE PIUS XII AND JEWISH REFUGEES DURING WORLD WAR II – Groundbreaking Story Published in Our January 2012 Issue! Is much of the modern world’s prevailing scholarly thinking about Pope Pius XII and his relations with Jews and the Jewish community just plain wrong? It may very well be, according to remarkable new evidence discovered by researcher William Doino Jr., and published in the latest edition of Inside the Vatican magazine. Th e evidence shows that Pope Pius XII helped hundreds of shipwrecked Jews to avoid deportation to German concentration camps. Th e evidence is compelling, so compelling that some Jewish voices are now calling on the authorities of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Israel to consider declaring Pope Pius XII one of the “Righteous Among Nations” for personally intervening to save Jewish lives during World War II. William Doino Jr., researcher and Pius XII expert, during fi ve years of painstaking research, has uncovered and here published explicit new testimony from two Jewish witnesses—evidence either up to now unknown, not fully known, or, for reasons diffi cult to understand, deliberately ignored by scholars and others engaged in a fi fty-year campaign of defamation against Pius XII. Doino’s research challenges those who hold negative views of Pius XII, and in particular, Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, which still displays an exhibit accusing the wartime pontiff of indiff erence toward Jews during the Holocaust. Will this powerful evidence, revealing the Pope’s fi rm support for Jewish victims, fi nally persuade Yad Vashem to take down its inaccurate exhibit? Might it move Yad Vashem, in fact, toward declaring Pius XII a “Righteous Gentile”? Th e new research may also infl uence the Catholic Church’s thinking as a decision about whether to advance Pius XII’s cause for beatifi cation is weighed. Th e eyewitnesses to Pius XII’s actions are two Jewish refugees: Howard Heinz Wisla (1920–2004), from Germany; and Herman Herskovic (1921–1983), from Czechoslovakia, each of whom left behind dramatic testimonies until now overlooked or forgotten. Doino earlier touched on some of Wisla’s testimony, which had anonymously been published in the Palestine Post (today’s Jerusalem Post) in 1944. Th is new January essay, “Pope Pius XII: Friend and Rescuer of Jews,” draws upon Wisla’s virtually unknown memoir, fi rst published in German and Hebrew (1945), and then, in expanded form, in English (1966). Th e memoir describes his astonishing audience with Pius XII at the Vatican in late 1941, when Pius embraced the young Wisla, and told him: “Always be proud to be a Jew!” Th e revealing article also tells the full story of the Jewish refugees shipwrecked in the Aegean Sea, who had 76 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives managed to get to a deserted island, only to discover they faced slow starvation, and approaching Germans. Th e Nazis did eventually take control of the island and commit atrocities. Before that, however, Wisla had escaped, reaching Rome and the Pope. Alerted by Pius XII, the Italian Red Cross took the refugees to relative safety in southern Italy. In addition to Wisla’s fi rsthand account, there is that of his fellow refugee, Herman Herskovic. Herskovic confi rms Wisla’s meeting with the Pope, as well as the harrowing ordeal of the Jews saved by Pius, and declares: “I owe my life to the Pope,” adding that “several hundred Jews” also owed their lives to Pope Pius. Th is groundbreaking journalism establishes in detail a successful rescue eff ort carried out at the personal direction of Pius XII, enabling fi ve hundred endangered Jews to survive the deadly anti-Semitism of World War II. “Th is is just another example of how Pope Pius XII directly interceded to save Jewish lives when most of the world’s religious leaders did nothing,” said Gary Krupp, a Jewish researcher on Pius XII and the Second World War who lives in New York. “And Pius did so while being surrounded by hostile forces and mindful of the plan to invade the Vatican to kidnap him in 1943. It is time for the world to appreciate what this man did. We call upon the authorities at Yad Vashem to seriously look at this material, in addition to the other evidence we have submitted to them, in order for Pope Pius XII to be called righteous among nations.” (Gary Krupp is the founder and president of Pave the Way Foundation.) 77 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Germany—On November 30, 1938, three weeks after Kristallnacht, Cardinal Pacelli sent a telegram (and a follow-up letter on January 9, 1939,) to over sixty-fi ve bishops and Nuncios to obtain two hundred thousand visas for “non-Aryan Catholics.” Th e documents refer to “Jewish Converted Italians” and “non-Aryan Catholics,” which was a code word for all Jews. Th e concordat of 1933 enabled the church to protect converted Jews, and so they used this clause to protect all Jews. Th e January 1939 letter below states that the bishops should not only protect these people but they should also protect their religious precepts, their religious books, and institutions. Th is would never be necessary to state for baptized Catholics traveling to a Catholic country. In addition, no one could ever assume in any practical sense that there were two hundred thousand converted Jews in Germany in 1938. Over 250,000 Jews had already left Germany prior to Kristallnacht; 202,000 remained. On the next page, you will see one response letter to Pacelli’s dated January 16, 1939, in which the cardinal from Scotland refers to “the refugee Jews,” not non-Aryan Catholics or converted Catholics. Telex below dated November 30, 1938, sent by Card. Pacelli seeking refuge for “converted Italian Jews” three weeks after Kristallnacht. Letter above, dated December 4, 1938, from the apostolic delegate in Washington, acknowledging the receipt of the ciphered telegram of November 30, 1938, dealing with “Italian converted Jews.” Th is letter fi le also contains a pamphlet from the National Catholic Welfare Conference with the annual report of the Committee for Catholic Refugees from Germany. Th e church has never in its history referred to “Jewish converts” or “non-Aryan Catholics” except in these instances. Deception had to be employed to get Jews out of Europe to countries that would not take Jews. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 78 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Germany – continued Below is a letter dated January 16, 1939, from the archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, in response to Card. Pacelli’s request letter for two hundred thousand visas. Understanding the hidden meaning, he does not mention non-Aryan Catholics but refers to them as what they were, refugee Jews from Germany. Th ese documents can be viewed in full at http://ptwf.org/vatican_docs_register.aspx. December 10, 1938, Irish Press article of the Pope’s aid to the Jews of Germany. It also speaks of Cardinal Pacelli’s actions. Follow-up letters from January 1939. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 79 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th is handwritten letter below dated December 3, 1938, by Cardinal Pacelli to Cardinal Hinsley, asks him to interpret the mind (of the Pope), that sees with a human and Christian eye every assistance given to those unfortunate and unjustly (unfairly) suff ering. Pacelli is basically saying that Cardinal Hinsley must “read between the lines” to get the real intent. Two days after Kristallnacht, a leading Nazi newspaper arranges for mass demonstrations against World Jewry and its Black (Catholic Church) and Red (Bolshevik) allies. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 80 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Poland—At the bottom are the documents in Actes et Documents du Saint Siege vol. 9 referring to an October 16, 1943, telegram, which was received by the secretary of state asking to help 460 Polish rabbis. Th e apostolic delegate in Tokyo, Archbishop Marella, facilitated saving these rabbis by sending them to Shanghai and then to Hawaii and then onto the US mainland. Th e telegram on right is refer hai who the American Jewish Committee wishes to now bring home. 81 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives From Germany and Poland Please see the interview with Max Ciampoli, friend of Sir Winston Churchill. Max personally met with Pope Pius XII, who gave him three thousand blank baptismal certifi cates to be published in French. Th e Pope knew they were to be fi lled in with the names of Jewish children who were trying to hide their Jewish identity (http://watch.knpb.org/video/1777120726). Th e Vatican distributed thousands of false identity papers, transfer documents, and baptismal certifi cates. Providentially, the signing of the Concordat of 1933 enabled the church to save thousands of Jewish lives. One of the clauses of the concordat affi rmed that Jews who converted to Roman Catholicism were to be considered Christians. Th e issuance of false baptismal documents saved many Jews from deportation. - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Please watch the video interview of Msgr Centioni at http://www.h2onews.org/english/52-holy-see/22444483-pius-xii’s-secret-network-to-help-save-jews-discovered.html. Signed testimony by the vicar general of the Palottine Fathers confi rming that today, ninety-seven-year-old Fr. Giancarlo Centioni, along with his community, was directed by the Holy See to hide, distribute cash and Vatican passports to “our desperate Jewish brothers and sisters” in Poland and Croatia to enable them to enter Spain and Portugal from 1940 to 1945. Monsignor Centioni said, “He would receive from Fr. Webber cash and Vatican Passports which he had obtained from the papal apartments.” 82 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Slovakia—Th e Actions of Pope Pius XII to save the Jews in Slovakia. In volume 9 of Actes et Documents (pp. 275–277; below), there is a very strong letter of protest, dated May 5, 1943, from the Holy See (Pius XII) to Tiso’s Slovakian government, in which the Vatican explicitly condemns “the forcible removal of persons belonging to the Jewish race . . . Th e Holy See would fail in its Divine Mandate if it did not deplore these measures, which gravely damage man in his natural right, merely for the reason that these people belong to a certain race.” It also lamented the fact that the wartime Slovakian government considered itself Catholic, when, obviously, it was violating Catholic teaching every day—that is as strong and direct an appeal on behalf of persecuted Jews by the Vatican that exists during the War, and it is signifi cant that it was sent to people claiming to be Catholic. Translation 176. Th e Secretariat of State to the Delegation of Slovakia from the Vatican, May 5, 1943 Protests by the Holy See against the anti-Semitic measures of the Slovak government Th e Secretariat of State of His Holiness considers itself obliged to submit the following for the consideration of the most excellent Delegation of the Slovak Republic to the Holy See: By means of communiqué #8355/41, dated November 12, 1941, the Secretariat of State brought to the attention of the Slovak Delegation the extreme displeasure of the Holy See at the publication, on the part of the Slovak government, of an “Ordinance” which established a particular piece of “racial” legislation, containing numerous directives which are openly opposed to Catholic principles, and expressed confi dence that until such time as the aforesaid Ordinance was revoked and suitably re-drafted, these norms would be interpreted and applied in such a way and such a manner that they would off end the demands of Catholic consciences to the least degree possible. Th e Holy See thus harbored the fi rm hope that the Slovak government, interpreting also the wishes of their people (who are almost entirely Catholic), would never have proceeded to a forced expulsion/ transfer of people belonging to the so-called “Jewish race.” It is therefore with real sorrow that the Holy See has learned that transfers of this type have taken place from the territory of the Republic. Such sorrow has only deepened now since, according to news received from various places, it would appear that the Slovak government intends to proceed with the total transfer of the Jews residing in Slovakia, not sparing women and children, and not excluding those who have professed the Catholic religion. A confi rmation of this could be seen in the speech that the Minister of the Interior delivered on February 7 in Ruzenberok, in which he seemingly declared that “having proceeded with the elimination of 80% of the Jews, it will now be necessary to transfer the other 20,000 Jews who remain in Slovakia.” Such a grave threat places the Secretariat of State in the situation of needing to once again draw the attention of the Delegation of Slovakia to the issues raised in the aforementioned communiqué, in which—among other things—it was highlighted that the Catholic Church, since it welcomes into its very bosom persons of whatever descent, thus looks with motherly concern [“maternal solicitude”] upon the whole of humanity, in order to arouse and develop among all people sentiments of brotherhood and love, according to the teaching of the Gospel. Th e Holy See, however, would be less than faithful to its divine mandate if it did not deplore those directives and measures, which strike a grave blow against people as regards their natural rights, because of the simple fact of belonging to a specifi ed descent. Above all, the Catholic Church cannot remain indiff erent to the distressing situation of so many of its children who, having been taken (often violently) far from their own homes, have been placed in particularly pitiful conditions, and so often are even without the necessary religious assistance, coming to a point where even their faith is gravely endangered. Th e Holy Se’s sorrow is further heightened when the previously mentioned measures have taken place in a nation of deep Catholic traditions, and on the part of a government which has declared itself to be the follower and keeper of those traditions. Nevertheless, the Holy See does not wish to abandon the hope that the Slovak government intends to review in a timely fashion, and appropriately modify the “racial” directives which are in force, removing from these whatever is in contradiction with the principles of natural and divine-positive law, and suspending, in the meantime, the transfers mentioned above. Note of Cardinal Maglione: NB Last Saturday—May 1st—I expressed verbally to the Minister of Slovakia the ideas contained in this draft communiqué, adding that I would also be writing to him in this regard. Th e Minister told me that he had spoken about this to his government in recent days, having been obliged to return to his homeland. In the meantime, he wished to assure me that the provisions which have been threatened by the Minister of the Interior will not be translated into action. 83 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th e Actions of Pope Pius XII to save the Jews with his intervention in Slovakia. September 11, 1941. Nuncio protested against the introduction of racial laws with an offi cial protest note from the Pope. March 1942. Start of the deportations. Th e bishop’s pastoral letter protesting the deportations from the Pope resulted in an immediate halt. Archbishop Borzoi Nuncio, March 1942. “It is not true that Jews deported would be sent to the service work, the truth is that they are murdered.” April 1942. Ten thousand girls are in the death camps. Protesting demands from the Pope resulted in an immediate halt. No more deportations! February 1943. Protest from the episcopacy prevented the resumption of deportations. March 1943. Fr. Jozef Tiso, president of Slovakia, was ordered by the Holy See to stop the deportation of Jews under the threat that he would be excommunicated by the Pope (cf. Acts et Documents du Sainte Siege, 1,457 and 9,246). Th e letter from Rome was presented to Tiso through Bishop Hamvas, auxiliary bishop of Budapest (cf. Acts et Documents du Sainte Siege, 8, 458). Beginning 1944, Nazis are calling for “rail shipments of foreign workers” for Auschwitz. Intervention of the Pope resulted in cancellation of the deportations. August 1944. Germany takes over control; deportations resume. Following an unsuccessful intervention by the Pope to stop them, twenty-fi ve thousand Jews are hidden in monasteries. Telegram to president of Slovakia, President Tiso, August 1944. Pope Pius XII sends a telegram to President Tiso that he must not deport the Jews and that he is greatly pained by what is occurring.” Catholic priest president of Slovakia Tiso with Adolf Hitler 84 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Slovakia—Vatican Actions. Excerpt from Hitler, the War, and the Pope by Prof. Ronald Rychlak Th e nation of Slovakia (carved out of the defunct Czechoslovakia) came under Nazi rule on March 16, 1939. Nuremberg race laws were introduced in that country on September 9, 1941. Two days later Monsignor Burzio, the Vatican’s Chargé d’Aff aires in Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia), went to see President Tiso in order to stress “the injustice of these ordinances which also violate the rights of the Church.”1 Shortly thereafter, Slovakia’s representative to the Vatican received a written protest from the Holy See that these laws were “in open contrast to Catholic principles.”2 Several other protests followed.3 When Jews were deported from Slovakia in 1942, the Vatican Secretary of State immediately fi led a protest with the Slovakian government.4 On March 21, 1942, a pastoral letter was read by episcopal order in all Slovak churches. Th e letter spoke of the “lamentable fate of thousands of innocent fellow citizens, due to no guilt of their own, as a result of their descent or nationality.”5 Under direct orders from Pius XII, the Slovak Minister to the Holy See was summoned and requested to take immediate action with his government.6 Th e Vatican also instructed the chargé d’aff aires in Bratislava once again to contact Tiso and seek relief.7 Catholic prelate Paval Machàcek, vice president of the Czechoslovak State Council, said in a broadcast to the Slovak people: “It is impossible to serve simultaneously God and the devil. It is equally impossible to be at the same time a good Christian and an anti-Semite.”8 Pope Pius XII weighed in on the matter with a letter, dated April 7, 1943, to the Slovak government: Th e Holy See has always entertained the fi rm hope that the Slovak government . . . would never proceed with the forcible removal of persons belonging to the Jewish race. It is, therefore, with great pain that the Holy See has learned of the continued transfers of such a nature from the territory of the republic. Th is pain is aggravated further now that it appears . . . that the Slovak government intends to proceed with the total removal of the Jewish residents of Slovakia, not even sparing women and children. Th e Holy See would fail in its Divine Mandate if it did not deplore these measures, which gravely damage man in his natural right, mainly for the reason that these people belong to a certain race.9 Th e following day, a message went out from the Holy See instructing its representative in Bulgaria to take steps in support of Jewish residents who were facing deportation.10 On May 5, 1943, a message went out from the Vatican’s Secretary of State to the representative in Slovakia condemning “the forcible removal of persons belonging to the Jewish race . . . Th e Holy See would fail in its Divine Mandate if it did not deplore these measures, which gravely damage man in his natural right, merely for the reason that these people belong to a certain race.”11 Shortly thereafter, the secretary of the Jewish Agency for Palestine met with Archbishop Roncalli, “to thank the Holy See for the happy outcome of the steps taken on behalf of the Israelites in Slovakia.”12 On September 20, 1944, the Vatican again instructed its representative in Bratislava to intervene for the Jews.13 Th at same month, the Jewish Chronicle (London) editorialized that “Th e Pope’s action is . . . a striking affi rmation of the dictum of one of the Pope’s predecessors that no true Christian can be an anti-Semite.”14 Jewish communities around the world soon recognized that the Vatican was an advocate in favor of Jews in Slovakia.15 By October 1944, deportations were back underway, and many Jews were in hiding. Tiso reported to the Vatican on October 26: “In spite of all protests the German security forces continue transfer of Jews to 85 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Germany.”16 A telegram drafted under the name of the acting Secretary of State bears corrections in Pius XII’s handwriting. It directed the Chargé d’Aff aires to: Go at once to President Tiso and, informing him of His Holiness’s deep sorrow on account of suff erings which very large numbers of persons “contrary to principles of humanity and justice” are undergoing in that nation on account of their nationality or race, in the name of the August Pontiff bring him back to sentiments and resolutions in conformity with his priestly dignity and conscience.17 Between 1941 and 1944, the Vatican sent four offi cial letters and made numerous oral pleas and protests regarding the deportation of Jews from Slovakia.18 In November 1944, the Holy See dispatched a note expressing “deep sorrow” and hope that the Slovak government would assure that “Jews who are still in the territory . . . may not be subjected to even more severe suff erings.” Th e note concluded: Th e Holy See, moved by those sentiments of humanity and Christian charity that always inspire its work in favor of those who are suff ering, without distinction of religion, nationality or race, will continue also in the future, inspite of the growing diffi culties of communications, to follow with particular attention the fate of the Jews of Slovakia, and will do everything in its power to bring them relief.19 Tiso ultimately managed to slow down the deportation of Slovakian Jews,20 but due to his collaboration with the Nazis (albeit under pressure from Hitler), the Slovaks hanged him after the war. In attempting to implicate Pius XII in the atrocities carried out in the Nazi satellite states of Slovakia, critic Daniel Goldhagen mentioned the work of Livia Rothkirchen, a respected authority on the annihilation of Slovak Jewry, but he failed to mention that in documenting and appropriately condemning the savageries committed by anti-Semitic Slavs, Rothkirchen emphasized that this was done in spite of, not because of, Pope Pius XII.21 In fact, she concluded that the several letters of protest delivered by the Vatican during the years 1941–1944 “prove suffi ciently that the Vatican objected to the deportation of Jews from Slovakia.”22 Because he was a priest, some critics have argued that the Vatican supported Tiso, despite his collaboration with the Nazis. Actually, the available evidence demonstrates just the opposite. On the day that Tiso was chosen as the fi rst President of the Slovak Republic (September 26, 1939) the Vatican released a statement expressing its “grave misgivings,” and warning that this move would corrupt the relationship between Church and State. As reported in the New York Times: Owing to Slovakia’s subservience to Germany it is not doubted that President Tiso will have to visit Berlin and most likely be seen and even photographed with Chancellor Hitler, whom the Vatican regards as a persecutor of Catholics . . . It was recalled in this connection that the Vatican, prompted by a similar consideration, refused to sanction the appointment some months ago of a priest as Ambassador to the Holy See from a South American Republic, and the candidate had to be withdrawn.23 Despite Pius XII’s concern that this move might have a Catholic priest pictured with Hitler, Tiso assumed the offi ce in defi ance of the Pope, not with his support. As it was written during the war: What followed was strictly according to the Nazi pattern. Persecution of the Jews and imprisonment of every democratic voice; the creation of an Iron Guard to shoot down strikers and saboteurs; the Germanization of the school system; the expropriation of property, the confi scation of grain and foodstuff s; and the dispatch of Slovak youth to the Russian front. From Rome came the thunders of the Holy Father, denouncing these outrages, but Tiso paid no heed to the voice of the Holy Father.24 In the Vatican, the Secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Aff airs (Msgr. Domenico Tardini) 86 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives recorded in his notes of October 21 and 23, 1941, that if the pro-Nazi statements attributed to Tiso were actually made by him, the Holy Father wanted his name to be removed from a list of praiseworthy prelates.25 Later, Tardini wrote: “It is a great misfortune that the President of Slovakia is a priest. Everyone knows that the Holy See cannot bring Hitler to heel. But who will understand that we can’t even control a priest?”26 1 Lapide at 138. In the Vatican, the Secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Aff airs (Msgr. Domenico Tardini) recorded in his notes of October 21 and 23, 1941, that if the pro-Nazi statements attributed to Tiso were actually made by him, the Holy Father wanted his name to be removed from a list of prelates designated for special praise. Notes de Mgr. Tardini, October 23, 1941, Actes et Documents, vol. 5, p. 273, no. 123. Later, Tardini said: “It is a great misfortune that the President of Slovakia is a priest. Everyone knows that the Holy See cannot bring Hitler to heel. But who will understand that we can’t even control a priest?” Notes de Mgr. Tardini, July 13, 1942, Actes et Documents, vol. 8, p. 598, no. 426. 2 Lapide at 138. See La Secrétairerie d’Etat à la Légation de Slovaquie, March 14, 1942, Actes et Documents, vol. 8, p. 459, no. 305 (Vatican Secretary of State’s concern over expulsion of Jews from the Slovak Republic). 3 E.g., Th e Apostolic Delegate (Cicognani) to the Acting Secretary of State, Feb. 26, 1944, in Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1944, vol. I (General) at 995, United States Government Printing Offi ce (Washington, 1966). 4 While Catholics did not face the same fate as Jews, the post-war Czechoslovak Offi cial Report for the Prosecution and Trial of Major War Criminals documented Nazi eff orts to suppress Catholicism in this area: At the outbreak of war, 487 Catholic priests were among the thousands of Czech patriots arrested and sent to concentration camps as hostages. Venerable high ecclesiastical dignitaries were dragged to concentration camps as hostages . . . Religious orders were dissolved and liquidated, their charitable institutions closed down and their members expelled or else forced to compulsory labor in Germany. All religious instruction in Czech schools was suppressed. Most of the weeklies and monthlies which the Catholics had published in Czechoslovakia, had been suppressed from the very beginning of the occupation . . . To a great extent Catholic church property was seized for the benefi t of the Reich. Offi ce of United States Chief of Counsel at 283.  Lapide at 141.  See Le cardinal Maglione au chargé d’aff aires à Presbourg Burzio, March 9, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 179, no. 87 (Vatican direction to impede the deportation of 20,000 Jews from Slovakia). 7 See Le cardinal Maglione au chargé d’aff aires à Presbourg Burzio, March 9, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, no. 87 (Vatican direction to impede the deportation of 20,000 Jews from Slovakia). 8 Jacques Maritain, Atonement for All, Th e Commonweal, Sept. 18, 1942, at 509. 9 Holmes at 159–60; See Notes de Mgr. Tardini, April 7, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 233, no. 136 (regarding the Holy See’s concern about the persecution of Jews in Slovakia). 10 Le cardinal Maglione au délégué apostolique à Sofi a Mazzoli, April 8, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 242, no. 141. 11 La Secrétairere d’Etat à la Légation de Slovaquie, May 5, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 275, no. 176. 12 Le délégue apostolique à Istanbul Roncalli au cardinal Maglione, May 22, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 306, no. 195. See also Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Positio, appendix 25 at 246 (protest 87 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives by the Slovak Nuncio, made at the opportune time, led to partial success of delaying deportation). Denis Barton, Fr. Tiso, Slovakia and Hitler (Church in History Information Center: Birkenhead, 1990) refutes many accusations about the Catholic hierarchy in wartime Slovakia. Similarly, evidence of the Slovak bishops’ appeals for Jews is found in the Tablet, June 12, 1943, at 283 and July 3, 1943, at 8. After the war, the Tablet reaffi rmed that the Slovak bishops “did in fact, in accordance with the desire of the Holy See, make most emphatic public denunciation of the persecution of the Jews.” Th e Tablet, February 15, 1947, at 108. 13 La Secretairerie d’Etat à la Légation de Slovaquie, September 20, 1944, vol. 10, p. 422, no. 328. 14 Th e Jewish Chronicle (London), Sept. 11, 1942. 15 Le cardinal Maglione au chargé d’aff aires à Washington Cicognani. February 16, 1944, Actes et Documents, vol. 10, p. 134, no. 60 (directive regarding requests from the World Jewish Congress); Le cardinal Maglione au chargé d’aff aires à Presbourg Burzio, April 22, 1944, Actes et Documents, vol. 10, p. 234, no. 159 (similar). 16 Lapide at 147. 17 Notes de Mgr. Tardini, October 28, 1944, Actes et Documents, vol. 10, pp. 461–62, no. 378 (Annex); Robert A. Graham, Pius XII’s Defense of Jews and Others: 1944–45, in Pius XII and the Holocaust: A Reader at 65–66 (emphasis added); Lapide at 147. 18 O’Carroll at 106. 19 Robert A. Graham, Pius XII’s Defense of Jews and Others: 1944–45, in Pius XII and the Holocaust: A Reader at 66 (emphasis added). 20 Michaelis at 373. Th e survival of nearly 25 percent of the Slovakian Jews has been attributed to Vatican pressure on Tiso. Lapide at 144. 21 See Livia Rothkirchen, Th e Destruction of Slovak Jewry (Yad Vashem: Jerusalem, 1961); Livia Rothkirchen, Vatican Policy and the “Jewish Problem” in “Independent” Slovakia (1939–1945), VI Yad Vashem Studies 27–53 (1966); Livia Rothkirchen, Th e Churches and the “Final Solution” in Slovakia, in Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism 1919–1945 413–41 (Otto Dov Kulka and Paul R. Mendes-Flohr, eds. 1987) (mentioning several papal interventions for Jews and contrasting them favorably with the behavior of the local populace.) To the extent that deportations were minimized in Slovakia, Rothkirchen credited the Pope. Commenting on the decision of the Slovak authorities to suspend deportations in the spring of 1943, Rothkirchen said: “Th e impact of the Holy See at this phase was undoubtedly a decisive factor. Th is was known and widely commented upon.” Id. at 419. 22 Rothkirchen, Th e Destruction of Slovak Jewry, at xxxiii; see also Lapide at 148; 358, n.28 (citing this passage). In volume XV of Yad Vashem Studies, John Conway also states that the archival material “confi rms the picture already drawn by such Jewish authors as Livia Rothkirchen and Pinchas Lapide. Where the Nuncios were alert, and the governments susceptible to papal remonstrances, then the interventions succeeded in delaying or reducing the deportations and other acts of persecution towards the Jews.” See generally Th e Pius War at 271–73. 23 Tiso Chosen as First President of Slovakia; Vatican Frowns on Priest as head of State, New York Times, October 27, 1939, at 1. 24 War Criminals and Punishment (Robert M. McBride and Company: New York, 1944) at 113. 25 Notes of Monsignor Tardini, October 23, 1941, Actes et Documents, vol. 5, p. 273, no. 123. 26 Notes of Monsignor Tardini, July 13, 1942, Actes et Documents, vol. 8, p. 598, no. 426. 88 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Hungary—Th e letter to Myron Taylor, the representative of President Roosevelt to the Pope, dated September 4, 1944, says that Taylor had brought to the attention of the secretariat of state a telegram received from Alex Easterman of the World Jewish Congress, speaking about the situation of Jews living in Hungary. Msgr. Domenico Tardini says that Taylor is well aware that the Holy See has for some time been actively involved in trying to alleviate the needs of “the aforementioned non-Aryans” He adds that the nunciature in Budapest has recently taken further steps to ensure that there are no further deportations of Jews. In his conclusion, the author assures Taylor that “the Holy See will not miss out on any opportunity to stop the deportation of the Jews in Hungary.” – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Th e letter above, dated March 16, 1943, is sent to President Roosevelt through Myron Taylor. Here Pius XII states that “His Holiness has derived particular satisfaction and consolation from the warm encouragement off ered by President Roosevelt for his (Pius XII’s) endeavors in favor of the innocent victims of the war. Th e fate of countless thousands who have been left destitute by the ravages of the present confl ict is indeed close to the heart of the Holy Father and it is His earnest desire that everything humanly possible should be done to alleviate their suff ering and need.” 89 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Pope Pius XII personally interceded to stop the deportation of the Hungarian Jews on June 25, 1944, at the exact moment of their greatest danger, says world-famous historian Sir Martin Gilbert. - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Above is the telegram June 25, 1944, in French, from Pius XII to Hungary’s regent, Miklos Horthy, protesting the deportation of Jews. Th e Pope pleaded with Horthy to use his offi ce so that “many unfortunate people may be spared further affl ictions and sorrows.” According to Sir Martin Gilbert, the Pope acted at the exact moment of the greatest need of the Hungarian Jews saving over two hundred thousand Jews from extermination. In addition, it was the Nuncio in Budapest, Archbishop Angelo Rotta, who physically protected the family of Admiral Horthy when the Germans came to arrest them according to our eyewitness Jurek Adam. Th e telegram on the top right, dated August 21, 1944, is from Alex Easterman of the World Jewish Congress to Myron Taylor, US representative to the Holy See. Th e telegram was forwarded to Msgr. Domenico Tardini, undersecretary of state of the Holy See. It acknowledges the pressure being applied to the Hungarian government not to deport the Jews. It asks for the Holy See to reinforce its pressure while the US and UK declaration opens possibilities of a rescue plan. Jenö Levai, the leading scholar of the Jewish extermination in Hungary, observed that it was a particularly regrettable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others. 90 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Interview with Hungarian Jew, Jurek Adam. Th e regent of Hungary Admiral Horthy complied with Pope Pius XII’s telegram asking that he stop the deportation of the Jews. His action resulted in his arrest by the Nazi and the immediate occupation of Budapest. Jurek Adam was a young Jewish boy who was in Budapest in July 1944 when the Nazi occupiers began to round up the Jews for deportation to the camps. He testifi es how he was brought in to the nunciature by Archbishop Angelo Rotta, apostolic Nuncio to Hungary for protection. Jurek was protected in the nunciature throughout the war. He was physically in the nunciature when, on October 16, 1944, the family of Regent Admiral Horthy came to the nunciature for political asylum. Admiral Horthy heeded the Pope’s telegram (on the previous page) and stopped the arrests of the Jews. Jurek Adam also was the individual who answered the door when the Nazi offi cers came to collect the family. He turned them away, telling them the regent’s family was not there. According to internationally respected historian Sir Martin Gilbert, Pius XII came to the aid of the Jews of Hungary at the very moment of their extreme need. Sir Martin Gilbert, world-renowned World War II historian, estimates that the Pope’s action saved as many as two hundred thousand Hungarian Jews. Special thanks to Vince Marmorale and Elizabeth Bettina for arranging for us to interview Jurek Adam. Please read It Happened in Italy by Elizabeth Bettina for the unique story of how the Italians under Pius XII saved 80 percent of the Jews in Italy. Interview with Dr. Robert Adler conducted by Ms. Laura King, network chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, September 30, 2010. Th e testimony of Prof. Robert Adler, who is the Alabama governor’s appointee to the Holocaust Commission for Alabama, reveals how his father, Hugo Adler, was saved by the Vatican and brought into the Vatican for fi ve weeks. Professor Adler states that his father met Pope Pius XII on “several occasions.” He was then sent through the Vatican “underground railroad” through the south of France into Spain and onto the Dominican Republic. Th is directly contradicts many of the critics who claim Pius XII had no idea what was happening around him while others were saving Jewish lives. Th is is a fascinating story, since it reveals how the Vatican itself, in some cases, was a temporary “safe house” protecting the refugees until they could be transported out of Europe or to a neutral state. Please visit http://www.barhama. com/PAVETHEWAY/RobertAdler.html. Special thanks to David Nekrutman, to Laura King, network chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, who conducted our interview, arranged for the videotaping, transcription, and obtaining the notarized testimony for Yad Vashem. A special thank you also to Raymond Clayton Th omas who transcribed the audio portion. 91 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th is Jewish Telegraph Agency news fl ash from January 15, 1943, reports the words of the archbishop of Lyon, France. - Courtesy of Dimitri Cavalli 92 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In France—Rabbi Andre Zaoui sent a letter to Pope Pius XII dated June 22, 1944, informing the Pope of the eff orts of the Catholic Church in saving the Jews. Below are some additional news articles regarding the Vatican’s interventions and protests. - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione 93 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Italy—Pius XII’s Directive Helped Save Eight Hundred Jews in Th ree Cities. Pius XII Told Catholic Groups to Assist Th ose Fleeing NaziS. Vatican City, April 8, 2003 (ZENIT) At least eight hundred Jews in three Italian cities were saved from Nazi persecution in 1943 and 1944; thanks in part to an appeal from Pope Pius XII, documents were revealed. Th e newly found evidence shows that in the cities of Livorno, Lucca, and Pisa, the Jews were spared after the Pope had asked various church groups to help out. Th e network of assistance was made up of oblate priests of Lucca, the archbishop of Genoa, Franciscan friars, cloistered nuns, and Catholic politicians. Gino Bartali, one of the greatest cyclists in Italian history, also collaborated in the initiative. He hid false documents in the crossbar of his bicycle to save the life of refugees. Th ese deeds have come out into the light; thanks to letters and a testimony written by Giorgio Nissim, a Jew from Pisa. Th e documents were found by his children, Piero and Simona, and have been examined by historians Silvia Angelini and Paola Lemmi under the supervision of Liliana Piccioto of Milan’s Foundation of Jewish Documentation. Giorgio Nissim died in 1976. Following the 1943 imprisonment of members of Tuscany’s “Delasem” network (which aided Jews after discriminatory racial laws took eff ect), Nissim continued his activity; thanks to the collaboration of the three oblate priests of Lucca. Th e three were referred to as fathers Paoli, Staderini, and Niccolai. “I organized a complete offi ce of false documents in the premises of cloistered nuns,” Nissim recalled in his papers. “Frequently, it was the priests themselves who added the false signatures.” Th at made it possible to save Jews by hiding them in a convent or enabling them to reach liberated areas in Italy. “I would go to Genoa as best I could to take the money given to me by Father Repetto, the archbishop’s secretary, and would then give the funds to Father Paoli,” to cover the costs of these operations, he added. In a testimony given in 1969, kept in the archives of Milan’s Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation, Nissim wrote that the network of Catholic assistance “had received the order to maintain relations [with the clandestine Jewish movement—editor’s note] by Pius XII, the Pope at the time.” Andrea, son of champion cyclist Gino Bartali, confi rmed his father’s participation in that network that aided the Jews. “His task was to take the photos and papers to clandestine printers to produce the false document,” Andrea Bartali said. “When he arrived at the convent, he would get off the bicycle and put the material in the crossbar, and then go. He also acted as a guide, pointing out the less-known ways so that the refugees could reach some areas in the center of Italy.” 94 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Interview with Msgr. Giovanni Ferrofi no who personally acted under Pius XII’s instructions to obtain visas for Jews to enter Portugal and then sent Jews to the Dominican Republic, United States, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. Th e Museum of Jewish Heritage held an exhibit in January 2008, highlighting the eff orts of the Dominican Republic to save Jewish lives. What the exhibit did not show was that it was Pope Pius XII who made a personal request of General Trujillo to grant the 1,600 visas per year from 1939 to 1945 for Jews escaping Europe. Th is request was delivered by the apostolic Nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Archbishop Silvani, and his secretary, Msgr. Giovanni Ferrofi no. Msgr. Ferrofi no revealed this secret activity in his video interview. Twice a year, Pope Pius XII sent a double-encrypted telegram to the Nuncio who then had to travel for one and a half days to see General Trujillo and make this direct request in the name of Pope Pius XII. Monsignor Ferrofi no would then be responsible to help the refugees enter the United States through Mexico, Canada, and Cuba. Th e refugees never knew who actually secured their visas to come to the DR and then helped them to emigrate to the United States. Monsignor Ferrofi no helped to save an estimated eleven thousand Jews from 1939 to 1945. On May 7, 1993, Fr. Robert Schlitt taped an interview with Sr. Mary Matilda, a member of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother. She refl ected on her time growing up in Nazi Germany and her experiences in wartime Rome. As she tells her fascinating story, she has vivid recollections of Pope Pius XII who arranged for a shipload of eleven sisters and eight hundred Jews to settle in the United States. When the sisters ran into diffi culty with the Portuguese government, they were able to present a handwritten letter from the Pope recommending that they be respected and cared for. 95 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Msgr. Giovanni Ferrofi no worked directly with Pope Pius XII and was personally sent to Portugal to request visas for Jews. Monsignor Ferrofi no stated in a video interview that the Pope sent him to meet with the President of Portugal to request entrance visas for Jews. Msgr. Ferrofi no commented that he could make the verbal request but could not express Pius XII’s frustration, where he would slam his hand on the table, saying, “. . . the best thing is to save as many people from this vibrant community as possible . . .” he lost patience. In other words, everything possible was to be done. He would get the requested visas. Monsignor Ferrofi no was then posted to Haiti and the Dominican Republic as the Secretary to the Nuncio Archbishop Silvani. Msgr. Ferrofi no states that he would physically receive two double-encrypted telegrams per year directly from Pope Pius XII requesting at least eight hundred visas per telegram. He would personally decipher these telegrams and, together with Archbishop Silvani, travel one and a half days from Port au Prince to the Dominican Republic to meet General Rafael Trujillo. Th e Pope’s direct representative asked “in the name of Pope Pius XII” for at least 1,600 visas for Jews per year between 1939 and 1945. Monsignor Ferrofi no, who arrived in 1940, would then further route the refugees to the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. He saved over eleven thousand Jews. 96 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th e notarized testimony of Israeli Holocaust historian Michael Tagliacozzo. Michael Tagliacozzo is a Roman Jew who was saved by the church on October 16, 1943. Mr. Tagliacozzo directs the Italian section at Beth Lohamè Haghettaot, the Ghetto Fighters’ House, one of the main Holocaust museums and study centers, located in Kibbutz Lohamei Haghetaot in western Galilee in Israel. Cardinal Pietro Palazzini, then Deputy Rector of a Roman seminary, saved Michael Tagliacozzo and other Jews in Italy by hiding them (on Vatican property) for several months in 1943–44. In 1985, Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum, paid tribute to Cardinal Pietro Palazzini by naming him one of the “Righteous Among Nations.” Accepting this honor, Palazzini said, “All credit goes to Pius XII, who asked us to do everything we could to save Jews from persecution.” 97 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Testimony of the Investigating Judge (Relator) to the Cause of Pope Pius XII. Father Peter Gumpel verifi es with German General Dietrich Beelitz, of the events that ended the arrests of the Roman Jews on October 16, 1943. Father P. Gumpel, SJ, Curia Gen. Compagnia di Gesu, Roma THE GENERAL BEELITZ TESTIMONY Statement by Fr. Peter Gumpel, SJ Relator in the Beatifi cation Process of Pius XII (recorded by Michael Hesemann) A few years ago, I had the opportunity of a long phone conversation with the retired major general Dietrich Beelitz because I wanted to know from him why Himmler, on October 16, 1943, at 2.00 p.m., so suddenly gave the order to stop the arrest of the Roman Jews immediately, for the strange reason “due to the special circumstances of the City of Rome.” Th is had always remained an open question to me, and I wanted to hear from him whether he was able to provide me with factual and certain information. Beelitz, at that time, was a colonel in the general staff and the liaison offi cer between the headquarters of Field Marshal General Kesselring here in Italy on one side and the Fuhrerhauptquartier (Adolf Hitler’s headquarter) on the other end (he was later promoted to major general). When the fi eld marshal general spoke with the Fuhrerhauptquartier by phone, Beelitz had to listen to the whole conversation and talk himself when Kesselring, once again, was away at the frontline. Major General Beelitz had always refused to write his autobiography or even meet with journalists, and so it was originally not easy for me to get in contact with him. What Beelitz told me during this conversation over the telephone was the following: On my question why Himmler suddenly gave the abovementioned order on October 16, 1943, Major General Beelitz replied: As I was aware before, the town commander of Rome, Major General Rainer Stahel, was suddenly discharged by the end of October and sent to the Eastern frontline, to Russia. He then made a farewell visit at the Headquarter of Field Marshall Kesselring. On this opportunity, I had asked him personally about the reason and background of his sudden and unexpected discharge. General Major Stahel replied that it was a retaliation measure by Heinrich Himmler against him, since Himmler had realized in the meantime that Stahel had persuaded him to cease the persecution of the Jews in Rome. 98 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives What had really happened was the following: Major General Stahel had fi rst sent his adjutant Nikolaus Kunkel to the German ambassador at the Holy See, Ernst von Weizsäcker, with the urgent request that the ambassador should try to stop the campaign against the Roman Jews. Kunkel gave an interview on this to the German Catholic news agency KNA in the year 2000, which was also published in the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano. He confi rmed that he had indeed received this order by Maj. Gen. Rainer Stahel but that von Weizsäcker just gave him a closed letter for the major general and replied verbally that he unfortunately was not able to do anything in this aff air. As Kunkel later confi rmed, the major general was indignant at this reply and decided to take this matter into his own hands. In the presence of then lieutenant Kunkel, Stahel requested a direct call to Heinrich Himmler; but when Stahel started to talk, Kunkel had left the offi ce and was not able to tell what was said on phone. When he spoke with Beelitz, Rainer Stahel explained that he had pointed out in plain words that he, as town commander of Rome, was responsible for the supply of the German divisions involved in combats in the south of Italy and that he had the duty to maintain this supply. So he told Himmler that at daytime, these transports became more and more diffi cult due to the air supremacy of the Anglo-American Forces, while at night, the increasing number of partisans disturbed the supply. Th erefore, the major general told Himmler in all openness that in the case that the campaign against the Jews would be continued, he would have to fear revolts of the population, which could spread in the south of Rome and endanger the supply of the German troops who would be lost in this case. At this opportunity, Stahel seems to have threatened Himmler directly by stating that, in this case, he would have to take the responsibility for all consequences. Himmler, who was quite ignorant about military aff airs, was obviously so impressed by this that he immediately ordered his SS Forces to stop the arrests. In reality, the risk of a revolt of the Roman population was nonexistant; the Romans were much too worried about their personal safety, their own food supply, etc. Th erefore, the whole statement by Stahel was not based on any real concern. Th is basically was what Maj. Gen. Dietrich Beelitz told me. When I asked if I could publish his statement, he replied that he did not want this, but he would give me permission to quote it in the so-called Positio for the Beatifi cation Process of Pius XII for whom he had a great personal admiration. At that time, I had to promise Major General Beelitz not to publish his statement as long as he was alive, and of course, I kept this promise. However, since Major General Beelitz died in 2002, the text of the interview could be published in the Positio for the Cause of Beatifi cation of Pope Pius XII (printed in 2004), and there is no reason why it should not come to the knowledge of a wider public. Th e Events of October 16, 1943: Th e roundup took place in the night from October 15 to 16, 1943. A woman, whose name is unknown to me, heard the noise, looked out of her window, and saw what happened. Immediately, she informed Princess Pignatelli Aragon Cortes, since she knew that the princess had access to Pope Pius XII. I personally interviewed the princess who confi rmed all this to me. She contacted a young German diplomat, a certain Wollenweber, and asked him to drive her in a German embassy car to the Vatican, since Rome was under martial law and no civilian was allowed to be on the streets at that time, 7:00 a.m. Th is young German diplomat was willing to drive her to the apostolic palace where the princess managed to get to Pius XII who had just said the morning Mass in his private chapel. When he heard what happened, the Pope was shocked and repeated several times that the SS had promised not to bother the Jews of Rome, so they had acted contrary to their promise. Still in the presence of the princess, he called his secretary of state, Cardinal Maglione, and ordered him to call the German ambassador at the Holy See, Ernst von Weizsäcker, into the 99 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Vatican immediately. About the following conversation between Cardinal Maglione and von Weizsäcker, the cardinal wrote a protocol on the very same day, which was published in the Actes et Documents. Weizsäcker urgently advised Maglione against any public protest, since this would only cause further damage. Instead, he promised to do everything possible to stop the campaign against the Jews. In reality, Weizsäcker didn’t do anything; and when his son, Richard von Weizsäcker, the former German president, claims today that his father had recommended Maglione that the Pope should launch a protest, this is just not true; the opposite is true, as the original protocol by Maglione proves. Still, the Pope did not leave it with this but sent his nephew, Carlo Pacelli, to see General Stahel, and also the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal, who was a persona non grata at the Vatican but had best contacts to the Nazis. As a third measure, the Pope took the opportunity to send his confi dant and intermediary, the superior general of the Salvatorians, Fr. Pankratius Pfeiff er, to Stahel; and this indeed might have moved Stahel eventually to interfere personally in this aff air, what he did with success, as mentioned before. I say with success, since due to the immediate stop of the arrests, it was eventually possible to invite thousands of Jews to take refuge in buildings of the church, like universities, parish houses, monasteries, convents, cloisters, and other institutes so that thousands of Jewish lives were saved, as was confi rmed repeatedly by Jewish individuals and organizations. 100 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th e Pope directly interceded to stop the arrest of the Roman Jews on October 16, 1943. German historian, Michael Hesemann, visited the German cathedral in Rome, Santa Maria del Anima. Michael located Hudal’s own transcript of his letter to Major General Stahel of October 16, 1943, beginning with the words “Let me add a very urgent aff air: Just now, a high Vatican source from the immediate surroundings of the holy Father (Pope Pius XII’s nephew Prince Carlo Pacelli), reported to me that this morning the arrest of the Jews of Italian nationality has started. In the interest of a peaceful dialogue between the Vatican and the German military command, I ask you with urgency to give the order to immediately stop these arrests in Rome and the surrounding area. Th e German reputation in foreign countries requires such a measure and also the danger that the Pope would openly protest against it . . .” From the answer of the General on October 17, by telephone: “I forwarded the aff air immediately to the local Gestapo and to Himmler personally. Himmler ordered that, concerning the special status of Rome, these arrests are to be stopped immediately . . .” Th is response from Stahel confi rms that the intervention of Pope Pius XII, through his nephew and delivery of the letter by Father Pfeiff er, was eff ective in ending the arrests of the Jews of Rome. Th is action, along with the Pope’s action to open all Catholic institutions to hide the Jews, protected an estimated twelve thousand Jews who were in Rome on that date. Another Hudal document is titled “Th e direct actions to save innumerable persons of the Hebrew nation.” In it he states that he managed, through Stahel and Colonel Baron von Veltheim, to get “550 Catholic religious colleges and institutions an exemption from inspections and visitations by the German military police.” In the Institute of St. Joseph alone, eighty Jews were hidden. Th e note also mentions the material involvement of Prince Carlo Pacelli, the nephew of Pius XII. “Th e German soldiers were very disciplined and respected the signature of a high German offi cial . . . Th ousands of local Jews in Rome, Assisi, Loreto, Padua, etc., were saved due to this declaration.” Today the Roman Jewish community holds a very negative view of Pope Pius XII because of his perceived indiff erence as the train carrying 1,007 Jews left Rome enroute to Auschwitz. As one can surmise from the actual documents from Bishop Hudal, the Pope’s threatened public denunciation was one of the measures used to force General Stahel to directly intercede to stop the arrest. Had the Pope condemned the departure of the train itself, the arrest of the twelve thousand remaining Jews might have been restarted. Th e critics use this argument against Pope Pius XII, but evidence shows such an action could have caused the death of twelve thousand more Jews. Th e documents on the left are from the archives of Santa Maria dell Anima. In them, Bishop Hudal tells Lieutenant General Stahel that he must stop the arrest of the Roman Jews or the Pope will be forced to speak out in loud protest. Th is message was delivered by the nephew of Pius XII, Carlo Pacelli, to Bishop Hudal with a papal directive to demand the end of the arrests. Th e second letter is verifi cation from General Stahel that the arrests were ended with his call to Himmler and the local Gestapo commander. - Courtesy of Michael Hesemann 101 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Curiously, a cable (left) from Berlin to the German command in Rome originally ordering the arrest of eight thousand Roman Jews indicates that they were to be used as hostages and sent to the work camp of Mauthausen. When the arrests stopped, this order was changed, and the 1,007 Jews who were in custody were sent to Auschwitz instead, where only sixteen survived. According to the synagogue records, the offi cial count of Roman Jews was eight thousand. However, since Rome was an open city, it is estimated that as many as thirteen thousand Jews, including those from other countries, were in Rome on October 16, 1943. Signs forbidding the entry of any German troops into properties of the Holy See. Th is enabled thousands of Jewish lives to be saved by the Vatican. In Eichmann’s diaries, he explains that on October 6, 1943, Ambassador Moelhausen sent a telegram to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, in which he said that Herbert Kappler, SS Commander in Rome, had received a special order from Berlin. He was ordered to arrest 8,000 Jews who were living in Rome and deport them to northern Italy, where they would be exterminated. General Stahel, Commander of the German forces in Rome, explained to Ambassador Moelhausen, that from his point of view, it would be better to use the Jews for forced labor. On October 9, however, Ribbentrop answered that the 8,000 Jews of Rome had to be deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp. In giving evidence under oath, in the military prison of Gaeta on June 27, 1961, Kappler said that it was with that order that he fi rst heard the term, “Final Solution.” 102 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Italy—Vatican eff orts to save the Jews of Italy. From Hitler, the War, and the Pope by Prof. Ronald Rychlak Ambassador Weizsäcker was constantly worried that public statements or open activity by the church would cause Hitler to order an invasion of the Vatican. “From the time he arrived in Rome, Weizsäcker was determined that his policy would be to avoid any rupture between his government and the Holy See.” As such, he played a “subtle double game” and sometimes censored messages from the Vatican or sent “tactical lies” to persuade the Nazis that Pius was not a threat. Rather than just forwarding messages to Berlin, he would even occasionally reword them. In fact, Weizsäcker sometimes sent one set of comments to Berlin, while recording a diff erent version in his private notes. On October 25–26, 1943, the Vatican newspaper printed a major article under the headline: “Th e Charitable Work of the Pope.” It said: “Th e charity of the Pope is universal and fatherly. It knows no frontiers of nationality, of religion, of race. Th e Pope’s continual activity has been increased in these last days because of the suff erings which have fallen upon so many unfortunates.” Concerned that Berlin would be upset by this clear statement of support for the Jews, Weizsäcker sent a notorious telegram to his superiors on October 28. It said: Although the Pope is said to be importuned from various quarters, he has not allowed himself to be carried away making any demonstrative statements against deportation of the Jews. Although he must expect our enemies to resent this attitude on his part, he has nevertheless done all he could in this delicate question as other matters, not to prejudice relationships with the German government. Since further action on the Jewish problem is probably not to be expected here in Rome, it may be assumed that this question, so troublesome to German-Vatican relations, has been disposed of. On October 25 L’Osservatore Romano, moreover, published a semi-offi cial communiqué on the Pope’s charitable activities in which the statement was made, in the style typical of this Vatican newspaper “that is to say, involved and vague” that the Pope extends his paternal solicitude to all men without distinction of nationality and race. Th ere is no need to raise objections to its publication, since hardly anyone will understand the text as referring specifi cally to the Jewish question. Despite what the telegram said, Weizsäcker understood the Pope’s message. He knew that thousands of Roman Jews were being sheltered in church buildings that had been opened at the instruction of Pius XII, and he knew that the church had provided many Jews with falsifi ed documents showing them to have been baptized as Catholics. His telegram helped dissuade the Nazi leadership from invading the Vatican, and the Nazis did not again attempt a large-scale roundup, but the telegram also misled historians studying this era. 103 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th is article in L’Osservatore Romano appeared on October 25, 1943, one week after the roundup of the Jews of Rome. Th e Pope acted personally to stop the arrests and hid many of the Jews of Rome in ecclesiastical houses, convents, monasteries, rectories, universities, private Catholic homes, and in the Vatican itself. Th e Holy Father’s Charity Th e Holy Father continues, in an ever more insistent and heartfelt way, to speak out regarding the disgraces which do not cease to accumulate, on account of the prolongation of the current confl ict. As is well known, the August Pontiff , after having worked in vain to prevent the outbreak of the war by seeking to dissuade the rulers of peoples against having recourse to force of arms (which is today so fearful), has not desisted for a single moment from implementing every means in His power to lighten the suff erings which are in any way the consequences of this terrible destructive disaster. With the spread of such evils and suff erings, the universally paternal charity of the Supreme Pontiff has become even more industrious, and it is not stopped by any boundaries, neither that of nationality, nor of religion, nor of race. Th is multi-faceted and unceasing action of Pius XII in this last while has been considerably intensifi ed, on account of the increased suff ering of so many unfortunate people. May this benefi cial activity—especially with the prayers which the faithful throughout the world, unanimously united and with burning fervor, continue to lift up to heaven—lead in the future to even broader results, and hasten the day when the world will return to the beauty/splendor of peace, when people, having laid down their weapons, having extinguished every form of discord and rancor, and having rediscovered each other as brothers and sisters, will at last collaborate in a committed way for the common welfare. TRANSLATION 104 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th is Vatican document, dated September 6, 1944, and the offi cial translation below are from the Vatican Secretary of State in response to Myron Taylor’s request for the Holy See to intervene through the Nuncio in Berlin, to ask the German government to give permission to move nine thousand Jews from Northern Italy to Southern Italy. Th e Vatican said that they gladly complied with the request, but they were told by the Germans that they could only get permission from the Italian Socialist Republic, and the Vatican had no diplomatic relations with this regime. Passover Seder celebrated in the internment camp in Ferramonti in 1942. Th is was under the protection of Archbishop Palatucci of Campagna. Shmuel del Aizza, an Italian Jew who disguised himself as a priest and lived in the Vatican from October 16, 1943, to June 6, 1944. 105 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives In Italy—Saving the Jews Food and supplies were delivered by the Vatican throughout Italy and Europe to the ecclesiastical facilities, including convents and rectories sheltering Jews who had no ration cards. It was only with the Pope’s permission that cloister was broken to allow men into convents and women into rectories. Head of the Papal Household, Sr. Pascalina Lehnert, was in put in charge of the distribution of food and supplies to all of the ecclesiastical houses in Rome by Pope Pius XII. Below are photos of the Vatican trucks that would distribute supplies throughout Italy to support the refugees being protected. Much of the food came from South America. Th e article below speaks of how hijackers tried to rob a trainload of supplies. - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione 106 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th ousands of refugees were hidden at the summer residence of Pope Pius XII, Castel Gandolfo. Castel Gandolfo, the Papal summer home, is worth particular note. Th is facility was used to shelter thousands of Jews and other refugees during the war. Th e Papal bedroom itself was used as a birthing room for pregnant women nearing the days of childbirth, and some forty children were born there. Photos from Castle Gandolfo show people not only sleeping in the halls, but even up and down the staircases. Some accounts place the number of people sheltered there as high as twelve thousand. A US intelligence document reported that the bombardment of Castel Gandolfo resulted in the injury of about one thousand people and the death of about three hundred more. Th e area was crammed with refugees. No one but Pope Pius XII had authority to open these buildings to outsiders. As at least one witness testifi ed under oath, the orders came from the Pope. Susan Zuccotti noted the rescue work at Castle Gandolfo, but she speculated that perhaps none of the people sheltered there were Jewish. Actually, at the liberation of Rome, the Palestine Post wrote: “Several thousand refugees, largely Jews, during the week end left the Papal Palace at Castle Gandolfo—the Pope’s summer residence near Marino— after enjoying safety there during the recent terror. Besides Jews, persons of all political creeds who had been endangered were given sanctuary in the Palace.” Moreover, the Director of the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo during the Second World War, Emilio Bonomelli, wrote a book in 1953 in which he discussed caring for Jews and other refugees during the war. According to another account, about three thousand Jews were sheltered there at one time. Today, in Castel Gandolfo, there is on display a beautifully decorated, enormous wooden cross, which was given to Pius XII at the end of the war by the Jews who lived there during those terrifying days. – Courtesy of Prof. Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope – Photos Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione Expectant mothers in Castle Gandolfo used the Pope’s bedroom as a birthing area. Over forty babies were born while under protection at Castle Gandolfo. Palatial audience halls were mass dormitories. Castel Gandolfo was housing refugees. People were sleeping in stair wells. 107 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives From the wartime intelligence reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945: Reports the bombing of Castle Gandolfo where one thousand people were injured and three hundred killed. Castle Gandolfo was housing refugees. - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. Th e documents of the trial of Adolf Eichmann states that the Pope himself intervened to save the Jews of Rome. 108 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th e Director of the papal villa at Castle Gandolfo during the Second World War, Emilio Bonomelli, wrote a book in 1953 in which he discussed caring for Jews and other refugees during the war. According to another account, about three thousand Jews were sheltered there at one time. Today in Castle Gandolfo, there is on display a beautifully decorated, enormous wooden cross, which was given to Pius XII at the end of the war by the Jews who lived there during those terrifying days. – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 109 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Most of Rome’s Jews were saved from Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Interview with a German officer in the headquarters of the Military Governor of Rome – L’Osservatore Romano Th e following is a translation of an interview that German Offi cer, Nikolaus Kunkel, a witness to Pius XII’s actions to save Roman Jews during the Second World War, gave to the German Catholic News Agency (KNA) on November 7, 2000. Now eighty years old, Mr. Kunkel, was a former German Offi cer at the Headquarters of the Military Governor of Rome. He directly witnessed the SS roundup of the Jews and the fact that the majority of them were saved by taking refuge in the Vatican. After the war, Kunkel worked as a bank manager. A lieutenant at the time, he remembers those dramatic days at the end of 1943 when the SS wanted to take advantage of the transition of power from Mussolini to Badoglio to carry out “the fi nal solution to the Jewish question” in Rome too. Th e victims of Hitler’s racist policies were able, for the most part, to take refuge in the Vatican thanks to Pius XII’s orders and thus to escape the fate intended for them. KNA: Mr. Kunkel, on 10 September 1943, after the Badoglio government broke with the Rome-Berlin Axis, the Wehrmacht occupied the Italian capital. Th e war diary of the supreme command of the armed forces says in this regard: “Th e Wehrmacht will take care of protecting Vatican City.” Th e 28 June 1964 edition of L’Osservatore della Domenica quotes Albrecht von Kessel, collaborator of Ernst von Weizsäcker, German ambassador to the Vatican, according to whom Hitler had always discussed the possibility of taking the Pope prisoner and deporting him to the German Reich. Verbatim: “If the Pope were to oppose this measure, there was even the possibility that he would be killed ‘while trying to escape.’” What is your recollection? Kunkel: For the duration of my time in Rome, a good nine months, all of us offi cials were convinced that any day, the order could arrive: “Occupy the Vatican.” In this event— practically speaking, to save time—we had internally prepared a “mob plan,” which of course is not found in the war diary. I am sure that the Vatican also considered this danger. Hitler’s volatile nature made it realistic. KNA: Th e fact that Pope Pius XII also saw this risk suggests that he had already prepared a resignation statement if he were taken prisoner. It probably read like this: “Th ey can only arrest Cardinal Pacelli, not the Pope.” Kunkel: Fortunately it did not happen, but the risk was there. KNA: Were there contacts between the German military governor of Rome, Luftwaff e Major General Rainer Stahel, and the Vatican? Kunkel: Th ere were many. Th e Vatican’s offi cial contact with us was Fr. Pankratius Pfeiff er, the superior general of the Salvatorians, who often dealt with the general, but also with the SS and the police. Th e so-called internal security of Rome was actually in the hands of the police, who were guided by the SS and by Kappler. 110 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives KNA: Who really held the power? Was Kappler under the military governor? Kunkel: De jure yes, but de facto the SS was a state within the state. Th erefore, yes, Kappler was in communication with the general, but in reality, the SS led their own life, and we did not know what went on within the SS hierarchy. In security questions, the SS more or less gave the orders in collaboration with the Italian Fascist police . . . KNA: So the police forces who had not changed sides with Badoglio . . . Kunkel: Yes, and that played a considerable role. While Badoglio had joined the Allies, Marshal Graziani, Mussolini’s war minister, still took his cue from the Germans. KNA: A month and a half after the occupation of Rome, 16 October 1943, the SS ordered a roundup of Jews. Was General Stahel, as military governor, informed of the roundup? Could he have prevented it? Kunkel: Around mid-October, there was a rumor that a special SS unit would be sent to the city and lodged at a small hotel near Piazza Barberini. Th e unit’s task would be to deport the Jews. Italy already had “racial laws” by the end of the 1930s; however, they were applied with great tolerance. It seems that in Rome, there was already a sort of ghetto. When this rumor proved to be true, General Stahel summoned and informed the offi cers of divisions 1A, 1B and 1C, saying that he was totally opposed to the operation. A few weeks after the beginning of a new collaboration with the Italians under the direction of Graziani, a deportation of Roman Jews would have caused ill will and unrest among the Roman people. We sensed that this was not the general’s whole opinion—which lay deeper!—but this statement stressing public order was a good explanation. Th e general continued saying that to stop this operation, he would have to seek allies, above all in Berlin. To this end, Ernst von Weizsäcker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, would have to help. In fact, von Weizsäcker had a reputation as a cautious enemy of the Nazi regime. Th e general sent me to the ambassador with a sealed letter. I did not read it, but the general told me that in the letter he asked the ambassador to do all he could in Berlin to revoke the measure. Kunkel: I recall that when I went to von Weizsäcker, I waited in an anteroom and became angry because no one off ered me a chair. Th e ambassador left the room and shortly after returned with the letter, this time sealed by him. He asked me to give the letter back to the general and tell him that this time he “unfortunately could not be helpful.” I remember this phrase perfectly. When I gave him back the letter, the general spoke—cautiously—in a very detached way about the ambassador. After this, he telephoned Himmler, but I cannot say anything for sure about that. KNA: Roman Jews were rounded up on October 16. Th at same day, the rector of Santa Maria dell’Anima, Bishop Alois Hudal, and Fr. Pankratius Pfeiff er called on the general and gave him the “clear impression” that the Pope would turn to world public opinion if these roundups were not immediately stopped. Th e next day, October 17, the order came from Himmler to stop. Kunkel: We had the impression that the SS had planned an action, but it reached a dead end and became public. Today we know that about one thousand Jews were arrested. In our opinion, most Roman Jews had got wind of the imminent SS action because of delays in the preparations, and so many of them were saved. 111 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives KNA: Of about eight thousand Roman Jews, then seven thousand were saved? Kunkel: We were certain that a large number of them were able to take refuge in Vatican buildings, which are numerous in Rome. In fact, the persecuted were able to take refuge in a relatively simple way. KNA: 7,486 hid in the Vatican itself . . . Kunkel: I don’t know the number. KNA: In practice, how did it work? How were these Jews saved? Kunkel: Probably by entering primarily from St. Peter’s Square. Th e other parts of the Vatican, with their high walls, are not accessible, while in St Peter’s Square, there were only two German guards on the border between Italy and Vatican City to prevent German soldiers from entering Vatican territory in uniform. Civilians could freely cross this line. KNA: Was this border between St. Peter’s Square and the city of Rome marked in any way? Kunkel: No. As it is today, there was just a curved line marked between the colonnades. Our guards patrolled along this line. KNA: Certainly, what Bishop Hudal and Father Pfeiff er said to General Stahel is worth noting: if the roundups of the Jews had been carried out, Pope Pius XII would have vigorously protested and would have pressured Himmler to stop the action! Kunkel: Th at was how it seemed to us at the time. We had the impression that the SS action had been delayed until most Jews had reached safety. We considered it a success that only one thousand of the eight thousand or nine thousand or so Jews were arrested by the SS. Today, of course, one looks above all at the one thousand victims; at the time we saw the seven thousand who did not become victims and were saved. But many people, institutions, and events probably contributed to this rescue. By the way, a few days after the roundup and despite his poor health, General Stahel—an old Catholic—was transferred to the eastern front. KNA: And now the decisive question: do you think that a more vigorous protest from Pope Pius XII would have saved more Jews in Rome, Italy, and occupied Europe? Kunkel: At the time, I spoke about this with my immediate superior, Major Bohm, a Protestant from Hamburg. We were both of the opinion that, faced with Hitler’s unpredictability, any action directed to world public opinion by the Pope would have been harmful. KNA: In his play Th e Deputy, Rolf Hochhuth expressed the opinion that Pius XII should have made a blistering protest. Since the Pope did not do this, he is guilty of a grave omission. Kunkel: It is easy to speak after the fact. In any case, we who were on the staff of the German military governor of Rome were of the opinion that taking a vigorous stand would have had negative consequences. KNA: Would the supreme southern commander, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, with whom Pope Pius XII was in contact, have had the power to stop the roundup of the Jews? 112 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Kunkel: No. Th e power of the SS was so great that the Wehrmacht—to which Kesselring belonged—could not have opposed it. Th at would have taken a successful 20 July! KNA: In your opinion, can Pius XII be reproached for any of his actions? Kunkel: Pius XII was in the most diffi cult political situation in which a man can fi nd himself. I recall a conversation with a Jesuit, Fr. Otto Faller, concerning Germany’s war on two fronts. He said to me: think that the Pope also fought a war on two fronts—against communism on one side and against Nazism on the other. Th is refers to the general situation at the time. As for your question: considering the circumstances, no one can reproach Pius XII or his actions. If he had spoken out more strongly, it would certainly have provoked unpleasant reactions. KNA: Might he eventually have been arrested? Kunkel: Yes, there was also that possibility. Below is a marble placard placed in Rome to honor the memory of Fr. Pancratius Pfeiff er. He was responsible, through Pope Pius XII, for helping to end the arrests of the Roman Jews on October 16, 1943. On the right is a marble placard placed by the Italian Israelite communities after the war’s end in 1946. Th is was in gratitude for all Pope Pius XII did to save the Jews of Italy. Signed: Motion approved by the Th ird Congress of the Italian Israelite Communities held in March 1946. Th is memorial seems to have been removed and cannot be located today. 113 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Documents that consist of requests and actions on the part of the Holy See to help Jews emigrate, seek medical assistance, and rejoin family members. Also there were letters from the Pope sending money to Campagna. Th is is a letter from Davide Lobman, requesting help from the Vatican. Th e letter to the right is the response from the Vatican Secretary of State. Th is document is an inquiry from the Secretary of State regarding a previous case. 114 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Pallatucci of Campagna, to whom Pope Pius XII sent money for the care of the Jews in his diocese. Some funds were donated to the Pope for the specifi c purpose of aiding camp victims and some funds came from the Vatican directly. Translation From the Vatican, 29th November 1940 Your Reverend Excellency, With regard to your letter of November 8th, seeking a new sum to be directed for the support of Jews interned in your diocese, I am pleased to tell Your Excellency that the Holy Father has benevolently decided that you should be granted the extra assistance you asked for. In keeping with this revered instruction. I am sending the enclosed cheque for 10,000 Lire, asking Your Excellency to be good enough to send to the Secretariat of State, when convenient, an exact, even if brief, report on how this money was used. I am likewise happy to tell our Excellency that His Holiness has learned with great pleasure about the energetic charitable activities you have undertaken. He imparts his Apostolic Benediction to you, your entire diocese and to all those whom you are assisting. our Excellency’s servant, Luigi Cardinal Maglione (signed by hand) 115 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Translation Secretariat of State of His Holiness From the Vatican 3 October 1940 Your Reverend Excellency, I have submitted to the august attention of the Holy Father the request made in your letter # 935 of September 15th on behalf of those who have been interned. His Holiness, in deference to the intentions of the donors, has also charged me to make you aware that this money should preferably be destined for those who suff er for money should preferably be destined for those who suff er for reasons of race, and to communicate the Apostolic Benediction, which he imparts with his whole heart to Your Excellency and to the fl ock entrusted to your charge. Th e August Pontiff deigned to consider your request, and has ordered me to see to it that the sum of 3000 Lire be sent to Your Excellency, which I now do with the attached cheque drawn on the Bank of Rome. I am happy to carry out these august orders. And let me take this opportunity of expressing to you my sincere feelings of esteem. Yours very sincerely, G. B. Montini 116 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Documents from the National Archives and Records Administration and the CIA. - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. Nazi document from the National Archives and Records Administration, CIA Selected Documents, 1941– 1947, Box 4, College Park, Maryland—an Allied intercept of German war messages. It is dated October 26, 1943—ten days after the Roman roundup of Jews—and it is a German report back to Berlin. It reads: “Vatican has apparently for a long time been assisting Jews to escape. Th e fear is growing that further actions to transport factory hands and workers are planned. Communists are speaking of taking measures for the selfprotection of the workers and this has already been taken up by the enemy . . . Our propaganda inadequate. We consider it urgently necessary for pro-German Italians to enlighten the population.” Th e document is numbered 7927, from Group XIII/52, Rome to Berlin, RSS 210/26/10/43 1819 GMT. Th is is a very signifi cant document. For one thing, it seriously undermines the theory that the Vatican did not begin taking in/protecting/rescuing Jews, until well after the October 16 roundup. But note: the October 26 document says that the Vatican has apparently been sheltering them “for a long time,” which would presumably be longer than just ten days. Priest-rescuer Aldo Brunacci, honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile, has always maintained that his bishop in Assisi, Nicolini, read him a papal letter, dated September 1943, ordering everybody to rescue/assist Jews at that point. Anti-Pius authors have tried to undermine Brunacci’s claim, arguing that September 1943 is just too early, since the Vatican didn’t go into action for Jews, if at all, until after the October 16 roundup. But the new document of October 26 supports Brunacci’s dating. Note also in the document that the Nazis are furious that their twenty-four-hour-a-day anti-Semitic propaganda, in occupied Rome, is having little eff ect upon the Italian Catholics, who were obviously being infl uenced by Pope Pius XII. 117 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Additional documents and articles. Notice from the British Public Records Offi ce stating, “Th e Catholic authorities in France and the Papal Legate intervened when the Laval Government was deporting Jews.” On December 27, 1941, Pope Pius XII sent money to Cardinal Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, specifi cally for the care of the “Israelite community” of Vienna. Telegram from Anthony Eden reporting that the “Jewish vendetta” may suggest a reproach for the Vatican’s protest against the anti-Jewish policy of the Vichy government. Secret telegram #174, dated September 11, 1942, and received September 15, 1942, states the following from Mr. Osborne of the Swiss Foreign Offi ce: “Th e Pope today confi rmed to me that the Nuncio at Vichy had protested against the persecution of Jews in France.” - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. 118 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives From Romania—Pope Pius XII sent 1,353 million LEI to Romania for the care of the Jews in Transnistria. Rabbi Alexander Safran Medal from the Jewish community of Romania bestowed upon Cardinal Cassulo for his lifesaving eff orts during the war. - Courtesy of Dimitri Cavalli 119 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Statements that Pope Pius XII helped the Jews. “In all these painful matters I have referred to the Holy See and simply carried out the Pope’s orders: fi rst and foremost to save human lives.” – Pope John XXIII “I only acted upon orders from the Holy Father. Nobody deserves a medal for that.” – Pope Paul VI Cardinal Pietro Palazzini, then Assistant Vice Rector of the Seminario Romano, hid Italian Jews there in 1943 and 1944. In 1985, Yad Vashem honored the cardinal as “Righteous among Nations.” In accepting the honor, Palazzini stressed that “the merit is entirely Pius XII’s, who ordered us to do whatever we could to save the Jews from persecution.” Palazzini also credited Pius for the “great work of charity” of sheltering anyone who needed refuge during the war. In fact, Palazzini wrote that “Amidst the clash of arms, a voice could be heard—the voice of Pius XII. Th e assistance given to so many people could not have been possible without his moral support, which was much more than quiet consent.” 120 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Fr. Aldo Brunacci is an Italian Catholic priest who helped save more than two hundred Jews during World War II. His work began in 1943 in Assisi, just after German bombers had destroyed much of the surrounding countryside. While assisting thousands of Italian refugees who fl ooded the city, Don Aldo, and other local priests, sheltered and fed Jews. In September 1943, the Bishop of Assisi received a very classifi ed letter from the Secretary of State of the Vatican asking the Bishop to organize help to take care of all the refugees, especially the Jews. Don Aldo says that “Pope Pius XII, who was Pope at that time, did unbelievable things to save Jews. And as a matter of fact, it recently was published a list of church organizations, religious communities, who saved Jews during those years. Just in Rome alone there were thousands.” In her critical book of Pius XII, Under His Very Windows, Prof. Susan Zuccotti interviewed Father Brunacci and concluded that since he physically did not read the letter, that he merely witnessed Bishop Nicolini as he held it in his hands, there is no proof it really existed. She also dismisses the letter by contending that if all of the Nuncios received it, surely one copy would still exist today. She does not acknowledge orders, likely in eff ect, that the letters were to be destroyed. 121 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives From the archives of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, key phrases indicating Papal intervention on behalf of the Jewish people. - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. 122 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives A diary entry in the archives of an Order of Augustinian nuns, wherein they state that they were ordered by Pius XII to take in the Jews in 1943. She names many of the Jews as “guests.” Th e nuns report how they made alterations to make their guests as comfortable as possible. Th e nuns state the Holy Father is personally feeling the suff ering of the Jews. Th is diary entry lists the names of the “Jewish guests.” - Courtesy of Fr. Peter Gumpel 123 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives More evidence that Pope Pius XII helped the Jews. Placard commemorating the Jews who were saved by the charity of Pope Pius XII. Four unpublished articles from the Augustinian nuns who were ordered by Pope Pius XII to shelter the Jews in Rome and testimony from the survivors. 124 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Pope Pius XII’s concern is documented in the journal of the Casa di Villa Lante “Th e Jewish families that Pius XII had hidden in a monastery.” By Giovanni Preziosi—reprinted with permission from L’Osservatore Romano Th e story which we are about to tell begins in the autumn of 1943 where on the other side of the Tevere, between the Vatican walls, discussions were taking place about the logistics of hiding refugees in the Vatican’s extra-territorial structures. Th anks to patient and detailed research in the archives of the Society of the Sacred Heart, a pontifi cal institute on the Gianicolo in Rome, this author was able to uncover the hitherto unknown, Journal of the House “Villa Lante” in which the nuns who lived there scrupulously annotated the day-to-day events of those years. While Hitler was in Germany making plans for exterminating the Jews and the danger of deportations was on the rise, Sister Maria Teresa Gonzales de Castejon was in her room at her convent in Rome, writing in her diary: “We had a catacomb in our garden as a place of refuge. Th is catacomb was very large. A little later some families we knew or friends of our community slept in the refuge of our mother house. We knew that the Holy Father had opened the doors of the Vatican to refugees, especially Jewish ones, to save them from racial persecution. Many religious houses followed his example and Rev. Mothers Datti, Dupont and Perry decided to hide refugees too.” On October 6, 1943, we learn from the Journal of the House, “Villa Lante” an interesting detail: “Reverend Mother (Manuela Vicente) was called to the Vatican. She went with Sister Platania to the Secretariat of State where His Excellency Mons. Montini asked her, in the name of the Holy Father, to house three families that risked, like many others, being taken by the Germans. He even off ered an automobile to take Mother immediately back to the Mother House to ask permission. She went with Rev. Mother Pirelli but did not bring back a full consensus. Th ere were already fi fteen people housed in Betania and the Rev. Mother tried to fi nd other accommodation in order to grant the desire of the Holy Father who deigned to trust her.” On that same day, as documents in the archives of the Offi ce of Strategic Service, declassifi ed some years after the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act attest, the Allied forces learned of a secret dispatch, Cablegram 19 entitled, “Personal. For the Fuhrer and Minister of the Reich,” which told of Hitler’s secret plan for the deportation of 8,000 Roman Jews to German concentration camps to be defi nitely “liquidated.” Th en, on October 11, in an encrypted radio message sent from the head of the Central Offi ce for Security of the Reich, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to Herbert Kappler, we learn that, “It is exactly the complete and immediate eradication of the Jews in Italy which is in the special interest of the present internal political situation and of the general security interest of Italy. Th e longer we wait, the more the Jews, who are no doubt relying on evacuation measures, will have the opportunity to go and hide in the houses of Italians favorable to the Jews and to disappear completely. A few days later, on October 16, 1943, the plan went into action with the ignominious sweep of the Jewish ghetto in Rome. As these documents uncontrovertibly prove, the Allies were perfectly aware of the wicked plan the Germans were about to undertake, and with ten days’ warning! It was necessary, therefore, to act fast and it would not be out of the question to hypothesize that through some diplomatic channel, the Vatican entourage was also made aware of the chilling news. It would be otherwise diffi cult to explain the rapidity with which Pius XII, through Mons. Giovanni Battista Montini, exhorted the Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Manuela Vicente, to arrange adequate refuge in the religious houses in order to shelter the persecuted Jews. At that point, therefore, the Holy See decided the moment had come to open the doors of all of the religious houses and institutes in Rome and off er refuge 125 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives and protection to many Jews who were in serious danger. All the while attempting not to attract attention and to operate in the strictest reserve. An entry of October 11, 1943, in the archive documentation of the sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus reads, “A day of great work on the one hand and great terror on the other! . . . While everyone helps to empty the schoolroom of benches, desks, chalkboards and turn them into bedrooms, below in the porter’s lodge, there is a constant stream of frightened young people who come and ask to be taken in for fear of the Germans who want to deport them to Germany. Th e Rev. Mother and the Mother Bursar go down to comfort, advise, and reassure them: it has been a morning of anxiety and at the same time much maternal goodness and sympathy. Th ere is a stampede: men who fear being taken by the Germans and run to hide themselves or at least try to make sure their wives and children are safe; they ask for refuge in the convents and our Rev. Mother Saladini tries to accommodate them; everyone helps. Th e schoolroom has been made over to welcome entire families with their nurses, in the dining room and the room adjacent, three tables reunite adults and children from two to sixty and older; there are wives and mothers of diplomats, military, former students.” It is interesting to note the chronological coincidence of these events with a Vatican directive of October 25, 1943, revealed by the current Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, which, “furnished direction to house Jews persecuted by the Nazis in all religious institutes, to open the institutes and also the catacombs.” In fact, this document seems already to have been prepared at least by October 12, 1943, as the Journal of the House “Villa Lante” attests: “Special temporary powers have been granted by the Holy See. In reality, many Mother Superiors already knew this. Th e Vatican has made it known that a document was ready, declaring that our Mother House was recognized as part of the Holy See. No request was made, but this protection is very welcome. Th is declaration could be posted in the entry-way to the house.” To avoid the danger of sudden requisitions by the Nazis or Fascists of the convents, monasteries and Institutes where the Jews were hidden, the Holy See delivered the notice written in German and Italian, to be affi xed to the doors of all of the properties, declaring that this building was directly dependent on Vatican City and therefore, any search or requisition was forbidden. In the Journal of “Villa Lante” the sisters note: “Th e document sent by the Holy See was distributed to all of the pontifi cal, religious Mother Houses. Th is will be a safeguard, even though the arrival of the gestapo in Rome is not reassuring. Th e searches seem to be intensifying. Villa Lante has received this document.” Although publicly a rigorous order of silence was imposed by the Vatican—which should not be interpreted as a form of passivity or indiff erence—in reality, from October 1943, as we have shown, the Holy See took measures to impart precise instructions to all convents and churches in Italy, calling on them to open the doors of their religious houses to all those persecuted, and in a special way to the Jews. Culture Vatican City, May 25, 2011 126 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives A diary entry from the Poor Sisters of St. Joseph, Rome October 1943. Th e thunder of cannons blasts all over incessantly on the city’s walls and they keep us always in fear from day to day. Th ey are the German soldiers continuing the war and fi ght bitterly by the Italian soldiers who wish them to be outside of Rome. Th e Germans will win and they will subjugate the city to their furor and everywhere they spread terror and fear. And then the vandalisms, the exporting to Germany of all the Italian goods, the theft of all houses, the hostage of the fathers and sons of families, the persecution of the Jews . . . What a terror! Oh our dear Fatherland what a mess you are in! We trust in God with the pain we are enduring, along with the hunger we suff er. But there is the suave voice from the Vatican that make itself heard. It is the voice of the Great Charity Pope that inspire confi dence and says: Do not fear, the Lord will provide and I will be with you to protect you, to console you, to help you in your needs. Th e program is vast, diffi cult, but the charity that burns in the heart of the Supreme Pontiff is reaching everybody. 127 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives More statements that Pope Pius XII helped the Jews. Msgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, CBE, was an Irish priest and offi cial of the Vatican Curia. During World War II, he was responsible for saving 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews. Due to his ability to evade the traps set by the German Gestapo, Monsignor O’Flaherty earned the nickname “the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican.” Monsignor O’Flaherty hid Jews in monasteries and convents, at Castel Gandolfo, in his old college of the Propaganda Fide, in the German College, and in his network of apartments. Th is earned him another nickname: “Th e Conrad Hilton of the Vatican.” Every evening, he stood in the porch of St. Peter’s, in plain view both of the German soldiers across the Piazza, and of the windows of the Pope’s apartments. Th is priest was part of the Vatican Curia (government) and often directed Jews to Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the Pope. Still, even the fi lm about Monsignor O’Flaherty’s lifesaving eff orts tries to imply that the Pope did not help in this eff ort. Cardinal Paolo Dezza, head of one of the institutions that sheltered Jews, quotes Pius as saying to him: “Avoid helping the military (who were sheltered at another Vatican institution, the Palazzo Callisto) but as for the others, help them willingly, especially help the poor, persecuted Jews.” – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 128 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Hungarian rescuer Tibor Baranski was honored by Yad Vashem as a “Righteous Gentile” for his rescue work in Hungary during World War II. As Executive Secretary of the Jewish Protection Movement of the Holy See, Baranski offi cially saved three thousand Jews. He worked closely with Angelo Rotta, Papal Nuncio in Hungary, during the war (who was also recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile). Baranski makes clear that these lifesaving activities were not the lone actions of himself nor of Nuncio Rotta. “I was really acting in accordance with the orders of Pope Pius XII.” He wrote of the charges that Pius was not involved as “simple lies; nothing else,” and claims that Pius should have done more for the Jews are “slanderous.” Baranski reported that he personally saw at least two letters from Pius XII instructing Rotta to do his very best to protect Jews, but to refrain from making statements that might provoke the Nazis. He added: “Th ese two letters were not written by the authorities at the Vatican, but they were hand-written by Pope Pius himself.” He went on to note that “all other Nuncios of the Nazi-occupied countries received similar letters.” Italian Jews, for instance, were sheltered in monasteries, seminaries, and other church buildings on the “direct instruction of the Vatican.” Baranski explained that for Pius, the fi rst and foremost concern was saving human lives. “It was precisely because (Pius) wanted to help the Jews” that he refrained from making repeated public condemnations. Pius “intervened in a very balanced way,” trying to save lives without provoking retaliation. He did not, however, behave diff erently depending upon the status of the victims. Baranski noted that these same concerns prevented the Pope from making repeated public appeals when the Nazis killed thousands of Catholic priests. Th e Nuncio kept Pius well informed of eff orts undertaken in collaboration with other embassies, including close work with Swedish diplomat and rescuer Raoul Wallenberg, who also was declared a “Righteous Gentile” by Yad Vashem. Baranski, who reported that he was “fantastically near” to Wallenberg, argued that were he alive today, Wallenberg would defend Pope Pius XII and commend the Catholic Church for its work in collaboration with him. “Look, there was not problem or disagreement whatsoever between the Catholic Church and Wallenberg. I personally arranged unoffi cial, private meetings between Wallenberg and Nuncio Rotta.” Baranski reported that Wallenberg “knew Pius was on his side.” Rotta, Baranski, Wallenberg, and Byes “Pius XII worked together as a team. Baranski believed that, like the others, Pius XII should be honored at a Righteous Gentile. - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 129 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Lifesaving help to the Jews of Croatia, Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac’s words and actions. Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac’s words and actions before, during, and after the war show that he was not a nationalist or a racist. In 1936, he sponsored the work of a committee aiding Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. In December 1938, he wrote to priests in Zagreb asking them to help the persecuted Jews. Later that month, he founded Action for Aid for Jewish Refugees, placing the organization under his personal protection. He wrote to wealthy Catholics reminding them that it was their “Christian duty” to support Jewish exiles. During the war, Meir Touval-Weltmann, a member of a commission to help European Jews, wrote a letter of thanks for all that the Holy See had done and enclosed a memorandum which stated: “Dr. Stepinac has done everything possible to aid and ease the unhappy fate of the Jews in Croatia.” In March 1938, addressing a group of university students, Archbishop Stepinac condemned the racist ideologies that were prevailing throughout many parts of Europe: (E)ventually, at death, all racial diff erences disappear. Th erefore, man will not be justifi ed in God’s judgment by belonging to this or that race, but by honest life and good deeds. So if love toward a nation crosses the borders of sound reason, then it is no longer love, but passion, and passion is neither of use, nor lasting . . . Th erefore love toward your own nation is not contradictory to love for the whole of mankind; they complement each other. All of the nations are children of God. Th is was a view that he maintained all of his life. In 1952, he was appointed cardinal by Pope Pius XII. Stepinac died while still under confi nement in his parish, almost certainly as the result of poisoning by his Communist captors. In October 3, 1998, Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr and beatifi ed him before fi ve hundred thousand Croatians in Marija Bistrica near Zagreb. Th is again polarized public opinion. Pius XII’s reputation was impugned after his death, initially in a work of fi ction. Stepinac, on the other hand, was actually put on trial, convicted, and imprisoned by a Communist regime. After Croatia came out from under the thumb of Communism, the fi rst act was to apologize for the phony show-trial and the framing of Cardinal Stepinac. Th e “evidence” put forth in that trial, however, still taints both his reputation and that of Pius XII. - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 130 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Was Pius XII really “Hitler’s Pope”? Dimitri Cavalli, the Jerusalem Post On June 5, 2007, Pope Benedict’s recent visit to Auschwitz helped rekindle the controversy over the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust. Although some Jewish leaders and Catholic writers often condemn Pius XII today, the wartime Jewish press had a favorable opinion of the Pope. In March 1939, many Jewish newspapers in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Jerusalem welcomed Pope Pius’s election and described him as a friend of democracy. In an editorial (March 6, 1939), the Palestine Post, the predecessor of the Jerusalem Post, observed, “Pius XII has clearly shown that he intends to carry on (Pius XI’s) work for freedom and peace . . . we remember that he must have had a large part to play in the recent opposition to pernicious race theories and certain aspects of totalitarianism . . .” On October 27, 1939, the Pope’s fi rst encyclical, “Summi Pontifi catus,” was made public. Th e American Israelite in Cincinnati (November 9, 1939) asserted that the encyclical “contains a ringing denunciation of all forces which put the state above the will of the people, a condemnation of dictators and disseminators of racism who have plunged the world into chaos.” On January 26, 1940, Th e Jewish Advocate in Boston reported, “Th e Vatican radio this week broadcast an outspoken denunciation of German atrocities and persecution in Nazi (occupied) Poland, declaring they aff ronted the moral conscience of mankind.” Th is broadcast graphically described atrocities against Jews and Catholics and gave independent confi rmation to reports about Nazi atrocities, which the Reich previously dismissed as Allied propaganda. On March 14, 1940, London’s the Jewish Chronicle commented on Pius’s fi ve conditions for a “just and honorable peace,” which he articulated in his 1939 Christmas message. Th e Jewish Chronicle described the Pope’s conditions, especially the protection of all racial minorities, as a “welcome feature,” and praised him for fi ghting “for the rights of the common man.” In the same month, Italy’s anti-Semitic laws went into eff ect, and many Jews were dismissed from the government, universities, and other professions. Pius XII responded by appointing several displaced Jewish scholars to posts in the Vatican library. In an editorial, the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle (March 29, 1940), concluded that the Pope’s actions showed “his disapproval of the dastardly anti-Semitic decrees.” On August 28, 1942, the California Jewish Voice hailed Pius XII as a “spiritual ally” of Jews after noting that the Vatican, through its diplomatic representatives, protested the deportations of Jews from France and Slovakia. On August 16, 1943, the Australian Jewish News published a brief article about Pierre Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon, France who protested the deportations of French Jews. Th e newspaper quoted 131 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives the cardinal as saying that he was obeying Pius XII’s orders by opposing the Vichy regime’s anti-Semitic measures. On October 17, 1943, the Nazis began to arrest Jews in Rome. On October 29, 1943, the Jewish Chronicle wrote, “Th e Vatican has made strong representations to the German Government and the German High Command in Italy against the persecutions of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Italy . . .” Along with the Vatican’s protests, thousands of Jews found refuge in Rome’s convents, monasteries, and the Vatican itself. In June 1944, the Allies liberated Rome, and Pius XII protested the deportations of Hungarian Jews. “With Rome liberated, it has been determined, indeed, that 7,000 of Italy’s 40,000 Jews owe their lives to the Vatican,” and on July 27, 1944, the American Israelite editorialized. “Placing these golden deeds alongside the intercession of Pope Pius XII with the Regent of Hungary in behalf in behalf of the Hungarian Jews, we feel an immense degree of gratitude toward our Catholic brethren.” On October 8, 1958, Pope Pius XII died. Many Jewish newspapers around the world eulogized him, recalling his wartime opposition to Nazism and role in saving Jews. In an editorial, the Jerusalem Post stated that “Jews will recall the sympathetic references to their suff erings contained in many of his pronouncements, the refuge from Nazi terror which he gave to many in the Vatican during the last war, and the very cordial way he received his Jewish visitors.” On November 6, 1958, In Winnipeg, Canada, William Zukerman wrote that no other leader “did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy, during the Nazi occupation of Europe, than the late Pope.” In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Jewish editors and reporters had no fears about condemning Fr. Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio broadcaster, and Catholic youth gangs in the Bronx and Boston who frequently assaulted Jews. Th is much is clear: the contemporary Jewish press repeatedly gave Pius XII favorable coverage from 1939 to 1958. - Dimitri Cavalli, based in New York City, is working on a book about Pope Pius XII. 132 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Articles revealing that Pope Pius XII helped the Jews. “Th e Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together.” – Pinchas E. Lapide, Th e Israeli Consul in Italy “Th ere probably was not a single ruler of our generation who did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy.” – Th e Jerusalem Post (Winnipeg) 1940 Th e New York Times obituary indicating how Cardinal Verdier worked to help the Jews, like Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. 133 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Documentation that Pope Pius XII helped the Jews. Th e Catholic Church provided papers indicating Latin American citizenship to many Jews in occupied France. When the papers were discovered to be fraudulent, the Latin American countries withdrew recognition of them. Th is made the Jews subject to deportation to the concentration camps. Pursuant to a request from the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and working in conjunction with the International Red Cross, the Vatican contacted the countries involved and urged them to recognize the documents, “no matter how illegally obtained.” Msgr. John Carroll-Abbing wrote of being inspired by the “luminous sublime example of the Holy Father.” He also reported about assistance being given to Jews and the Pope’s order that “no one was to be refused” shelter. In fact, in an interview given shortly before his death, Carroll-Abbing said: “I can personally testify to you that the Pope gave me direct face-to-face verbal orders to rescue Jews.” Asked about the thesis that rescuers like him acted without papal involvement, he denied it and added: But it wasn’t just me. It was also the people I worked with: Father Pfeiff er and Father Benoît and my assistant, Monsignor Vitucci and Cardinals Dezza and Pallazzini, and of course Cardinals Maglione and Montini and Tardini. We didn’t simply assume things; we acted on the direct orders of the Holy father. – Carroll-Abbing A Chance to Live at 77 No one at the time thought Pius XII’s reputation would need to be protected. As rescuer John Patrick Carroll- Abbing wrote in his 1965 book: Never, in those tragic days, could I have foreseen, even in my wildest imagining, that the man who, more than any other, had tried to alleviate human suff ering, had spent himself day by day in his unceasing eff orts for peace, would—twenty years later—be made the scapegoat for men trying to free themselves from their own responsibilities and from the collective guilt that obviously weighs so heavily upon them. – Carroll-Abbing, But for the Grace of God at 48 134 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Testimony from Sr. Ida Greco. Translation - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione I, Sr. Ida Greco, resident at Via delle Bitteghe Oscure, in 1942 during the period of Nazi occupation of Rome, declare that in that period everyone knew that the Holy Father, Pius XII gave orders to open the doors of all the convents to hide Jews. I recall that the Vatican used to send food to help us feed the 60 Jewish guests. Sr. Ida Greco 30 July 2007 Witnessed by: Sr. Margarita Domino Sr. Ida Greco, who in 1943–44 was stationed at Botteghe Oscure, and helped prepared meals for the many Jews hidden there, signed the following testimonial July 30, 2007: “I, Sister Ida Greco, was a resident at Via Botteghe Oscure, 42, during the Nazi occupation of Rome. I can confi rm that in those days we knew that the Holy Father had given orders to all superiors to open the doors of convents and monasteries to all Jews and other refugees. I remember that I helped prepare meals and that I was there when the Vatican sent us food to help feed the 60 Jewish guests.” 135 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Letters of gratitude from Jews sheltered by the Teaching Sisters Filippini during the occupation, under the orders of Pope Pius XII. - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione 136 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Series of documents where Vatican Secretary of State negotiates visas for three thousand “non-Aryan Catholics.” One thousand visas were given to the Vatican and used. Two thousand were given to the Brazilian Ambassador in Germany and were allowed to expire unused. Pius XII used his personal fortune to fi nance these desperate eff orts to save Jews. Since Brazil, United States, Canada, and many other nations would not allow any Jews to emigrate, the Vatican issued baptismal papers and called them “non-Aryan Catholic” Jews. If they were baptized, they would have been called “Catholics.” Th e church used every means at its disposal to aid in the emigration of as many Jews as possible. As Pius XII stated, “to save this vibrant Jewish community.” 137 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Documentation that Pope Pius XII helped the Jews. Th e Christmas message of December 24, 1942, so off ended the Nazi command that they stated, “In a manner never before known, the Pope has repudiated the National Socialistic Order. In this declaration he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice towards the Jews and making himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.” Pius XII’s hand-corrected 1942 Christmas message to the College of Cardinals. On December 4, 1938, Vatican Secretary of State Pacelli sent this letter to the Apostolic Delegate to the United States. He used “trickery” to support “Catholic Jewish” immigration. Had these Jews been baptized and converted, they would have simply been called Catholics. 138 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives 139 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives On November 29, 1945, Pius XII met with a delegation of seventy Jewish survivors, who came to thank Pope Pius XII for the generosity and help he showed them during the war. Th ey were sent by the United Jewish Appeal. Statement of Pope Pius XII to the Jewish audience—November 29, 1945: Your presence, gentlemen, is an eloquent refl ection on the psychological changes, the new directions that the war has brought to maturity. Th e gulfs of discord and hate, the folly of persecution, which were created among peoples and races by false and intolerant doctrines, opposed to human and Christian spirit, have devoured many innocent victims, including noncombatants. Th e Apostolic See, faithful to the principles of natural right inscribed by God in every human heart, revealed on Sinai and perfected by the Sermon on the Mount, has never left in doubt at any moment however critical that is repudiated those ideas which history will list among the most deplorable and dishonorable travesties of human thought and feeling. La vostra presenza, November 29, 1945. Extracts were published in the Tablet, December 8, 1945. Quoted in Purdy at 262; Acta Apostolicae Sedis 37 (December 23, 1945) at 317–18; L’Osservatore Romano, November 30, 1945, at 1; the Tablet, December 8, 1945, at 277. See also Pius XII’s address to representatives of the United Jewish Appeal, on relief work in Europe and Palestine, February 9, 1948, L’Osservatore Romano, February 9–10, 1948; the Tablet, February 14, 1948, at 105; the New York Times, February 10, 1948, at 13. See Jewish Leaders Have Papal Audience, Catholic World, January 1946, at 370. 140 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Pius explained: “the Church, remembering her religious mission, must maintain a wise reserve about particular questions of political and territorial character. But this does not prevent her proclaiming the great principles of humanity and brotherhood which must underlie the solutions of such questions.” Th e Pope went on to note that “In your own persons you have felt the evil and harm of hatred, but in the midst of your trials you have also experienced and benefi ted from the consolation of love…that love which does not draw its inspiration and nourishment from earthly sources, but from a profound faith in the eternal Father Whose sun shines upon all of every tongue and race . . .” Note: According to a 1958 Jerusalem Post interview with Dr Guido Mendes, Pope Pius XII’s childhood Orthodox Jewish friend, the Pope stated privately to the displaced Jews at the end of this audience, “Soon you will have a Jewish State”; this was three years before the creation of the state of Israel. On the left is the handwritten note that Pope Pius XII used for his speech to the Jewish survivors. 141 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Below is a small sampling of the scope and diversity of the 76,000 pages of documents we have posted on our website. It is hoped that your curiosity will be piqued and you will visit www.ptwf.org to begin your own research. Th e Jewish News article from June 12, 1942, declares Vatican helps the Jews of Italy. Jewish Polish writer thanks the Pope for his support of the Jewish community who asked for help. Secretary of State drafts a forty-two-page letter to the German Ambassador complaining about German violations to the Concordat and answers German accusations. Th is includes arrests of priests and nuns without due process, or allowing them to have counsel, and the German press making anti-Catholic media coverage. June 12, 1942 November 23, 1938 January 26, 1936 142 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Vatican documents of a German Jewish man, Franz Knuppel, asking for Vatican help on being forced to leave his home in France. Secretary of State documents listing Catholic lay people and priests in Nazi prisons. Th ese priests all made public anti-Nazis statements, and Pacelli asked the dioceses for this information. Special report of the history of National Socialism in Germany sent to Cardinal Pacelli. December 10, 1928 December 28, 1935 July 14, 1937 143 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Nuncio to Germany, Archbishop Orsenigo, writes to Cardinal Pacelli to inform him of the changes in anti-Semitism in Germany. He states that because this is now a policy of the government, they must try to rephrase the Holy See’s eff orts to apply Catholic charity to the persecuted. Intervention of Pius XII to save the Jews in Slovakia. An explanation from the book written by Fr. Pierre Blet regarding the eff orts in 1940–1944 to stop the deportation of the Jews. Included are copies of or citations to documents from the Actes Et Documents Du Saint Siege relatifs A La Seconde Guerre Mondiale. - Courtesy of William Doino Jr. Inside the Vatican magazine interview with Fr. Aldo Brunacci. He discusses the secret letter sent to Bishop Nicolini from the Vatican Secretary of State instructing them to do anything possible to assist the Jews. - Courtesy of Dr. Robert Moynihan April 9, 1933 144 Pius XII and the Catholic Church Eff orts to Save Jewish Lives Th ere are 2,335 pages of correspondence between the Archbishop of Campagna, Jewish protectees, and the Vatican Secretary of State, with backup documentation dealing with Jewish requests for visas, fi nancial aid, and other needs. Th ese documents are from the war years and were obtained at St. Francesco, a Folloni Monastery in Montella, (Avellino) Italy. Th is letter informs Pacelli about two French press articles describing the strong position against racism taken by Cardinal Schuster of Milan (Italy), the Archbishop of Malines (Belgium) and Cardinal Verdier (France). Th e articles also quotes stories from L’Osservatore Romano denouncing racist theories. Secretary of State correspondence with the Archbishop of Munich, and handwritten notes dealing with Pacelli’s fi rm stand against the Nazis and violations of the Concordat. Secretary of State documents dealing with Hitler’s visit to Italy. Pope Pius XI and Cardinal Pacelli closed the Vatican and left Rome while Hitler visited because “the air was foul in Rome.” August 27, 1938 November 21, 1938 April 29, 1938 145 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude 146 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Today, the postwar generation of the Jewish communities of Italy are the loudest and most persistent in condemning Pope Pius XII. Th is wasn’t always the case. Th e Italian Jews, who actually lived through the war, erected this placard placed by the Th ird Congress of the Italian Israelite Communities to honor Pope Pius XII—March 1946. – Courtesy of Dr. Robert Moynihan Inside Vatican Magazine TRANSLATION Th e Jewish to His Holiness Pius XII “Th e Congress of Delegates of the Italian Israelite communities, held in Rome for the fi rst time after the Liberation, is obliged to pay tribute to Your Holiness, and to express the deepest sense of gratitude from all Jews, for the show of human brotherhood by the Church during the years of persecution and when their lives were put in danger by the Nazi-Fascist atrocities. Many times, sacerdotes endured prison and concentration camps and even sacrifi ced their lives to aid the Jews. Such proof that the sense of goodness and charity still drives the just has served to lessen the shame of the indignities endured, the torment of the losses millions of human beings suff ered. Israel has not fi nished suff ering: the Jews will always remember that the Church, under orders from the Popes, did for them in that dreadful time.” Motion approved by the Th ird Congress of the Italian Israelite Communities held in March 1946. 147 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude “Pius XII played a leading role in the struggle against Hitler and against communism in eastern Europe.” “He was the principal author of his predecessor’s 1937 encyclical condemning Nazism.” December 24, 2009 - Serge Klarsfeld Romanian activist known for engaging in Holocaust documentation and anti-Nazi activism In 1955, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, which was composed of Jewish refugees from many nations, toured Italy. Th e orchestra performed a concert at the Vatican on May 26, 1955. According to the Jerusalem Post (May 29, 1955), “Conductor Paul Klecki had requested that the Orchestra on its fi rst visit to Italy play for the Pope as a gesture of gratitude for the help his Church had given to all those persecuted by Nazi Fascism.” Kletzki said it was being done “in recognition of the grand opening of humanitarian actions accomplished by His Holiness to save a great number of Jews during the 2nd World War.” - Courtesy of Dimitri Cavalli 148 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude From the Jewish Veteran magazine April 1939 comments on the election of Eugenio Pacelli as Pope: Th e article above appeared in March 1939 in the Jewish Veterans magazine. Note that the tributes in the March and April issue of Jewish Veterans magazine came after many much-discussed and debated events (including the Concordat). Th e Jewish veterans had a full decade to size up Pacelli’s record as papal secretary of state. Had they had the slightest apprehensions about him, or objected to something he had said or done, they would have said so, just as they raised alarm about the notorious Charles Coughlin, who resented Pacelli and whom Pacelli, in fact, ultimately disciplined. (When Pacelli came to America in 1936, he snubbed Coughlin; but he did meet with Jewish leaders, promising to help reinforce the papal condemnation of anti-Semitism in 1916, which is rarely cited.) “Hail Pope Pius XII! Th e anti-Semitic clique in the Fascist party, headed by Roberto Farinacci, was shocked by the election of Cardinal Pacelli by unanimous vote in the third ballot, as the new Pope. His election is however a source of great satisfaction to Jews. Pope Pius XII is known as a staunch friend of Jews in Germany and Italy. In accordance with his instructions, as Papal Secretary to the late Pope Pius XI, distinguished Jewish visitors to the Vatican were served with kosher food. Known as a vigorous champion of the Vatican’s anti-Nazi policy, the anti-Semitic Fascists tried hard to prevent Cardinal Pacelli’s election. Th eir failure demonstrates the lack of infl uence of anti-Semites in the princes of the Catholic Church.” 149 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII: “Th e Holy See off ers powerful help everywhere, where it is possible, to alleviate the religious persecuted of my comrades.” – Chaim Weizmann Later fi rst President of Israel, 1943 In September 1945, Leon Kubowitzy, Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress, personally thanked the Pope for his various interventions. He donated, on behalf of the Congress, works $20,000 to the Vatican “in recognition of the assistance given by the Holy See Jews persecuted by fascism and Nazism.” On August 2, 1943, the World Jewish Congress sent the following message to Pius: World Jewish Congress respectfully expresses gratitude to Your Holiness for your gracious concern for innocent peoples affl icted by the calamities of war and appeals to Your Holiness to use your high authority by suggesting Italian authorities may remove as speedily as possible to Southern Italy or other safer areas twenty thousand Jewish refugees and Italian nationals now concentrated in internment camps . . . and so prevent their deportation and similar tragic fate which has befallen Jews in Eastern Europe. Our terror-stricken brethren look to Your Holiness as the only hope for saving them from persecution and death. – Mr. Alex Easterman au Pape Pie XII August 2, 1943 Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 417, no. 282 150 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Robert M. W. Kempner, the Jewish prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, remembers his experience. He said: “Every propaganda move of the Catholic Church against Hitler’s Reich would have been not only ‘provoking suicide,’ but would have hastened the execution of still more Jews and priests.” – Robert M. W. Kempner Jewish Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials “With special gratitude we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods of their entire history.” – Nahum Goldmann President of the World Jewish Congress Holocaust survivors, such as the Chief Rabbi of Denmark, argued that “if the Pope had spoken out, Hitler would probably have massacred many more than six million Jews and perhaps a hundred million Catholics if he had the power.” – Chief Rabbi of Denmark, Marcus Melchior 151 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII: “We share in the grief of humanity at the passing away of His Holiness Pope Pius XII. In a generation aff ected by wars and discords, he upheld the highest ideals of peace and compassion. When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. Th e life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily confl ict. We mourn a great servant of peace.” – Golda Meir, October 9, 1958 “Th e people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion, which form the very foundation of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world.” – Chief Rabbi Herzog of Palestine Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, March 1945 Father to the future President of Israel In July 1943, Chief Rabbi Herzog wrote to Cardinal Maglione on behalf of Egyptian Jews expressing thanks for the Holy See’s charitable work in Europe and asking for assistance for Jews in Poland. In November 1943, Chief Rabbi Herzog wrote: “I well know that His Holiness the Pope is opposed from the depths of his noble soul to all persecution and especially to the persecution . . . which the Nazis infl ict unremittingly on the Jewish people . . . I take this opportunity to express . . . my sincere thanks as well as my deep appreciation . . . of the invaluable help given by the Catholic Church to the Jewish people in its affl iction” (Le Grand Rabbin Herzog au Délégué Apostilique à Istanbul Roncalli, November 22, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 575, no. 436.) On February 26, 1944, Archbishop Roncalli wrote to Cardinal Maglione to request that he grant an audience for a delegation of Jews headed by Rabbi Herzog to come to Rome to personally thank Pope Pius XII for his intercession in Romania. Th e Pope interceded to aid fi fty-fi ve thousand Jews in Transnistria (Actes et Documents.) 152 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude “In the most diffi cult hours of which we Jews of Romania have passed through, the generous assistance of the Holy See . . . was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to fi nd the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme pontiff , who off ered a large sum to relieve the suff erings of deported Jews . . . Th e Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance.” Dr. Safran, Chief Rabbi of Romania, estimated that four hundred thousand Jews of Romania saved from deportation by the opening of St. Raphael organized by Pius XII. He said, “Th e Pope’s mediation saved the Jews from disaster, a time where the deportation of Romanians was decided” Pius XII Against the Nazis by Charles Klein, SOS 1975) The Pope’s efforts on behalf of Jewish people were beginning to be noticed. On November 5, the Catholic Review ran a story on the Pope’s efforts under the title “Holy See is Eager to Rescue Hebrews.” Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron, writing in the Baltimore Synagogue Bulletin, affi rmed that “The Pope has condemned anti-Semitism and all its works. Bishops of the Church have appeared in the streets. . . with the Shield of David on their arms. . . Indeed, many priests and ministers have been jailed and not a few killed in their effort to protect Jews.” As reported on Christmas Day by the Tablet (London), Rabbi Lazaron went on to say, ”… it is more than a mere reciprocal gesture which prompts our prayers for His Holiness. We can place ourselves in the position of our Catholic friends. . . We link our prayers with theirs. May God protect and keep His Holiness in strength and all good.” – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 153 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII On December 23, 1940, Albert Einstein stated the following in Time magazine: Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the case of truth; but no, the universities immediately were silenced. Th en I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose fl aming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom. But they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks . . . Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great aff ection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess, that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly. – Albert Einstein Jenö Levai, the leading scholar of the Jewish extermination in Hungary, observed that it was a particularly regrettable irony that that one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others. “Th e papal Nuncio and the bishops intervened again and again on the instructions of the Pope, and that as a result of these labors in the autumn and winter of 1944, there was practically no Catholic Church institution in Budapest where persecuted Jews did not fi nd refuge.” – Jenö Levai Jewish historian Hungarian Jewry and the Papacy: Pius XII Did Not Remain Silent (1965) 154 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude One of the closest friends of young Eugenio Pacelli was an orthodox Jewish boy, Guido Mendes, who cultivated Pacelli’s love for the Jewish people. Th ey attended high school together and would visit each other’s homes regularly. Pacelli would share Shabbat meals with the Mendes family, as he was considered a member of the family. He learned to speak some Hebrew and would borrow many books by prominent Rabbinic scholars from Guido Mendes. Ambassador Meir (Michael) Mendes, son of Dr. Guido Mendes, wrote this book in French, describing the lifesaving eff orts of Cardinal Pacelli. In 1983, the book was published in Hebrew by Hebrew University. In 1938, now a physician Dr. Mendes was fi red due to the Italian racial laws. Cardinal Pacelli wanted to hire him and move him to Argentina for safety. Mendes chose to go to Palestine instead. It was Cardinal Pacelli who sent him to Switzerland and arranged for the necessary visas for his immigration to Palestine. 155 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII, “Pope Pius XII deserves thanks not blame.” – Sir Martin Gilbert Internationally recognized historian and scholar on World War II and Offi cial Biographer of Sir Winston Churchill In a London address to England’s Council of Christians and Jews, Gilbert stated: “Pius XII, whose Vatican is greatly criticized these days for inaction and failure, gave his personal order on the eve of the German deportation of Jews from Rome, to open the sanctuaries of the Vatican City to all Jews who could reach it. Within a few hours as Gestapo units scoured the city rounding up Jews, 477 had found shelter in the Vatican, in its enclaves, and a further 4,000 were given sanctuary in the monasteries and convents of Rome, thereby saved from deportation to Auschwitz. As a result of the Pope’s order and of the Catholic clergy’s rapid response in Rome, of Rome’s 6,700 Jews only 1,015 were actually deported, of whom only 16 survived the war. Th e papal action, which I do not fi nd mentioned in the current ‘J’Accuse’-style debates, saved more than 4,000 lives.” (Common Ground, 1998, Volume 2) From Sir Martin Gilbert’s book Th e Righteous 156 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide knew both Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. He was the author of at least nine books, and he wrote extensively on religious aff airs for journals throughout the world. In World War II, he fought with the British Eighth Army in the North African and Italian campaigns. While serving in southern Italy, he found a group of peasant converts to Judaism, and he spent twenty years serving as their spiritual advisor. His book Th e Prophet of San Nicandro, which tells this story, was translated and published in eight diff erent languages. Th e Jewish Book Guild of America awarded him a literary prize for it. Lapide also worked for a time with the Prime Minister’s offi ce in Jerusalem. He also wrote A Pilgrim’s Guide to Israel and An Israeli’s Introduction to Christianity, both of which helped the interfaith movement in Israel. Pius XII’S intervention saved between 847,000 and 882,000 Jews. France: 200,000 Belgium: 65,000 Hungary: 200,000 Italy: 55,000 Romania: 250,000 Balkans: 12,000 Poland: 15,000–50,000 Netherlands: 25,000 Slovakia: 25,000 Total: 847,000–882,000 “Pius XI had good reason to make Pacelli (the future Pius XII) the architect of his anti-Nazi policy. Of the forty-four speeches which the Nuncio Pacelli had made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least forty contained attacks on Nazism or condemnations of Hitler’s doctrines. Pacelli, who never met the Führer, called it ‘neo-Paganism.’” –Pinchas E. Lapide Israeli Ambassador and Historian 157 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII, In April of the same year, Moshe Sharett, who later became the second Prime Minister of Israel, visited Pius and told him that his fi rst duty was to thank him, and through him the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews. – Moshe Sharett Second Prime Minister of Israel “Six million of my religious comrades were murdered by the Nazis, but it would have so many more victims without the active intervention of Pius XII.” – Dr. Raff ael Cantoni President of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy “In relation to the insane behavior of the Nazis, from overlords to self-styled cogs like Eichmann, he [Pius XII] did everything humanly possible to save lives and alleviate suff ering among the Jews; that a formal statement would have provoked the Nazis to brutal retaliation, and would substantially have thwarted further Catholic action on behalf of Jews.” – Dr. Joseph Lichten A Polish Jew who served as a diplomat and later an offi cial of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in Rome. Written in his book A Question of Judgment (1963) 158 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Michael Tagliacozzo, Director of the Italian section at Holocaust center Beth Lohamè Haghettaot - Th e Ghetto Fighters’ House in Kibbutz Lohamei Haghetaot Western Galilee Israel and a leading authority on Roman Jews during the Holocaust, states, “I know that many criticize Pope Pacelli. I have a folder on my table in Israel entitled ‘Calumnies Against Pius XII,’ but my judgment cannot but be positive. Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on Oct. 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us. It was no small matter that he ordered the opening of cloistered convents. Without him, many of our own would not be alive.” – Michael Tagliacozzo Michael Tagliacozzo was saved by Cardinal Pietro Palazzini who was honored as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Accepting this honor, Palazzini said: “All credit goes to Pius XII, who asked us to do everything we can to save Jews from persecution.” Please watch the video interview of Michael Tagliacozzo at http://www.barhama.com/PAVETHEWAY/4.html Th e only historian authorized to study US espionage fi les from World War II, Richard Breitman noted that secret documents prove the extent to which “Berlin distrusted the Holy See because it hid Jews.” Breitman’s statements refute the thesis of those who at present speak of Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope.” He confi rms the role played by Pius XII in defending and safeguarding the persecuted during the Nazi regime. He also remarked that the documents denoted how the Nazis considered that the Vatican was on the side of the Allies. – Richard Breitman Professor of History, American University 159 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Pius XII Rehabilitated by Jewish Historian. New Documents Prove Nazis Distrusted Him for Helping Jews ROME, JULY 8, 2000 (ZENIT.org News Agency).—“Hitler distrusted the Holy See because it hid Jews,” stated Jewish historian Richard Breitman. He has written 5 books, one of which is on the Holocaust, and another on Nazism. Breitman confi rms the role played by Pius XII in defending and safeguarding the persecuted during the Nazi regime. Th e professor at American University in Washington, is a consultant for the working group for the restitution of Jewish property, which group has obtained the declassifi cation of the OSS dossier. In an interview with the Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” on June 29, Breitman (who to date is the only person authorized to study the OSS documents of US espionage during the Second World War), explained that the documents “are only the tip of the iceberg. Over the next 3 years, additional millions of pages will be made public. But what impressed him most in regard to Italy, was German hostility toward the Pope, and the September 1943 plan to “Germanize” the country. Breitman also found “the Allied silence on the Holocaust surprising. Th eir fi rst testimonies are from the end of 1942 . . .” Asked about relations between Pius XII and the Germans, Breitman responded: “In general, the Germans considered the Pope as an enemy. In a telegram, someone suggested to play on his old anti-communism, to induce him to ‘understand’ Nazism, and to take him from Rome to the north: the Vatican and Germany would have formed a common front against the USSR, and the Vatican would fall under Berlin’s control. But the proposal was rejected because the majority knew that Pius XII would never leave Rome, and that the Vatican was on the side of the Allies.” How did they know it? “Th e Nazis had spies in the Vatican. Among their dispatches deciphered by our espionage one spoke of an Allied plan to disembark in Sardinia, another of the departure of a diplomatic train with Jews on board, transported from Rome to Spain. Only the Vatican was up-to-date, the Nazi ‘moles’ told general Karl Wolff , SS chief in Italy. Berlin distrusted the Pope and the Vatican, because it knew they hid Jews.” Breitman’s statements in part deny the thesis of those who at present speak of Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope” and, at the same time, confi rm the hypotheses, advanced at other times by Catholic historians and researchers, according to whom the OSS documents and those of the corresponding British secret service, would result in demonstrating how great and meritorious was the action carried out by the Vatican in favor of the persecuted. Sadly, the respective US and British dispatches have to date denied Catholic historians permission to see these documents but, sooner or later, truth will end up in the public domain. 160 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Jewish Historian Praises Pius XII’s Wartime Conduct. Michael Tagliacozzo Works at a Center for Holocaust Studies Michael Tagliacozzo currently directs the Italian Section at Beth Lohamè Haghettaot [Bet Lochame Ha- Ghettaot—Th e Ghetto Fighters’ House], one of the main museums and study centers existing near Carmel in Israel. VATICAN CITY, OCT. 25, 2000 (ZENIT.org). Th e closed-door meeting of the Judeo-Christian Historical Commission, which has been meeting in Rome since Monday 23, ends today. Th e commission was established last October by Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, president of the Committee for Religious Relations with Jews, to examine the 11 volumes of archives documents relating to the Holy See’s activities during the Second World War. In recent years Pius XII and the Holy See have been accused of not doing enough to save Jews persecuted by the Nazis. To shed light on the Pope’s role in this part of the war, ZENIT interviewed Jewish historian Michael Tagliacozzo, responsible for the Beth Lohame Haghettaot (Center of Studies on the Shoah and Resistance) in Italy. Beth Lohame Haghettaot in western Galilee in Israel is one of the world’s largest museums and centers of documentation on the Holocaust. Tagliacozzo: I know that many criticize Pope Pacelli. I have a folder on my table in Israel entitled “Calumnies Against Pius XII,” but my judgment cannot but be positive. Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on Oct. 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us. It was no small matter that he ordered the opening of cloistered convents. Without him, many of our own would not be alive. ZENIT: Some maintain that the Holy See looked on in silence while Roman Jews were deported on Oct. 16, 1943. Tagliacozzo: It’s not true. Th e documents clearly prove that, in the early hours of the morning, Pius XII was informed of what was happening and he immediately had German Ambassador von Weizsäcker called and ordered State Secretary Luigi Maglione to energetically protest the Jews’ arrest, asking that similar actions be stopped. If this had not happened, the Pope would have denounced it publicly. In addition, by his initiative he had a letter of protest sent through Bishop Aloise Hudal to the military commander in Rome, General Rainer Stahel, requesting that the persecution of Jews cease immediately. As a result of these protests, the operation providing for two days of arrests and deportations was interrupted at 2 p.m. the same day. Instead of the 8,000 Jews Hitler requested, 1,259 were arrested. After meticulous examination of identity documents and other papers of identifi cation, the following day an additional 259 people were released. Moreover, after the manhunt in Rome on Oct. 16, the Germans did not capture a single Jew. 161 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Th ose who were arrested were handed over by collaborators. During the trial, Herbert Kappler said: “Th e Jews were not handed over.” ZENIT: You maintain that there were people who opposed persecution in the German army and diplomacy. Tagliacozzo: From the material in the archive it can be deduced that General Stahel and German Consul Eitel Frederick Moellhausen—no sooner had they learned about the extremely secret dispatch in which Himmler ordered the arrest of all Jews in Rome and their transportation to Germany for liquidation-were vehemently opposed. Stahel said he would never take part in such nastiness. Moellhausen exerted pressure on Kappler to raise the matter with commander in chief Albert Kesserling. Moellhausen was a practicing Catholic; he regarded the deportation of Jews as useless and inhuman and, in order to convince Kesserling, raised questions regarding the political and military in opportuneness of the deportation. Kesserling, who feared an imminent Allied disembarkation on the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea, denied his soldiers’ availability to arrest Jews. Th us, on Oct. 16, 1943, Kappler had to use 365 SS members to make the raid. ZENIT: Why was the Roman community so ill prepared for the Nazi raid? Tagliacozzo: Th e representatives of Judaism and with them, the leaders of the Roman Jewish community, showed the same defects as the Italian ruling class, and they failed at the moment of trial. In the book Before the Dawn, Zolli recounts that in mid-September of 1943, in the course of a community meeting, he [the then Chief Rabbi Israel Zoller] proposed to dissolve the community, pay employees’ salaries six months in advance, and hide himself. However, President Ugo Foa, a solid man, said that Zolli was an alarmist and that nothing would happen. Th e minutes of that meeting cannot be found now. Zolli wasn’t the only one worried. I have found the testimony of Amadio Fatucci, who had the courage to stop the president of the community and said: “Mr. President, need we fear?” Foa replied: “Th e authorities have no interest against the people, and the people must be tranquil. When people are tranquil, the authorities do not intervene.” Foa’s conduct was serious in the circumstance of the raid. On the morning of Oct. 18, while the Nazis had the deported enter train wagons, the president took his children and escaped to Livorno. He returned on Nov. 2, having done nothing to fi nd out what happened to those deported. On that occasion, the community demonstrated an unconscious superfi ciality and foolish incomprehension of the dangers and surprises of the new situation. ZENIT: Some scholars deny that there were instructions from the Pope to help the Jews. Tagliacozzo: Th ere was much confusion in those days, but all knew that the Pope and the Church would have helped us. 162 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII, Documents of the American Jewish Committee acknowledge the eff orts of Pope Pius XII to save Jewish lives during the war. Th is memo is in preparation for an audience with the Pope, July 1957. Th e AJC looked for papal intervention to combat Soviet promotion of anti-Semitism in Europe. Th e assistance of Pope Pius XII was so well known that in 1955, at the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Liberation, the Union Israelites Communities proclaimed April 17 as “the day of gratitude” for assistance provided by the Pope during the war. 163 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Pius issued scores of protests—both public and private—in his fi rst encyclical and Christmas addresses, in meetings with German representatives, in letters to bishops, in L’Osservatore Romano, through Vatican Radio, and in many audiences. Th ese statements and diplomatic interventions continued even when the Nazis entered Rome. Maurice Edelman, president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, Member Labor said: “Th e intervention of Pope Pius XII helped save tens of thousands of Jews during the war.” – Maurice Edelman President of the Anglo-Jewish Association Gazette de Liège 03/01/1964 “Th e repeated interventions of the Holy Father on behalf of Jewish Communities in Europe has evoked the profoundest sentiments of appreciation and gratitude from Jews throughout the world.” – Rabbi Maurice Perlzweig Political Director of the World Jewish Congress Written February 18, 1944, in a letter to Msgr. Amleto Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, DC Rabbi Harold J. Saperstein speaks of his experience entering Rome as a Jewish chaplain in the armed forces and the statements from the Jewish community of Rome made directly to him of how Pope Pius XII intervened to save their lives (Witness from the Pulpit by Rabbi Harold J. Saperstein). – Rabbi Harold J. Saperstein edited by his son Marc Saperstein (Lanham: Lexington Books 2002) 164 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII, Th is article reports a message of appreciation from the commission of the Israelite Community to the Italian Jews. From the ADSS June 29, 1943, the Grand Rabbi of Egypt expresses his profound gratitude for the generosity of the Holy See in protecting the European Jews and to intercede to prevent the Jews in Campagna from being deported. Th e article (left) dated January 5, 1946, relates how Reubin Resnick, Director of the American Committee to Help Jews in Italy, praised the eff orts of the Catholic Church for Jews during the war. - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione 165 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Dr. Elio Toaff , Chief Rabbi of Rome, 1951–2002. “More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the great kindness, fi lled with compassion and magnanimity that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of persecution and terror.” – Elio Toaff Chief Rabbi of Rome Dr. Elio Toaff , Chief Rabbi of Rome, said, “Th e Jews remember forever, for what the Catholic Church has done for them by order of the Pope at a time of racial persecution. When world war raged Pius XII often voted to condemn the false theory of races.” He added, “Many priests were imprisoned and sacrifi ced their lives to help the Jews” (Le Monde 10.10. 1958). In response to our worldwide request for documentation, we received the following statement from Zevi Luciana. Although we cannot authenticate the accuracy of this statement, it is notarized. Declaration of Zevi Luciana Th e undersigned Zevi Luciana, born in Castelmaasa (RO), July 20, 1937, declare that in 1947, I traveled to Rome to visit my aunt and my uncle. During my visit we had a private audience with Pope Pius XII. My uncle Zevi Carlo who is Jewish, recognized Pope Pius XII as the friar who saved him from the criminal Nazis. Th e Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini silenced my uncle and told him not to say this to anyone about this event. Present at the audience was my uncles Carlo, with his daughter Vanda, my father Zevi Umberto Primo, my mother Bartella Paolina, a Catholic and the undersigned Zevi Luciana. I take this opportunity to send you photos of the medals as a souvenir received by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini. Yours truly, Mrs. Zevi Luciana 166 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII, “What the Vatican did will be indelibly and eternally engraved in our hearts. Priests and even high prelates did things that will forever be an honor to Catholicism.” – Rabbi Zolli Former Chief Rabbi of Rome, 1948 Chief Rabbi of Rome Zolli held this offi ce from 1939 to 1945. After the war, he converted to Roman Catholicism, taking on the name Eugenio Zolli in honor of Pope Pius XII. Soon after Rabbi Zolli converted, his wife converted, as well, and she took the name Eugenia in homage to the secret work of Pope Pius XII. – Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione 167 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Th e Chief Rabbi of Rome reported: No hero in history has commanded such an army; an army of priests works in cities and small towns to provide bread for the persecuted and passports for the fugitives. Nuns go into canteens to give hospitality to women refugees. Superiors of convents go out into the night to meet German soldiers who look for victims . . . Pius XII is followed by all with the fervor of that charity that fears no death. Convents were normally closed to outsiders. Th ese rules were very strict and could not have been violated without instructions from high Church authorities. At fi rst, refugees were kept in common areas, out of the cloistered rooms, but as more and more people sought protection from the Germans, all rooms were opened. Still, however, everyone in the convents and monasteries had to abide with strict separation of the sexes rules. As a result, most Jewish families were split up. Priests sometimes had to play “postmen,” carrying messages between husband and wife. In rare occasions, Church offi cials would bend the rules to accommodate married couples. Catholic authorities also made provisions for Kosher food and tried to provide decent burials when Jewish people were killed in the war. Th ose receiving shelter were required to pledge that they did not have weapons, that they would act in accordance with the Vatican’s offi cial neutrality, and that they would follow any rules that were necessary to preserve that neutrality. Jewish religious articles presented particular problems, as they would be sure give-aways if they were discovered by the Germans. Th ere are, however, many accounts of Catholic clergy saving sacred books and copies of the Torah for their Jewish “guests.” – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 168 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude More Examples of Jewish Praise of Pius XII, Th e Good Samaritan: Jewish Praise for Pope Pius XII Inside the Vatican, by Dimitri Cavalli (Urbi et Orio Communications October 2000 pp. 72–77) Inside the Vatican has given considerable space in its pages to coverage of the fi erce debate over the wartime role of Pope Pius XII and his alleged “silence” in the face of the Nazi persecution of the Jews (see particularly our June 1997 and our October 1999 issues). We will continue to do so as long as the debate rages. Th e article we print here brings together a considerable amount of previously scattered evidence for how Jews during Pius’s lifetime viewed Pius’s conduct. Reading Cavalli’s piece, it is striking to see how diff erent the general Jewish opinion of Pius XII was in the years during and immediately following the war from what it is today. Th is prompts a fundamental question: Were the Jews who praised and thanked Pius after the war all mistaken or insincere, or are the attacks on Pius today unfair? –Th e Editor During World War II, many Jews around the world had the chance to observe Pope Pius XII’s conduct. Th ey listened to his every word and scrutinized his every action. Instead of seeing “Hitler’s Pope,” most Jews concluded that Pius XII’s public statements were directed against the Nazis and that he and his subordinates in many Nazi-occupied and Axis countries were trying to save Jewish lives. Th e many extraordinary and eloquent tributes that the Pope once received from Jews show that the allegations that he was a Nazi collaborator and indiff erent toward the extermination of Jews would have seem completely unjustifi ed and unjust to those who closely following his career. Allegations that Pope Pius XII was pro-Nazi are often supported by his time in Germany from 1917 to 1929 as the papal Nuncio and his direct role, as secretary of state, in negotiating the Vatican’s concordat with 169 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Germany in 1933. Th ese facts were universally known when Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli was elected Pope on March 2, 1939. How did Jews around the world react to his election? Were they concerned by his former ties to Germany? In a March 6, 1939, editorial, “Leadership for Peace,” the Palestine Post in Jerusalem said: “Pius XII has clearly shown that he intends to carry on the late Pope’s (Pius XI) work for freedom and peace . . . we remember that he must have had a large part to play in the recent Papal opposition to pernicious race theories and certain aspects of totalitarianism . . .” In praising Cardinal Pacelli’s election, the Jewish Chronicle in London on March 10, quoted an anti-Nazi speech he delivered in Lourdes in April 1935 and the hostile statements expressed about him in the Nazi press. “It is interesting to recall . . . on January 22 [1939], the Voelkischer Beobachter published pictures of Cardinal Pacelli and other Church dignitaries beneath a collective heading of ‘Agitators in the Vatican against Fascism and National Socialism,’” the Jewish Chronicle noted. Also on March 10, the Canadian Jewish Chronicle commended the College of Cardinals for resisting Nazi attempts to infl uence the election and prevent Cardinal Pacelli from becoming Pope. “Th e plot to pilfer the Ring of Fisherman has gone up in white smoke,” the editorial quipped. Many Jewish organizations also expressed their enthusiasm for the new Pope. According to the Jewish Chronicle in London (March 10), the Vatican received congratulatory messages from “the Anglo-Jewish Community, the Synagogue Council of America, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Polish Rabbinical Council.” Pius XII’s decision to appoint Luigi Cardinal Maglione as the Vatican’s new secretary of state also brought favorable reactions. Th e March 16, 1939, Zionist Review in London said that the Cardinal’s appointment “confi rms the view that the new Pope means to conduct an anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist policy.” Certainly, such statements made by Jewish newspapers and organizations show they considered the newly elected Pope Pius XII a friend of democracy and peace, and an enemy of racism and totalitarianism. Cardinal Pacelli’s role in negotiating the concordat with the Nazis did not cause any concern. Instead, many Jews cited his anti-Nazi speeches, and his role as Vatican secretary of state, which helped produce the 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge, and numerous protests against the persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany. Less than two months after World War II broke out, on October 27, Pius XII issued his fi rst encyclical, Summi Pontifi catus. On the same day, the New York-based Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the equivalent of the Associated Press, reported that “the unqualifi ed condemnation which Pope Pius XII heaped on totalitarian, racist and materialistic theories of government in his encyclical Summi Pontifi catus caused a profound stir . . . Although it had been expected that the Pope would attack ideologies hostile to the Catholic Church, few observers had expected so outspoken a document . . .” In a November 9, 1939, editorial, “Endowed with Reason,” the American Israelite in Cincinnati also discussed the encyclical. “In decrying totalitarianism, Pope Pius XII called the individual the end and the state the means of bringing out the fundamental equality of men because men are endowed with reason,” the editorial said. “Th is concept of democracy is reiterated in the Pope’s Encyclical, stressing again the inviolability of the human person as a sacred being . . .” In January 1940, Th e United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs donated $125,000 to the Vatican in order to assist its eff orts on behalf of all victims of racial persecution. On January 19, the Jewish Ledger in Hartford, Connecticut, described the United Jewish Appeal’s gift as an “eloquent gesture,” which 170 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude “should prove an important step in the direction of cementing the bonds of sympathy and understanding” between Catholics and Jews. An account of how the money was spent is in the Vatican’s offi cial wartime documents, Actes et documents du Saint Siege relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Vol. VI, pp. 282–283). On January 26, 1940, the Jewish Advocate in Boston reported, “Th e Vatican radio this week broadcast an outspoken denunciation of German atrocities in Nazi (occupied) Poland, declaring they aff ronted the moral conscience of mankind.” Exiled Polish Cardinal August Hlond of Gnezo and Poznan had given the Vatican detailed reports about the Nazi persecution of the church in Poland. On the Pope’s orders, Vatican Radio broadcast the cardinal’s reports. Th e front-page story quoted one Vatican radio broadcast as saying, “Jews and Poles are being herded into separate ghettos, hermetically sealed and pitifully inadequate for the economic subsistence of the millions designed to live there.” Th is broadcast was also important because it gave independent confi rmation of media reports about Nazi atrocities, which were previously dismissed as Allied propaganda. Also, on January 26, the Canadian Jewish Chronicle published a brief item about Jacob Freedman, a Boston tailor. Mr. Freedman was concerned about the fate of his sister and nephews in German-occupied Poland. He wrote the State Department and the Red Cross, but they were unable to provide any information. Mr. Freedman then sought Pope Pius XII’s assistance. Several months later, Cardinal Maglione informed Mr. Freedman that his family were alive and well in Warsaw. “I don’t know the words to express what I feel, that they should take an interest in us with all the other things in the world to worry them,” said Mr. Freedman. “I think it’s the fi nest, most wonderful thing.” According to Pinchas Lapide’s 1967 book, Th ree Popes and the Jews, the Vatican Information Offi ce helped tens of thousands of Jews locate missing relatives in Europe. On March 14, 1940, the Jewish Chronicle in London commented on Pope Pius XII’s conditions for a “just and honorable peace,” which he articulated in his 1939 Christmas message. Th e Chronicle said that the Pope’s conditions, especially the protection of racial minorities, were a “welcome feature,” and praised him for standing up for “rights of the common man.” Also, in March, Italy’s anti-Semitic laws went into eff ect; and many Jews were dismissed from the government, universities, and other professions. In response, Pius XII appointed several displaced Jewish scholars, including geographer Prof. Roberto Almagia, to posts in the Vatican Library. Th e March 29 Kansas City Jewish Chronicle said that the Pope’s actions showed “his disapproval of the dastardly anti-Semitic decrees.” On April 29, 1941, a group of Jewish refugees interned at an Italian concentration camp thanked Pius XII after being visited by Bishop Francesco Borgognini-Duca, the papal Nuncio in Italy. Th e prisoners wrote that the Nuncio’s visit gave them “new courage to go on living,” and they described the Pope as a “revered personality who has stood up for the rights of all affl icted and powerless people” (Actes, VIII, pp. 178–179). On January 2, 1942, the front page of the California Jewish Voice published a report on the Pope’s 1941 Christmas address. “Religious persecution and oppression of minorities must have no place in the world of the future, declared Pope Pius XII in his annual Christmas Eve message,” the article said. By early 1942, the Nazis began to implement their plans to exterminate the Jews. Th e Vatican had no practical way of bringing these plans to a halt but sought to assist endangered Jews and other victims on a case-by-case basis. Th is assistance ranged from actively opposing the deportations to meeting the material and spiritual needs of refugees. For example, on April 14, 1942, Rabbi Naftali Adler and Dr. Max Pereles, the representatives of thousands of Jewish refugees interned at the Ferramonti concentration camp in southern Italy, sent a letter of thanks to the Pope, who sent “an abundant supply of clothing and linen” to the children at the camp, and took care of the prisoners’ other needs. “Th is noble and generous gift proves anew what the 171 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude whole world knows and admires that Your Holiness is . . . also the paternal guardian and promoter of the ideal of humanity for all mankind,” they wrote (Actes, VIII, pp. 505–507). In 1942, Croatia’s Jews were being brutally persecuted by the Nazi-installed dictatorship. On August 4, Chief Rabbi Miroslav Freiberger of Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, sought more assistance from Pius XII. Already, the Vatican’s unoffi cial diplomatic representative in Croatia, Msgr. Joseph Marcone, who was acting on Cardinal Maglione’s instructions, and Archbishop Alois Stepinac opposed the anti-Jewish persecutions. In his letter, Chief Rabbi Freiberger appreciated “the limitless goodness that the representatives of the Holy See and the leaders of the Church showed to our poor brothers” (Actes, VIII, p. 611). Th roughout the war, the Chief Rabbi continued to express his gratitude to the Vatican for helping Croatian Jews. Laval in August. Th e Nuncio’s intervention became publicly known by the end of the month. On August 28, the California Jewish Voice said, “Pope Pius XII has asked the Papal Nuncio at Vichy to protest to the Laval Government against ‘the inhuman arrests and deportations’ of Jews in France . . . Previously, reports from Geneva had indicated that the Pope had tried, though vainly, to use his good offi ces in Slovakia to prevent deportations and other cruelties.” Th e Voice’s account is confi rmed by the Actes. On October 31, 1941, Cardinal Maglione had given Monsignor Valeri and Pierre Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon a blank check to “tone down” the practical application of the anti- Semitic laws, which would include any deportations. In April 1942, the Vatican protested the deportations of Slovak Jews with a note to the Slovak government. Although Monsignor Valeri actually made the protest, the Jewish press understood that he was acting on behalf of Pius XII. In a September 11 editorial, the Jewish Chronicle in London said, “Th e Pope’s action is also a striking affi rmation of the dictum of one of the Pope’s predecessors that no true Christian can be an anti-Semite . . .” In his 1942 Christmas message, the Pope condemned the treatment of “hundreds of thousands who, without any fault on their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked down for death or a progressive extinction.” Th e Pope’s defenders argue that this was a clear reference to the Holocaust. Th e Pope’s detractors insist that he didn’t go far enough and should have condemned the Nazis by name. But the Nazis understood the Pope very clearly. “In a manner never known before the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order,” complained a January 22, 1943, report by the Reich Central Security Offi ce. “Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice towards the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals” (Anthony Rhodes, Th e Vatican in the Age of Dictators [1973], pp. 272–273). I was unable to fi nd any references to the Pope’s address in the many Jewish newspapers that I examined. However, in a January 20, 1943, letter to Msgr. Arthur Hughes, the apostolic delegate in Egypt, Chaim Barlas, the Jewish agency’s Turkish representative, wrote, “Th e highly humanitarian attitude of His Saintety (meaning, Holiness) expressing His indignation against racial persecutions, was a source of comfort for our brethren” (Actes, IX, p. 90). If Pius XII was “silent” in the literal sense of the word, then the Reich Central Security Offi ce and Chaim Barlas could not have made these conclusions. In late 1942, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Jerusalem sought the Pope’s intervention to rescue Jews from the Nazis. On February 12, 1943, the Vatican’s reply to Chief Rabbi Herzog was noted on the front page of the California Jewish Voice. “Th e Vatican this week cabled Chief Rabbi Herzog, assuring him that it is doing everything possible for all the victims of Nazi persecution, including the Jews,” the article said. Th e Jewish Chronicle in London and the Australian Jewish News also reported the Vatican’s assurance to the Chief Rabbi. 172 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude On April 16, 1943, the Australian Jewish News published a brief article about Cardinal Gerlier, who had strongly opposed the deportations of French Jews, and was sheltering Jewish children. Th e article quoted the cardinal as saying that he was obeying Pius XII’s instructions by continuing to oppose France’s anti-Semitic measures. In his June 2 address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Pius XII spoke up again. He referred to persons “tormented as they are, because of their nationality or their race . . . delivered, without any fault on their part, to measures of extermination.” Th e July 16, 1943, Jewish Chronicle in London published a slightly diff erent version of these words on its front page under the title, “Th e Pope’s Solicitude.” On September 24, Alex Easterman, the British representative of the World Jewish Congress, contacted Msgr. William Godfrey, the apostolic delegate in London. Easterman informed him that about four thousand Jewish refugees from Croatia were safely evacuated to an island in the Adriatic Sea. “I feel sure that eff orts of your Grace and of the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result,” Easterman wrote (Actes, IX, pp. 488–489). After Benito Mussolini’s fall from power, the new Italian government surrendered to the Allies in September 1943. German troops occupied Italy, including Rome, in order to stop the Allied off ensive. During the occupation of Rome, the Nazis threatened to arrest Roman Jews unless their leaders paid them fi fty kilograms of gold. When the Roman Jews were able to raise only forty-two kilograms of gold, they turned to the Pope, who agreed to provide the balance. Meanwhile, the Jews raised the balance from ordinary Catholics and informed the Vatican that the Pope’s contribution was not needed. On October 28, 1943, however, the Palestine Post in Jerusalem noted Pius XII’s off er on the front page under the headline, “Th e Pope’s Gift to the Jews.” On October 16, the Nazis also seized about one thousand Jews and deported them to Auschwitz. On October 29, Jewish Chronicle in London reported the Vatican’s response to the arrests: “Th e Vatican has made strong representations to the German Government and the German High Command in Italy against the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Italy . . .” Th is account of the Vatican’s actions was exactly correct. On Pius XII’s orders, Cardinal Maglione made an immediate protest with Germany’s ambassador. Bishop Alois Hudal, the rector of the German Catholic Church in Rome, protested the arrests of Jews with the German military governor of Rome. Along with the Vatican’s protests, 4,700 Jews disappeared into Rome’s convents, monasteries and the Vatican itself. Th e remaining 2,300 Jews were able to fi nd shelter elsewhere because Vatican protests brought the roundups to an end. By 1943, the Vatican’s many rescue eff orts on behalf of Jews were being universally acknowledged. In the fall of 1943, the Jewish communities of Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia sent letters to Pope Pius XII and thanked him for assisting Jews (Actes, IX, pp. 498, 501–502, and 567). Th e 1943–1944 American Jewish Yearbook said that Pius XII “took an unequivocal stand against the oppression of Jews throughout Europe.” In his February 18, 1944, letter to Msgr. Amleto Cicognani, the apostolic delegate in Washington, DC, Rabbi Maurice Perlzweig, the political director of the World Jewish Congress, wrote that “the repeated interventions of the Holy Father on behalf of Jewish Communities in Europe has evoked the profoundest sentiments of appreciation and gratitude from Jews throughout the world” (Actes, X, p. 140). Two important Jewish leaders who worked with the Vatican to save Jews also expressed similar sentiments. “Th e people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in this most tragic hour of history, which is living proof of divine Providence in this world,” 173 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Chief Rabbi Herzog declared on February 28 (Actes, X, p. 292). In his April 7 letter to the papal Nuncio in Romania, Chief Rabbi Alexander Shafran of Bucharest wrote, “It is not easy for us to fi nd the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the Supreme Pontiff , who off ered a large sum to relive the suff erings of deported Jews . . . Th e Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance . . .” (Actes, X, pp. 291–292). In June 1944, two separate events helped establish the Pope’s reputation as a rescuer of Jews, at least temporarily. When the Allies liberated Rome, thousands of Jews came out of their hiding places and told the world of their salvation by the Vatican. On June 25, the Pope openly protested the deportations of Hungarian Jews. Th e many tributes to Pius XII began in July. “It is gradually being revealed that Jews have been sheltered within the walls of the Vatican during the German occupation of Rome,” reported the July 7 Jewish News in Detroit. A July 14 editorial in the Congress Weekly, the offi cial journal of the American Jewish Congress, added that the Vatican also provided Jewish refugees with kosher food. Also on July 14, American Hebrew in New York published an interview with Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli of Rome. “Th e Vatican has always helped the Jews and the Jews are very grateful for the charitable work of the Vatican, all done without distinction of race,” Rabbi Zolli said. After the war, Rabbi Zolli converted to Catholicism, which brought him much severe criticism from some Jews. Dr. Zolli’s conversion was widely attributed to his gratitude for what the Pope did for Jews. In his 1954 memoirs, Before the Dawn, however, Dr. Zolli strongly denied this assertion. Instead, he claimed to have witnessed a vision of Christ, who called him to the faith. A week later on July 21, the Vatican received telegrams from the National Jewish Welfare Board and the World Jewish Congress. Th e National Jewish Welfare Board expressed its gratitude to the Pope for “the aid and protection given to so many Italian Jews by the Vatican . . .” (Actes, X, pp. 358–359). Th e World Jewish Congress also acknowledged the Vatican’s “noble humanitarian work” on behalf of Hungarian Jews (Actes, X, pp. 359). Th e deportations of Hungarian Jews horrifi ed the Allied and neutral nations. Th e American Jewish Committee and other Jewish groups organized a rally in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park on July 31 to mobilize public opinion against the deportations. In his address, Judge Joseph Proskauer, the committee’s president, declared, “We have heard . . . what a great part the Holy Father has played in the salvation of the refugees in Italy, and we know from sources that must be credited that this great Pope has reached forth his mighty and sheltering hand to help the oppressed of Hungary” (Speech obtained from American Committee Library in Manhattan). During the following months, Rabbi Stephen Wise, the president of the American Jewish Congress, Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz of the British Empire, composer Irving Berlin, Congressman Emmanuel Cellar of Brooklyn, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, and the World Agudath Israel Organization also lauded Pius XII for helping endangered Jews. At the time, Rabbi Wise also condemned Christian indiff erence toward the extermination of Jews. With Rome liberated, the Pope frequently greeted Allied soldiers. During one meeting, he blessed a Jewish soldier from Palestine in Hebrew. In the Congress Weekly (October 20, 1944), Elias Gilner found great signifi cance in this event. Gilner wrote that the Pope’s blessing “becomes a memorable act, a far-fl ung message of good-will, an expression of the Christian spirit at its highest.” Gilner added that Pius XII by this blessing also began a “new course” in Catholic-Jewish relations. Th e tributes to Pope Pius XII from Jews continued after the war in Europe ended. On April 22, 1945, Moshe Sharrett, the future foreign minister and prime minister of Israel sent a report of his meeting with the Pope 174 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude to the executive of the Jewish agency. Sharrett wrote that “my fi rst duty was to thank him, and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general” (Lapide, pp. 225–226). On October 11, the World Jewish Congress donated $20,000 to Vatican charities. According to the New York Times (October 12, 1945), the gift was “made in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecution.” Although the current leaders of the World Jewish Congress have a much diff erent view of the Vatican’s wartime actions, they never retracted that recognition. During a St. Louis conference on the plight of displaced Jewish refugees on March 17, 1946, William Rosenwald, the chairman of the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees, Overseas Needs, and Palestine, said, “I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Pope Pius for his appeal in behalf of the victims of war and oppression. He provided aid for Jews in Italy and intervened in behalf of refugees to lighten their burden” (New York Times, March 18, 1946). Th e previous week, the Pope granted Mr. Rosenwald an audience. According to Mr. Rosenwald, the Pope said that Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees should be allowed to resettle in the United States. In an article for Commentary (November 1950), French scholar and Holocaust survivor Leon Poliakov discussed the Vatican’s conduct during the war. Poliakov suggested that the Vatican during the Holocaust retreated to its “medieval tradition” of protecting Jews from state persecution. “Th ere is no doubt that secret instructions went out from the Vatican urging the national churches to intervene in favor of the Jews by every possible means,” Poliakov wrote. In fact, according to volumes VI, VIII, IX, and X of the Actes, these instructions were sent to the Vatican’s many diplomatic representatives. Still, Poliakov was troubled because he believed that Pius XII’s public statements were too vague. But Poliakov conceded the argument that “public protests would have brought no help to the victims, and might have produced contrary eff ects.” He cited the tragic case of Holland where the protests against the deportations of Jews by the Dutch Catholic bishops in 1942 led to the arrest of Catholic Jews, who were previously spared for deportation by the Nazis. In 1955, the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, which was composed of Jewish refugees from many nations, toured Italy. Th e orchestra performed a concert at the Vatican on May 26, 1955. According to the Jerusalem Post (May 29, 1955), “Conductor Paul Klecki had requested that the Orchestra on its fi rst visit to Italy play for the Pope as a gesture of gratitude for the help his Church had given to all those persecuted by Nazi Fascism.” In 1957, the Pope received a delegation from the American Jewish Committee. Th e New York Times, on June 29, 1957, reported that the committee’s representatives described the Pope as a “great friend” in the battle against racism and anti-Semitism in the United States. Th e Pope also praised the committee’s work and issued a strong statement condemning anti-Semitism. Pope Pius XII died on October 8, 1958. Many Jewish organizations and newspapers around the world mourned his passing and recalled his wartime eff orts to rescue Jews. At the United Nations, Golda Meir, Israel’s foreign minister, said, “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. Th e life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily confl ict.” Th e Zionist Record (October 17) in South Africa published Meir’s moving eulogy along with tributes from Jewish organizations to the late Pope. “Adherents of all creeds and parties will recall how Pius XII faced the responsibilities of his exalted offi ce with courage and devotion,” declared the Jewish Chronicle in London on October 10. “Before, during, and after the Second 175 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude World War, he constantly preached the message of peace. Confronted by the monstrous cruelties of Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, he repeatedly proclaimed the virtues of humanity and compassion.” In the Canadian Jewish Chronicle (October 17), Rabbi J. Stern recalled that Pius XII “made it possible for thousands of Jewish victims of Nazism and Fascism to be hidden away . . .” In the November 6 edition of the Jewish Post in Winnipeg, William Zukerman, the former American Hebrew columnist, wrote that no other leader “did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy, during the Nazi occupation of Europe, than the late Pope.” Representatives of the World Jewish Congress, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Synagogue Council of America, New York Board of Rabbis, the Anti-Defamation League, Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, Rabbinical Council of America, National Council of Jewish Women, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations also gracefully eulogized Pope Pius XII. Th e Chief Rabbis of London, Rome, Jerusalem, France, Egypt, Argentina, and many other Jewish newspapers also paid tribute to the late Pope. How do Pius XII’s detractors explain these many statements of praise from Jews? Th ey prefer to ignore them. Any acknowledgment of these tributes immediately undermines the case against him. Instead, critics always focus on the Pope’s “silence” without discussing what he actually said during the war and how his addresses were received by all sides; insist that the Pope did little or nothing to help Jews escape from the Nazis; exclusively cite authors who attack him while ignoring those who defend him; and assign him sinister motives by using suspicion and a selective interpretation of evidence. Recently, in Commentary (July/August 1999), Prof. Robert Wistrich argued that it is unfair to cite these tributes from Jews because damaging evidence against the Pope was discovered after his death. But that argument ignores the fact that many postwar revelations have been very favorable toward the Pope. In 1946, the Vatican newspaper confi rmed that Pius XII in 1940 had acted as an intermediary between a group of German generals who wanted to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the British government. Th e release of documents from the British foreign offi ce years later also confi rmed his role in “Th e Generals’ Plot.” Th e 1953 publication of Th e Undeclared War by William Langer and S. Everett Gleason disclosed the Pope’s surprising 1941 concession to Pres. Franklin Roosevelt that American Catholics could support the extension of the Lend- Lease program to the Soviet Union. Th e conclusions of the fi rst generation of authors critical of the Pope, like Rolf Hochhuth, Guenther Lewy, Saul Friedlander, and Carlo Falconi, were invalidated by the complete publication of the eleven volumes of the Actes. Unfortunately, these volumes, which detail the Vatican’s relations with all the belligerent governments and assistance given to all the victims of the war, have been either ignored or downplayed by historians and journalists. Many Jewish organizations had no reservations about attacking Fr. Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio broadcaster. If these same organizations were actually displeased with Pius XII’s actions, as Fr. John Pawlikowski suggested in Commonweal (July 17, 1998), then why did they continue to publicly honor the Pope throughout the war and beyond? How could Jews on six continents have been so tragically mistaken about one man? Could they all have been either blissfully ignorant or extremely disingenuous? Many Catholics have been puzzled by the fact that many of the same Jewish organizations that condemn Pius XII today once never passed up an opportunity to praise him. What could have caused the vast shift in Jewish attitudes toward the late Pope? Some Catholic writers point to the infl uence of Rolf Hochhuth’s 1963 play, Th e Deputy, which presented the Pope as a cold-blooded Nazi collaborator who did nothing as six million Jews went to their death. However, allegations that the Vatican collaborated with the Nazis did not begin with Hochhuth. While Pius XII was still alive, anti-Catholic authors like Avro Manhattan (Th e Vatican in World Politics, 1949) and Paul Blanshard 176 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude (American Freedom and Catholic Power, 1949) condemned his actions during World War II. Although Manhattan and Blanshard found isolated audiences in some Protestant and fundamentalist Christian circles, many Jews continued to have a favorable impression of the wartime Pope. Other cultural shifts in society ensured that Hochhuth’s demonic portrait would become accepted as conventional wisdom. Shortly after Hochhuth’s play made its appearance, the movement known as the New Left marched across college campuses. Th e New Left was more than a political movement; it was also a cultural movement whose members seized infl uential positions in the universities, the media, and the entertainment industry. Th e Catholic Church strongly opposed the New Left’s social agenda of legal abortion, contraception, and sexual promiscuity. Activists needed a weapon to undermine the Catholic Church’s moral authority and infl uence. “Th e silence of Pius XII” provided such a powerful weapon, and it was used at every possible opportunity. What right would a church that failed to oppose the mass murder of Jews have to teach morality to anyone? A few years ago, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized US surgeon general Dr. Jocelyn Elders for her proabortion views. Dr. Elders responded by noting the Catholic Church’s indiff erence toward both slavery and the Holocaust. Unfortunately, Jewish organizations have never suffi ciently explained why they changed their minds about the Pope. A clear answer may never be known unless Jewish organizations fi nally provide honest and convincing explanations after nearly forty years of evasion. Could attitudes shift again? It’s possible. In the last several years, many Catholic newspapers and magazines have been zealously defending Pius XII’s reputation. Th e Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights has also been successful in bringing the debate over the Vatican’s wartime role into the mainstream media. In his new book, Never Again: A History of the Holocaust, acclaimed Holocaust historian Sir Martin Gilbert identifi es the Vatican as one of the European governments that protected Jews. Prof. William Rubinstein’s book, Th e Myth of Rescue (1997), which received substantial attention and criticism, argues that the Allies and Vatican could not have saved more Jewish lives. Rubinstein’s sobering conclusion that the “responsibility for the Holocaust lies solely and wholly with Adolf Hitler, the SS and their accomplices, and with no one else” represents a return to reason. It may take a generation to restore Pope Pius XII’s good name. However, more and more people today are recognizing that he acted like a Good Samaritan during World War II. When the Pope failed to prevent the start of the war, he immediately devoted himself to alleviating the physical and spiritual suff ering of countless numbers of innocent victims regardless of their race or faith. As the late Fr. Robert Graham, SJ, wrote, the many tributes the Pope received from Jews around the world are a witness to both his eff orts and his character. Dimitri Cavalli is a freelance writer based in New York. From Inside the Vatican © 2000 Urbi et Orbi Communications October 2000, pp. 72–77 177 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Tributes to Pope Pius XII. Jewish organizations took note of Pius XII’s eff orts, and they turned to him in times of need. In June 1943, Grand Rabbi Herzog wrote to Cardinal Maglione on behalf of Egyptian Jews expressing thanks for the Holy See’s charitable work in Europe and asking for assistance for Jews being held prisoner in Italy. Th e Rabbi, in asking for assistance, noted that Jews of the world consider the Holy See their historic protector in oppression. Th e following month, he wrote back thanking Pius for his eff orts on behalf of the refugees that had awoken a feeling of gratitude in the hearts of millions of people. On August 2, 1943, the World Jewish Congress sent the following message to Pope Pius: World Jewish Congress respectfully expresses gratitude to Your Holiness for your gracious concern for innocent peoples affl icted by the calamities of war and appeals to Your Holiness to use your high authority by suggesting Italian authorities may remove as speedily as possible to Southern Italy or other safer areas twenty thousand Jewish refugees and Italian nationals now concentrated in internment camps . . . and so prevent their deportation and similar tragic fate which has befallen Jews in Eastern Europe. Our terror-stricken brethren look to Your Holiness as the only hope for saving them from persecution and death. Later that same month, Time magazine reported: . . . no matter what critics might say, it is scarcely deniable that the Church Apostolic, through the encyclicals and other Papal pronouncements, has been fi ghting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power. In fact, that same article went on to note that the Catholic Church insists on the dignity of the individual whom God created in his own image and for a decade has vigorously protested against the cruel persecution of the Jews as a violation of God’s tabernacle. In September 1943, a representative from the World Jewish Congress reported to the Pope that approximately forty thousand Jews and Yugoslav nationals who had been in internment camps were removed to an area that was under the control of Yugoslav partisans. As such, they were out of immediate danger. Th e report went on to say: I feel sure that the eff orts of your Grace and the Holy See have brought about this fortunate result, and I should like to express to the Holy See and yourself the warmest thanks of the World Jewish Congress. Th e Jews concerned will probably not yet know by what agency their removal from danger has been secured, but when they do they will be indeed grateful. In November, Rabbi Herzog again wrote to Pius expressing his sincere gratitude and deep appreciation for so kind an attitude toward Israel and for such valuable assistance given by the Catholic Church to the endangered Jewish people, Jewish communities in Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia also sent similar off ers of thanks to the Pope. 178 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude In 1944, the New York Times reported: Jews who escaped from Germany and other countries found sanctuary in the Vatican and its hundreds of convents and monasteries in the Rome region. Th e Chief Rabbi of Rome reported: No hero in history has commanded such an army; an army of priests works in cities and small towns to provide bread for the persecuted and passports for the fugitives. Nuns go into canteens to give hospitality to women refugees. Superiors of convents go out into the night to meet German soldiers who look for victims . . . Pius XII is followed by all with the fervor of that charity that fears no death. After the war, Israel’s fi rst Foreign Minister (and the second Prime Minister), Moshe Sharett, was received by Pius XII for an audience. He told the Pope: My fi rst duty was to thank him, and through him the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in various countries to rescue Jews. Th e Kansas City Jewish Chronicle praised Pius XII in its March 29, 1940, issue because his actions showed his disapproval of anti-Semitic decrees. Th e London Times ran the following editorial in 1942: A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession in encyclicals and allocutions to the Catholics of various nations leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestation in the suppression of national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race. Th at same year, the Jewish Chronicle (London) editorialized that: Th e Pope’s action is . . . a striking affi rmation of the dictum of one of the Pope’s predecessors that no true Christian can be an anti-Semite. Th e 1943–1944 American Jewish Yearbook reported: Pius XII took an unequivocal stand against the oppression of Jews throughout Europe. 179 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Following the war, the Jerusalem Post reported: …thousands of Jews in Italy owe their lives to Italian citizens and the Catholic Church. In September 1957, Wisdom Magazine (not a Catholic or even a religious periodical) wrote: Of all the great figures of our time, none is more universally respected by men of all faiths than Pope Pius XII. Following a meeting with Pope Pius XII, Winston Churchill reportedly said, “I have spoken today to the greatest man of our time.” Churchill admired the Pope’s simplicity, sincerity, and power. Some months after the death of his Holiness, Elio Toaff , the Chief Rabbi of Rome, said: More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to experience the great compassionate kindness and the magnanimity of the late Pope, during the years of persecution and terror, when it seemed that there was no more hope for us. In 1955, when Italy celebrated the tenth anniversary of its liberation, Italian Jewry proclaimed April 17 as Th e Day of Gratitude. Th at year, thousands of Jewish people made a pilgrimage to the Vatican to express appreciation for the Pope’s wartime solicitudes. Th e Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra even gave a special performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the Papal Consistory Hall as an expression of gratitude for the Catholic Church’s assistance in defying the Nazis. Th e Jerusalem Post reported: Conductor Paul Klecki had requested that the Orchestra on its fi rst visit to Italy play for the Pope as a gesture of gratitude for the help his church had given to all those persecuted by Nazi Fascism. Before the celebration, a delegation approached Monsignor Montini, the Director of Vatican Rescue Services, who later became Pope Paul VI, to determine whether he would accept an award for his work on behalf of Jews during the war. He was extremely gratifi ed and visibly touched by their words, but he declined the honor: All I did was my duty, and besides I only acted upon orders from the Holy Father. Nobody deserves a medal for that. 180 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude No one at the time thought Pius XII’s reputation would need to be protected. As John Patrick Carroll-Abbing wrote in his 1965 book: Never, in those tragic days, could I have foreseen, even in my wildest imaginings, that the man who, more than any other, had tried to alleviate human suff ering, had spent himself day by day in his unceasing eff orts for peace, would-twenty years later be made the scapegoat for men trying to free themselves from their own responsibilities and from the collective guilt that obviously weighs so heavily upon them. He also reported assistance being given to Jews, and the Pope’s order that no one was to be refused shelter. In fact, in an interview given shortly before his death, Carroll-Abbing said, “I can personally testify to you that the Pope gave me direct face-to-face verbal orders to rescue Jews.” Asked about the thesis that rescuers like him acted without papal involvement, he denied it and added: But it wasn’t just me. It was also the people I worked with: Father Pfeiff er and Father Benoît and my assistant, Monsignor Vitucci and Cardinals Dezza and Pallazzini, and of course Cardinals Maglione and Montini and Tardini. We didn’t simply assume things; we acted on the direct orders of the Holy Father. 181 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Further Tributes, “Pius XII was the most warmly humane, kindly, generous, sympathetic (and, incidentally, saintly) character that it has been my privilege to meet in the course of a long life. I know his sensitive nature was acutely and incessantly alive to the tragic volume of human suff ering caused by the War and, without the slightest doubt, he would have been ready and glad to give his life to redeem humanity from its consequences.” – Sir Francis D’Arcy Osborne, British Minister to the Holy See Th e Times (London), May 20, 1963 “It is understandable why the death of Pope Pius XII should have called forth expressions of sincere grief from practically all sections of American Jewry. For there probably was not a single ruler of our generation who did more to help the Jews in their hour of greatest tragedy, during the Nazi occupation of Europe, than the late Pope.” - Th e Jewish Post (1958) “Adherents of all creeds and parties will recall how Pius XII faced the responsibilities of his exalted offi ce with courage and devotion. Before, during, and after the Second World War, he constantly preached the message of peace. Confronted by the monstrous cruelties of Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, he repeatedly proclaimed the virtues of humanity and compassion.” - Th e Jewish Chronicle, in its October 10, 1958 “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims.” – Golda Meir (From the United Nations, 1958) “Th e delegates of the Congress of the Italian Jewish Communities . . . feel that it is imperative to extend reverent homage to Your Holiness, and to express the most profound gratitude that animates all Jews for your fraternal humanity toward them during the years of persecution when their lives were endangered by Nazi-Fascist barbarism.” - Message to Pius XII from the Italian Jewish Community (April 5, 1946) 182 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Jewish certifi cates of appreciation given to Vatican offi cials and religious communities of Italy. On December 30, 1943, the following message was sent to Pius XII: With profound gratitude, the Israelite families, fraternally sheltered by the Institute of Our Lady of Zion, turn their moved thoughts to Your Holiness, who deigned to show them a new proof of benevolence. And while they express their gratitude for the attentive response to the call for help not in vain directed to Your Christian charity, they wish above all to show their confi dence and faith for the spiritual comfort received from the Apostolic Blessing paternally imparted to them. Des familles juives au pape Pie XII, December 30, 1943, Actes et Documents, vol. 9, p. 636, no. 490 (Jewish families thank Pope Pius XII) Th e Pope’s eff orts on behalf of Jewish people were beginning to be noticed. On November 5, the Catholic Review ran a story on the Pope’s eff orts to protect Jewish people in Rome, under the title “Holy See is Eager to Rescue Hebrews,” Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron, writing in the Baltimore Synagogue Bulletin, affi rmed that “the Pope has condemned anti-Semitism and all its works. Bishops of the Church have appeared in the streets . . . with the Shield of David on their arms . . . Indeed, many priests and ministers have been jailed and not a few killed in their eff ort to protect Jews.” As reported on Christmas Day by Th e Tablet (London), Rabbi Lazaron went on to quote the Pope’s condemnation of anti-Semitism, and the action taken by bishops and priests throughout occupied Europe to protect Jews “driven like animals” from their homes. “Th ey have shielded and healed them at the risk of their own lives, and indeed many priests have been killed and not a few killed in their eff ort. But it is more than a mere reciprocal gesture which prompts our prayers for His Holiness. We can place ourselves in the position of our Catholic friends . . . We link our prayers with theirs. May God protect and keep His Holiness in strength and all good.” Chief Rabbi Zolli of Rome reported: No hero in history has commanded such an army; an army of priests works in cities and small towns to provide bread for the persecuted and passports for the fugitives. Nuns go into canteens to give hospitality to women refugees. Superiors of convents go out into the night to meet German soldiers who look for victims . . . Pius XII is followed by all with the fervor of that charity that fears no death. – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 183 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Personal letters of gratitude to Catholic institutions that sheltered Jews: Adolfo Tabet Via Po N. 162 Rome(34) Rome, December 13, 1946 Most Reverend Mother General of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood Rome My daughter Elsa’s wedding, enkindles in me profound gratitude toward you who, with so much human charity, have sheltered the women in my family during the sad months of the German occupation, saving them from the dangers of the death camps. I still recall the loving comfort of the Mother President, and the silent faith of Sister Maria that inspired so much hope. Th is bright act of brotherhood merits to be eternalized in marble with gold letters so that it could never be forgotten. I enclose a small off ering so that you may determine its use as you see fi t. With profound respect, Adolfo Tabet Enclosure: Check for 3,000 Lire. Rome, August 10, 1944 Reverend Mother General of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood Rome It is with much delay that I accomplish my great duty toward you and the very kind Sisters, but the schedule of my offi ce hours does not permit me to come personally during an opportune hour, to express to you my respect and most heartfelt thanks for the hospitality granted me and my family, during the sad circumstances of the infamous nazi-fascist persecution. Rather than have further delay, I am sending you this note, to reassure you that I shall never forget the benefi ts received and to confi rm the gratitude which will always remain with me. Th is memory has been impressed in my heart and therefore shall never be diminished nor forgotten. Accept, therefore, I beg you, the reasons for the much-desired visit that I have not been able to make. To you and the kind Sisters, I wish to express my sentiments of sincere gratitude. Devotedly, E Anav Enrica Anav alias Brunetti Via Bodoni 6 Translation Translation - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione - Courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione 184 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Letters of appreciation from Jews saved during the war given to the religious community of Assisi: One letter, dated Christmas 1946, from Marion Vieslander states: “In the shadow of the past years and suff erings, I remember your Home, the Chapel as light and light: many many thanks for your help.” Another letter is from Vittorio Tagliacozzo dated February 13, 1946. He is feeble and sick, but gives thanks wholeheartedly for all the help he received from the bishop. Still another letter is a testimony dated June 29, 1944, from the Assistance Committee to displaced Jews of Assisi, in which they attest to have received fake papers of identity for several Jewish families. Th e fi rst signature is of Bishop Giuseppe Placido, the fi fth is from the lawyer Leone Provenzal, to the Bishop of Assisi, “many thanks for all the help bestowed on us when we were there.” Th e letter (dated August 4, 1945) is from Cantoni Maionica e Kropf, in which they thank the bishop for all the help they received from 1943 to 1945. Th ey say they were treated very well when in Assisi. Th e Israelite Community of Trieste, on October 3, 1955, to Bishop Nicolini confi rms the testimony. 185 Jewish Appreciation and Expressions of Gratitude Accounting and documentation of the assistance provided to Jewish refugees in Assisi: Th e listing on the right is a partial report decribing Jews who were protected in Assisi. All of this was done under the direct instructions of Pope Pius XII, according to Fr. Aldo Brunacci. Th is is a copy of a diary entry of the Monastery in Assisi. It describes their eff orts on behalf of the Jews. 187 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? 188 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? By the mid-1960s, the universal perception of the reputation of Pope Pius XII had changed dramatically. Th is prompted America magazine, in 1964, to ask the following questions: What has happened since 1958 to erase with one sweep these informed and unsolicited tributes to the memory of Pope Pius XII? Why do they count for nothing when Th e Deputy comes to town? By what dialectic, or through what human fi ckleness, has a great benefactor of humanity, and of the Jews particularly now become a criminal? Pope Pius XII’s reputation fl ipped fully and so quickly, without any new evidence being uncovered. Something else was at play. Editorial: Character Assassination, America, March 7, 1964 reprinted in Th e Storm Over Th e Deputy at 39 189 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? How did this dramatic change gain international acceptance and instantly become the “new truth”? Moscow’s Assault on the Vatican Th e KGB made corrupting the Church a priority. January 25, 2007, by Ion Mihai Pacepa Reprinted with permission from Mihai Pacepa from an article, which fi rst appeared on National Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/ Th e Soviet Union was never comfortable living in the same world with the Vatican. Th e most recent disclosures document that the Kremlin was prepared to go to any lengths to counter the Catholic Church’s strong anti-Communism. In March 2006, an Italian parliamentary commission concluded “beyond any reasonable doubt that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the Pope Karol Wojtyla,” in retaliation for his support to the dissident Solidarity movement in Poland. In January 2007, when documents disclosed that the newly appointed archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, had collaborated with Poland’s Communist-era political police, he admitted the accusation and resigned. Th e following day the rector of Krakow’s Wawel Cathedral, the burial site of Polish kings and queens, resigned for the same reason. Th en it was learned that Michal Jagosz, a member of the Vatican’s tribunal considering sainthood for the late Pope John Paul II, has been accused of being a former Communist secret police agent; according to the Polish media, he had been recruited in 1984 before leaving Poland for an assignment to the Vatican. Currently, a book is about to be published that will identify 39 other priests whose names have been found in Krakow secret police fi les, some of whom are now bishops. Moreover, this seems to be just scratching the surface. A special commission will soon start investigating the past of all religious servants during the Communist era, as thousands more Catholic priests throughout that country are believed to have collaborated with the secret police. And this is just Poland—the archives of the KGB and those of the political police in the rest of the former Soviet bloc have yet to be opened on the subject of operations against the Vatican. In my other life, when I was at the center of Moscow’s foreign-intelligence wars, I myself was caught up in a deliberate Kremlin eff ort to smear the Vatican, by portraying Pope Pius XII as a coldhearted Nazi sympathizer. Ultimately, the operation did not cause any lasting damage, but it left a residual bad taste that is hard to rinse away. Th e story has never before been told. Battling the Church In February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev approved a super-secret plan for destroying the Vatican’s moral authority in Western Europe. Th e idea was the brainchild of KGB chairman Aleksandr Shelepin and Aleksey Kirichenko, the Soviet Politburo member responsible for international policies. Up until that time, the 190 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? KGB had fought its “mortal enemy” in Eastern Europe, where the Holy See had been crudely attacked as a cesspool of espionage in the pay of American imperialism, and its representatives had been summarily jailed as spies. Now Moscow wanted the Vatican discredited by its own priests, on its home territory, as a bastion of Nazism. Pacelli, by then Pope Pius XII, was selected as the KGB’s main target, its incarnation of evil, because he had departed this world in 1958. “Dead men cannot defend themselves” was the KGB’s latest slogan. Moscow had just gotten a black eye for framing and imprisoning a living Vatican prelate, József Cardinal Mindszenty, the primate of Hungary, in 1948. During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution he had escaped from jail and found asylum in the US Embassy in Budapest, where he began writing his memoirs. As the details of how he had been framed became known to Western journalists, he was widely seen as a saintly hero and martyr. Because Pius XII had served as the papal Nuncio in Munich and Berlin when the Nazis were beginning their bid for power, the KGB wanted to depict him as an anti-Semite who had encouraged Hitler’s Holocaust. Th e hitch was that the operation was not to give the least hint of Soviet bloc involvement. Th e whole dirty job had to be carried out by Western hands, using evidence from the Vatican itself. Th at would correct another mistake made in the case of Mindszenty, who had been framed with counterfeit Soviet and Hungarian documents. (On February 6, 1949, just days before Mindszenty’s trial ended, Hanna Sulner, the Hungarian handwriting expert who had fabricated the “evidence” used to frame the cardinal, escaped to Vienna and displayed microfi lms of the “documents” on which the show trial was founded. Hanna demonstrated, in an excruciatingly detailed testimony, that all were forged documents, “some ostensibly in the cardinal’s hand, others bearing his supposed signature,” produced by her.) To avoid another Mindszenty catastrophe, the KGB needed some original Vatican documents, even ones only remotely connected with Pius XII, which its dezinformatsiya experts could slightly modify and project in the “proper light” to prove the Pope’s “true colors.” Th e diffi culty was that the KGB had no access to the Vatican archives, and that was where my DIE, the Romanian foreign intelligence service, came in. Th e new chief of the Soviet foreign intelligence service, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, had created the DIE in 1949 and had until recently been our chief Soviet adviser; he knew that the DIE was in an excellent position to contact the Vatican and obtain approval to search its archives. In 1959, when I had been assigned to West Germany in the cover position as deputy chief of the Romanian Mission, I had conducted a “spy swap” under which two DIE offi cers (Colonel Gheorghe Horobet and Major Nicolae Ciuciulin), who had been caught red-handed in West Germany, had been exchanged for Roman Catholic bishop Augustin Pacha, who had been jailed by the KGB on a spurious charge of espionage and was fi nally returned to the Vatican via West Germany. Infi ltrating the Vatican “Seat-12” was the code name given to this operation against Pius XII, and I became its Romanian point man. To facilitate my job, Sakharovsky had authorized me to (falsely) inform the Vatican that Romania was ready to restore its broken relations with the Holy See, in exchange for access to its archives and a onebillion- dollar, interest-free loan for 25 years. (Romania’s relations with the Vatican had been severed in 1951, when Moscow accused the Vatican’s nunciatura in Romania of being an undercover CIA front and closed its offi ces. Th e nunciatura buildings in Bucharest had been turned over to the DIE, and now housed a foreign language school.) Th e access to the Papal archives, I was to tell the Vatican, was needed in order to fi nd historical roots that would help the Romanian government publicly justify its change of heart toward the Holy See. Th e billion (no, that is not a typographical error), I was told, had been introduced into the game to 191 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? make Romania’s alleged turnabout more plausible. “If there’s one thing those monks understand, it’s money,” Sakharovsky remarked. My earlier involvement in the exchange of Bishop Pacha for the two DIE offi cers did indeed open doors for me. A month after receiving the KGB’s instructions, I had my fi rst contact with a Vatican representative. For secrecy reasons that meeting—and most of the ones that followed—took place at a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland. Th ere I was introduced to an “infl uential member of the diplomatic corps” who, I was told, had begun his career working in the Vatican archives. His name was Agostino Casaroli, and I would soon learn that he was truly infl uential. On the spot this monsignor gave me access to the Vatican archives, and soon three young DIE undercover offi cers posing as Romanian priests were digging around in the papal archives. Casaroli also agreed “in principle” to Bucharest’s demand for the interest free loan, but he said the Vatican wished to place certain conditions on it. (Up until 1978, when I left Romania for good, I was still negotiating for that loan, which had gone down to $200 million.) During 1960–62, the DIE succeeded in pilfering hundreds of documents connected in any way with Pope Pius XII out of the Vatican Archives and the Apostolic Library. Everything was immediately sent to the KGB via special courier. In actual fact, no incriminating material against the pontiff ever turned up in all those secretly photographed documents. Mostly they were copies of personal letters and transcripts of meetings and speeches, all couched in the routine kind of diplomatic language one would expect to fi nd. Nevertheless, the KGB kept asking for more documents. And we sent more. Th e KGB Produces a Play In 1963, General Ivan Agayants, the famous chief of the KGB’s disinformation department, landed in Bucharest to thank us for our help. He told us that “Seat-12” had materialized into a powerful play attacking Pope Pius XII, entitled Th e Deputy, an oblique reference to the Pope as Christ’s representative on earth. Agayants took credit for the outline of the play, and he told us that it had voluminous appendices of background documents put together by his experts with help from the documents we had purloined from the Vatican. Agayants also told us that Th e Deputy’s producer, Erwin Piscator, was a devoted Communist who had a longstanding relationship with Moscow. In 1929 he had founded the Proletarian Th eater in Berlin, then sought political asylum in the Soviet Union when Hitler came to power, and a few years later had “emigrated” to the United States. In 1962 Piscator had returned to West Berlin to produce Th e Deputy. Th roughout my years in Romania, I always took my KGB bosses with a grain of salt, because they used to juggle the facts around so as to make Soviet intelligence the mother and father of everything. But I had reason to believe Agayants’s self-serving claim. He was a living legend in the fi eld of dezinformatsiya. In 1943, as the rezident in Iran, Agayants launched the disinformation report that Hitler had set up a special team to kidnap President Franklin Roosevelt from the American Embassy in Tehran during the Allied Summit to be held there. As a result, Roosevelt agreed to be headquartered in a villa within the “safety” of the Soviet Embassy compound, which was guarded by a large military unit. All the Soviet personnel assigned to that villa were undercover intelligence offi cers who spoke English, but, with few exceptions, they kept that a secret so as to be able to eavesdrop. Even given the limited technical capabilities of that day, Agayants was able to provide Stalin with hourly monitoring reports on the American and British guests. Th at helped Stalin obtain Roosevelt’s tacit agreement to let him retain the Baltic countries and the rest of the territories occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939–40. Agayants was also credited with having induced Roosevelt to use the familiar “Uncle Joe” for Stalin at that summit. According to what 192 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Sakharovsky told us, Stalin was more elated over that than he was even over his territorial gains. “Th e cripple’s mine!” he reportedly exulted. Just a year before Th e Deputy was launched, Agayants had pulled off another masterful coup. He fabricated out of whole cloth a manuscript designed to persuade the West that, deep down, the Kremlin thought highly of the Jews; this was published in Western Europe, to great popular success, as a book entitled Notes for a Journal. Th e manuscript was attributed to Maxim Litvinov, né Meir Walach, the former Soviet commissar for foreign aff airs, who had been fi red in 1939 when Stalin purged his diplomatic apparatus of Jews in preparation for signing his “non-aggression” pact with Hitler. (Th e Stalin-Hitler Non-Aggression Pact was signed on August 23, 1939, in Moscow. It had a secret Protocol that partitioned Poland between the two signatories and gave the Soviets a free hand in Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina.) Th is Agayants book was so fl awlessly counterfeited that Britain’s most prominent historian on Soviet Russia, Edward Hallet Carr, was totally convinced of its authenticity and in fact wrote an introduction for it. (Carr had authored a tenvolume History of Soviet Russia.) Th e Deputy saw the light in 1963 as the work of an unknown West German named Rolf Hochhuth, under the title Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (Th e Deputy, a Christian Tragedy). Its central thesis was that Pius XII had supported Hitler and encouraged him to go ahead with the Jewish Holocaust. It immediately ignited a huge controversy around Pius XII, who was depicted as a cold, heartless man more concerned about Vatican properties than about the fate of Hitler’s victims. Th e original text presents an eight-hour play, backed by some 40 to 80 pages (depending on the edition) of what Hochhuth called “historical documentation.” In a newspaper article published in Germany in 1963, Hochhuth defends his portrayal of Pius XII, saying: “Th e facts are there—forty crowded pages of documentation in the appendix to my play.” In a radio interview given in New York in 1964, when Th e Deputy opened there, Hochhuth said, “I considered it necessary to add to the play a historical appendix, fi fty to eighty pages (depending on the size of the print).” In the original edition, the appendix is entitled “Historische Streifl ichter” (historical sidelights). Th e Deputy has been translated into some 20 languages, drastically cut and with the appendix usually omitted. Before writing Th e Deputy, Hochhuth, who did not have a high school diploma (Abitur), was working in various inconspicuous capacities for the Bertelsmann publishing house. In interviews he claimed that in 1959 he took a leave of absence from his job and went to Rome, where he spent three months talking to people and then writing the fi rst draft of the play, and where he posed “a series of questions” to one bishop whose name he refused to reveal. Hardly likely! At about that same time I used to visit the Vatican fairly regularly as an accredited messenger from a head of state, and I was never able to get any talkative bishop off into a corner with me—and it was not for lack of trying. Th e DIE illegal offi cers we infi ltrated into the Vatican also encountered almost insurmountable diffi culties in penetrating the Vatican secret archives, even though they had airtight cover as priests. During my old days in the DIE, when I would ask my personnel chief, General Nicolae Ceausescu (the dictator’s brother), to give me a rundown of the fi le on some subordinate, he would always ask me, “For promotion or demotion?” During its fi rst ten years of life, Th e Deputy leaned toward the Pope’s demotion. It generated a fl urry of books and articles, some accusing and some defending the pontiff . Some went so far as to lay the blame for the Auschwitz atrocities on the Pope’s shoulders, some meticulously tore Hochhuth’s arguments to shreds, but all contributed to the huge attention this rather stilted play received in its day. Today, many people who have never heard of Th e Deputy are sincerely convinced that Pius XII was a cold and evil man who hated the Jews and helped Hitler do away with them. As KGB chairman Yury Andropov, the unparalleled master of Soviet deception, used to tell me, people are more ready to believe smut than holiness. 193 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Falsehoods Undermined Toward the mid-1970s, Th e Deputy started running out of steam. In 1974 Andropov conceded to us that, had we known then what we know today, we would never have gone after Pope Pius XII. What now made the diff erence was newly released information showing that Hitler, far from being friendly with Pius XII, had in fact been plotting against him. Just a few days before Andropov’s admission, the former supreme commander of the German SS (Schutzstaff el) squadron in Italy during World War II, General Friedrich Otto Wolff , had been released from jail and confessed that in 1943 Hitler had ordered him to abduct Pope Pius XII from the Vatican. Th at order had been so hush-hush that it never turned up after the war in any Nazi archive. Nor had it come out at any of the many debriefi ngs of Gestapo and SS offi cers conducted by the victorious Allies. In his confession Wolff claimed that he had replied to Hitler that his order would take six weeks to carry out. Hitler, who blamed the Pope for the overthrow of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, wanted it done immediately. Eventually Wolff persuaded Hitler that there would be a great negative response if the plan were implemented, and the Führer dropped it. It was also during 1974 that Cardinal Mindszenty published his book Memoirs, which describes in agonizing detail how he was framed in Communist Hungary. On the evidence of fabricated documents, he was charged with “treason, misuse of foreign currency, and conspiracy,” off enses “all punishable by death or life imprisonment.” He also describes how his falsifi ed “confession” then took on a life of its own. “It seemed to me that anyone should at once have recognized this document as a crude forgery, since it is the product of a bungling, uncultivated mind,” the cardinal writes. “But when I subsequently went through foreign books, newspapers, and magazines that dealt with my case and commented on my ‘confession,’ I realized that the public must have concluded that the ‘confession’ had actually been composed by me, although in a semiconscious state and under the infl uence of brainwashing . . . (T)hat the police would have published a document they had themselves manufactured seemed altogether too brazen to be believed.” Furthermore, Hanna Sulner, the Hungarian handwriting expert used to frame the cardinal, who had escaped to Vienna, confi rmed that she had forged Mindszenty’s “confession.” A few years later, Pope John Paul II started the process of sanctifying Pius XII, and witnesses from all over the world have compellingly proved that Pius XII was an enemy, not a friend, of Hitler. Israel Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome between 1943 and 44, when Hitler took over that city, devoted an entire chapter of his memoirs to praising the leadership of Pius XII. “Th e Holy Father sent by hand a letter to the bishops instructing them to lift the enclosure from convents and monasteries, I know of one convent where the Sisters slept in the basement, giving up their beds to Jewish refugees.” so that they could become refuges for the Jews. On July 25, 1944, Zolli was received by Pope Pius XII. Notes taken by Vatican secretary of state Giovanni Battista Montini (who would become Pope Paul VI) show that Rabbi Zolli thanked the Holy Father for all he had done to save the Jewish community of Rome—and his thanks were transmitted over the radio. On February 13, 1945, Rabbi Zolli was baptized by Rome’s auxiliary bishop Luigi Traglia in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. In gratitude to Pius XII, Zolli took the Christian name of Eugenio (the Pope’s name). A year later Zolli’s wife and daughter were also baptized. David G. Dalin, in Th e Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis, published a few months ago, has compiled further overwhelming proof of Eugenio Pacelli’s friendship for the Jews beginning long before he became Pope. At the start of World War II, Pope Pius XII’s fi rst encyclical was so anti-Hitler that the Royal Air Force and the French air force dropped 88,000 copies of it over Germany. 194 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Over the past 16 years, the freedom of religion has been restored in Russia, and a new generation has been struggling to develop a new national identity. We can only hope that President Vladimir Putin will see fi t to open the KGB archives and set forth on the table, for all to see, how the Communists maligned one of the most important Popes of the last century. – Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence offi cer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. His book Red Horizons has been republished in twenty-seven countries. Reported on February 11, 1945 in L’Osservatore Romano: Moscow Radio accuses the Holy See of being a Fascist/Nazi sympathizer. Th is further sustains General Pacepa’s accusation of the Soviet attempt to accuse Pius XII of being “Hitler’s Pope” as early as 1945. Th is accusation initially collapsed because there were still too many people alive who had lived through the war years and knew this was a lie. Th e Soviets tried again with the next generation, using Operation “Seat 12.” Th is time, the propaganda worked. News articles reveal the seeds of the Soviets’ anti-Catholic, anti-Pius campaign: 195 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Th e 1963 play, Th e Deputy (Der Stellvertreter in Germany and Th e Vicar in the UK) written by Rolf Hochhuth, accused Pius XII of being anti-Semitic, caring only about Vatican assets, and a collaborator with Adolf Hitler. Th is fi ctitious play was rewritten by Communist producer Erwin Biscator in a KGB disinformation plot called “Seat Twelve.” Th e KGB goals were to destroy the reputation of the Catholic Church, Pope Pius XII, and to isolate the Jews from the Catholics worldwide. Translated into twenty languages and strategically performed worldwide, this fi ctitious play was planned and fi nanced by the KGB against the Vatican, their arch-enemy. Th is is one of the most eff ective examples of character assassination in modern history. World renowned historian of WWII, Sir Martin Gilbert calls this play “well crafted fi ction not at all based on historical evidence.” Pictured is author of Th e Deputy, Rolf Hochhuth (R) with his friend David Irving (L), an internationally known Holocaust denier. 196 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Th e Deputy—Where Does the Guilt Lie? From: Witness from the Pulpit Rabbi Harold J. Saperstein March 20, 1964 197 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? John Cornwell’s 1999 book, Hitler’s Pope, added to the negativity and subjective commentary, which advanced the change of international sentiment about Pope Pius XII. Below is an example of the provocative, negative methodology employed within this book. On the right is the cover of Hitler’s Pope. Th e photo itself was actually taken in 1927 at the birthday reception of President Von Hindenburg, of the Weimer Republic, not the Nazi regime. Th is photo was intentionally cropped and further altered to enfl ame emotions. Archbishop Pacelli left Germany in 1929 never to return. Cornwell’s photo credit below clearly but erroneously states that this is Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, leaving the Presidential palace in Berlin, March 1939. Pacelli was elected Pope on March 3, 1939. Pacelli leaves a 1927 birthday reception for German President von Hindenburg. Pacelli left Germany in 1929, never to return again. Actual acknowledgment of the cover photo 198 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? John Cornwell has recently retracted many of his statements. Cornwell claimed that the Vatican assisted him with his research for Hitler’s Pope both because of his professed desire to defend Pius XII and because of his 1989 book, A Th ief in the Night, which he says was favorable to the Holy See. One reviewer of A Th ief in the Night wrote: Cornwell lets his private journalistic ambition sully his integrity as a writer of supposed history. Th is man has a clear agenda: vilify the Vatican in every possible way, cast aspersions on those who cannot defend themselves, and where possible make the Catholic Church generally and the Vatican “establishment” in particular look like a bunch of power hungry egomaniacs and a den of thieves. Th is review was available on the Amazon.com website in late 1999. In 2008, Penguin Press released a new edition of Hitler’s Pope. Th e only apparent change was a new preface in which Cornwell admitted that Pius was not a Nazi sympathizer, did not favor Hitler, and was not an anti-Semite. Cornwell also noted that he had qualifi ed his criticism of Pius XII’s handling of the roundup of Roman Jews in October 1943, and here he also acknowledged the reality of the threat of an invasion of the Vatican, which he had previously downplayed. In the new edition, Cornwell still argues that Pacelli was “an ideal church leader” for Hitler to exploit. “I am not inclined to alter this view despite the many citations of Pacelli’s alleged deeds of mercy toward Jews and others, or his private criticism of Hitler, or his cautious, even-handed reproaches against both the Axis and the Allied powers.” Cornwell now wants to focus on the early 1930s, when Secretary of State Pacelli “entered into a series of negotiations with Hitler, culminating in the Reich Concordat.” He also says that Pacelli’s postwar claim to have “on various occasions” condemned the “fanatical anti- Semitism infl icted on the Hebrew people” is “a blatant lie.” In the end, he reasserts that Pius XII was “a deeply fl awed human being from whom Catholics, and our relations with other religions, can best profi t by expressing our sincere regret.” – Courtesy of Prof. Ronald Rychlak 199 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Excerpt from Hitler, the War, and the Pope By Ronald Rychlak Papal critics John Cornwell and Robert Katz have argued that the October 16, 1943, deportation did not suffi ciently concern Pius XII. Part of the “evidence” they cited was a message sent from US offi cial Harold Tittmann to the State Department regarding a meeting he had with Pius. Th e message was dated October 19, and reported not the Pope’s outrage at the Nazis roundup a few days earlier, but his concern that “Communist bands” might “commit violence in the city.” If things were actually as Cornwell and Katz reported them, Pius would indeed have appeared indiff erent to this Nazi abuse of Jewish people. Such, however, was not the case. Th e Vatican keeps precise records of audiences given by the Pope. Th e transcribed message to Washington from Harold Tittmann is dated October 19th, but this is a mistake. Vatican records show that the meeting between Pius and Tittmann took place on October 14th. In fact, L’Osservatore Romano of October 15, 1943, (below) reported on page one (top of the fi rst column) that Tittmann was received by the Pope in a private audience on October 14, 1943. Apparently a handwritten “4” was misread as a “9” when the documents were typed. Th e Pope did not mention the roundup of Jews because it had not yet happened! His concern was that a group of Communists would commit a violent act and this would lead to serious repercussions. Of course, he proved to be exactly correct the following spring. 200 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Th e Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis by (Rabbi) David G. Dalin Th is review appears in the July/August 2006 issue of the American Spectator. By Sir Martin Gilbert on 8.18.06 Printed with permission from spectator.org AS A HISTORIAN OF THE HOLOCAUST, I frequently receive requests from Jewish educators, seeking support for grant applications for their Holocaust programs. Almost all these applications include a sentence about how the new program will inform students that the Pope, and the Vatican, “did nothing” during the Holocaust to help Jews. Th e most recent such portrayal reached me while I was writing this review. It is part of a proposal to a major Jewish philanthropic organization, and contains the sentence: “Also discusses the role of the Vatican and the rabidly anti-Semitic Pope Pius XII, who were privy to information regarding the heinous crimes being committed against the Jews, and their indiff erent response.” Th at the Pope and the Vatican were either silent bystanders, or even active collaborators in Hitler’s diabolical plan—and “rabidly anti-Semitic,” as stated above—has become something of a truism in Jewish educational circles, and a powerful, emotional assertion made by American-Jewish writers, lecturers, and educators. David G. Dalin, professor of history and political science at Ave Maria University, Naples, Florida—and an ordained rabbi—demonstrates in his recent book, Th e Myth of Hitler’s Pope, that this is a false and distorted portrayal. He also shows its long pedigree, starting more than 40 years ago, in 1963, with Rolf Hochhuth’s play Th e Deputy. Although that play was fi ction, it was widely regarded as based on fact in its strident assertion of the moral cowardice and silence of Eugenio Pacelli, who in 1939 became Pope as Pius XII. Since Hochhuth’s play, this theme has become commonplace. John Cornwell, a Roman Catholic, in his book Hitler’s Pope (1999) blamed Pius XII not only for silence, but for active collaboration with the Nazi regime. Jewish writers have understandably been shocked by the reiterated assertion of papal refusal to help Jews at their time of greatest need. Daniel Goldhagen’s book A Moral Reckoning: Th e Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfi lled Duty of Repair (2002) portrays Pius XII as part of a wider Roman Catholic anti-Semitic tradition that permeated the Church’s teachings and was integral—in Goldhagen’s words—to the very “genesis of the Holocaust.” Dalin takes issue with these critics of Pius XII. Building on earlier documented defenses of Pius XII, including Ronald J. Rychlak’s detailed study Hitler, the War, and the Pope (2000), he builds a powerful case for Pius XII, suggesting that the desire of Pope John Paul II to canonize Pius need not have been off ensive—or insensitive—to Jews, as it was widely portrayed. THE HISTORICAL RECORD is clear. Th ere can be no minimizing the horrors of those manifestations of Christian anti-Semitism that were a curse in the story of Nazi-dominated Europe. Th e Polish villagers who murdered their neighbors in Jedwabne had been churchgoers all their lives. Th e Roman Catholic priests who, on many documented occasions, turned their fl ocks against the Jews throughout Eastern Europe were ordained in the rites of Rome. Th e Slovak leader, Father Jozef Tiso, who asked the Germans to deport his Jews to German-occupied Poland and to slave labor—and death—was an ordained priest. But, as I myself pointed out in my book Th e Righteous: Th e Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (2003), there was another side 201 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? to this coin. In France, leaders of the Roman Catholic clergy were outspoken in their condemnation of the deportations. In Italy, churchmen across the whole spectrum of Roman Catholicism, including leading Jesuits, saved Jews from deportation. Many hundreds of Polish priests and nuns are among more than 5,000 Catholic Poles who have been recognized by the state of Israel for their courage in saving Jews. Where does this leave Pope Pius XII, the object of so much published hostility, and the main fi gure in Dalin’s short but powerful book? Can Pius really merit the words of Israel’s then Foreign Minister, Golda Meir (later Prime Minister of Israel), when she telegraphed to the Vatican on Pius’s death in 1958: “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. Th e life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily confl ict. We mourn a great servant of peace.” Th ose who were in charge of that Nazi terror during the war years held this same view during the war itself. After Pius XII delivered his Christmas message in December 1942, the Reich Security Main Offi ce, the German government department in Berlin responsible for the deportation of the Jews, informed its representatives, who were in charge of encouraging local leaders to permit their Jews to be deported: “In a manner never known before, the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order . . . Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice to the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.” Th is was stern condemnation by the Nazis of a man who is now condemned for the opposite failing. Yet nine months later, Pius XII was to upset the Nazis even more. After the German occupation of Rome and the northern part of Italy, when the SS determined to introduce the Final Solution in all areas of Italy under German military control, Pius and the Vatican took the lead in seeking to frustrate the deportation plan. A MAIN OBJECT OF SS POLICY in Italy after the German occupation in 1943 was the deportation to Auschwitz of all Jews living in Rome. Margherita Marchione has told this story in Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII (2002). Th e roundup began without warning at eleven in the evening on October 15, 1943. Between then and one in the afternoon on October 16, one thousand of Rome’s 6,000 Jews were arrested and taken to a deportation holding center, the Collegio Militare: their destination (although unknown at the time) was Auschwitz. News of the start of the round-ups was brought personally to the Pope early on the morning of October 16 by an Italian Catholic princess, Enza Pignatelli Aragona Cortes, who had been alerted by a Jewish friend. Having received the princess early that morning, the Pope immediately instructed the Cardinal Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, to protest to the German ambassador to the Vatican, Ernst von Weizsäcker (a former German Deputy Foreign Minister). 202 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Maglione did so that morning, making it clear to the ambassador that the deportation of Jews was off ensive to the Pope. In urging Weizsäcker “to try to save these innocent people,” Maglione added: “It is sad for the Holy Father, sad beyond imagination, that here in Rome, under the very eyes of the Common Father, that so many people should suff er only because they belong to a specifi c race.” Following Maglione’s appeal, Weizsäcker gave orders for a halt to the arrests.* To protect those who were thus still in their homes from a possible German reversal of the halt to the deportations, the Pope gave instructions for the Vatican to be opened to Rome’s Jews, and for the convents and monasteries of Rome to provide hiding places, or provide false identifi cation papers. As a result of this papal initiative, in Rome a larger percentage of the Jews were saved than in any other city then under German occupation. Of the 5,715 Roman Jews listed by the Germans for deportation, 4,715 were given shelter in more than 150 Catholic institutions in the city; of these, 477 were given sanctuary within the confi nes of the Vatican itself. In reporting on the Maglione-Weizsäcker meeting to London two weeks later, the British ambassador noted: “Vatican intervention thus seems to have been eff ective in saving numbers of these unfortunate people.” Of the thousand deportees of October 16, only ten survived. Th e remaining four-fi fths of Rome’s Jews were alive at liberation. A footnote to these events: fi fty-one years after Weizsäcker’s decisive intervention, his son Richard was the fi rst President of the Federal Republic of Germany to visit Israel, and there to express his shame at what Germany had done to the Jews in the Nazi era. AS THE GERMANS began deporting Jews from other parts of northern Italy, the Pope opened his summer estate at Castel Gandolfo to take in several thousand (women had their babies in the Pope’s apartment) and authorized monasteries throughout the German-occupied areas of Italy to do likewise. As a result, while the Germans managed to seize and deport a further 7,000 Italian Jews to their deaths, 35,000 survived the war—one of the highest ratios of those rescued of any country. Th ere was to be a further decisive papal rescue action after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. Under the leadership of the Pope’s senior representative in Budapest, the Papal Nuncio Angelo Rotta, the diplomats of eight neutral countries represented in the Hungarian capital—including the Swedish ambassador and his staff , prominent among them Per Anger and Raoul Wallenberg—organized a city-wide rescue scheme. Under Rotta’s energetic lead, an “International Ghetto” was established in the northern section of the city, 203 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? in which more than 40 safe houses were established, marked by the Vatican emblem, and other national emblems. Into these safe houses—a series of tall, modern apartment buildings—25,000 Jews found refuge, and survived. Elsewhere in Budapest, Roman Catholic institutions hid several thousand more Jews in their cellars and attics. Th e infl uence and authority of Pius XII was wide-ranging. In the port of Fiume, the Italian police chief, Giovanni Pallatuccii—the nephew of an Italian bishop, Giuseppe Palatucci—together with his uncle, saved 5,000 Jews from deportation during the German occupation of the port. Th ey did so by providing the Jews with false identity papers, enabling them to gain safety in the bishop’s diocese in southern Italy. For helping the Jews of Fiume, Giovanni Palatucci was arrested by the SS and sent to Dachau, where he was executed. Pius XII took a direct part in sending money to support the Jewish refugees from Fiume. He also sent considerable sums of money to other rescuers of Jews in Italy, and to the French Capuchin monk, Father Pierre-Marie Benoit, from whose monastery in Marseille several thousand French Jews were smuggled across the borders of neutral Spain and Switzerland. AMONG THE LEADING ROMAN Catholic clergymen who helped save Jews was Archbishop Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. When the government of Israel asked him, in 1955, to accept an award for his rescue work during the Holocaust, Montini replied: “All I did was my duty. And besides I only acted upon orders from the Holy Father.” When the deportation of 80,000 Jews from Slovakia to Auschwitz began in March 1942, Pius authorized formal written protests by both the Vatican secretary of state and the papal representative in the Slovak capital, Bratislava. When a second round of deportations began in Slovakia the following spring, Pius wrote a letter of protest to the Slovak government. Dated April 7, 1943, it was outspoken and unambiguous. “Th e Holy See has always entertained the fi rm hope,” Pius wrote, that the Slovak government “would never proceed with the forcible removal of persons belonging to the Jewish race. It is, therefore, with great pain that the Holy See has learned of the continued transfers of such a nature from the territory of the republic.” Th at pain was “aggravated further,” the Pope wrote in this same letter, since it appeared “that the Slovak Government intends to proceed with the total removal of the Jewish residents of Slovakia, not even sparing women and children. Th e Holy See would fail in its Divine Mandate if it did not deplore these measures, which gravely damage man in his natural right, mainly for the reason that these people belong to a certain race.” Six times the Pope appealed to the Slovak leader—the Catholic priest Father Tiso—to halt the deportations. After the sixth appeal, on April 7, 1943, the remaining planned deportations were halted. 204 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? On April 8, 1943, the day after his fi nal protest to Father Tiso, Pius XII instructed the Vatican’s representative in the Bulgarian capital, Sofi a, to take “all necessary steps” to support those Bulgarian Jews facing immediate deportation. From Istanbul, Cardinal Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII), a former Papal Nuncio in Bulgaria, and godfather to the king’s sons, added his voice to that of Pius XII, urging the King of Bulgaria not to deport the Jews of his kingdom. Roncalli also signed transit visas for Palestine for several thousand Slovak Jewish refugees. On learning of the plight of Jews in concentration camps in Romanian-occupied Transnistria, Angelo Roncalli contacted Pius XII, who interceded at once with the Romanian authorities, and authorized the dispatch of money to those in the camps. When, in 1957, the Israeli government sought to thank Cardinal Roncalli for his help, the Cardinal replied: “In all those painful matters I referred to the Holy See and afterwards I simply carried out the Pope’s orders: fi rst and foremost to save human lives.” Such is the historical record. It explains why Rabbi Dalin is so disturbed by the continuing assertions that Pius XII did nothing to help Jews, was an anti-Semite, and eff ectively acted as “Hitler’s Pope.” AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THIS BOOK is the carefully constructed background to Pius XII’s attitude to the Jews, going back to his early days as a young Vatican offi cial. Indeed, from his schooldays, Eugenio Pacelli—as he then was—was friends with a Jewish student, Guido Mendes, later a distinguished Roman physician. As a result of this friendship, Pacelli was the fi rst Pope to have shared a Sabbath dinner in his youth at a Jewish home. In 1915, then aged 39, he helped draft Pope Benedict XV’s powerful papal denunciation of anti-Semitism in Poland, which insisted that the Christian law to love one another “must be observed and respected in the case of the children of Israel.” In 1919, as Papal Nuncio in Munich, Pacelli defended the Church against the ferocious onslaught of Communism, then—as in Russia two years earlier—spearheaded by individual Jews who had long since abandoned their religious faith. But anti-Communism did not make him pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic, as his critics claim. In May 1922, Pacelli warned the Jewish politician Walter Rathenau of an assassination plot by German anti-Semites. A month later, Rathenau was murdered. In November 1923, fi ve days after Hitler’s failed attempt to seize power in Munich, Pacelli wrote critically to the Vatican about the Nazi movement, and noted with approval the public defense of Munich’s Jews by the city’s Catholic archbishop. In 1933, while serving as Cardinal Secretary of State—the Vatican’s Foreign Minister—Pacelli negotiated the “Reich Concordat” with Hitler’s Germany, determined to protect German Catholics from the anti-religious policies of the new regime. Dalin makes a convincing argument in favor of the Concordat as a protective measure, stressing that it was not a moral endorsement of Nazism. Indeed, from the outset of the anti-Jewish persecutions in Germany, Pacelli opposed them. 205 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? On April 4, 1933, three days after the one-day boycott of Jewish shops, Pacelli instructed the Papal Nuncio in Berlin to warn the regime against the persecution of German Jews, asking the Nuncio to become actively involved on behalf of the Jews. Four months later he twice expressed to the British ambassador to the Vatican his “disgust and abhorrence” at the Nazi regime. Th e ambassador reported to the Foreign Offi ce in London—on August 19, 1933—that Pacelli “deplored the action of the German Government at home” including “their persecution of Jews.” In 1936 Pacelli visited the United States. One result of his mission, Dalin notes, was that, at President Roosevelt’s personal request, he prevailed upon Father Charles Coughlin, the “radio priest,” to end his anti- New Deal—and also anti-Semitic—broadcasts. While willing to meet Roosevelt, Pacelli never met Hitler. When, in a much-heralded gesture of friendship, Hitler visited Mussolini in Rome in 1938, Pacelli deliberately absented himself from the city, together with Pope Pius XI. While Secretary of State, Pacelli made an astonishing 55 protests against Nazi policies, including, repeatedly, the “ideology of race.” In 1938 Pacelli publicly endorsed and repeated the words of Pius XI, that “it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is inadmissible; spiritually we are all Semites.” So outspoken were Pacelli’s criticisms that Hitler’s regime lobbied against him, trying to prevent his becoming the successor to Pius XI. When he did become Pope, as Pius XII, in March 1939, Nazi Germany was the only government not to send a representative to his coronation. IMMEDIATELY UPON BECOMING POPE, Pius XII responded to Mussolini’s anti-Jewish legislation by appointing several Jewish scholars who had been dismissed from the university to positions inside the Vatican. Among them was the distinguished Jewish cartographer, Roberto Almagia, a professor at the University of Rome since 1915. On the day after his dismissal, Almagia was appointed director of the geography section of the Vatican library. While working there he completed an exceptional four-volume study of the Vatican’s cartographic holdings. Another dismissed Jewish scholar, Professor Giorgio Levi della Vida, a world authority on Islam, was also given a job in the Vatican library, cataloguing the Arabic manuscripts. In his fi rst encyclical as Pope, Pius XII specifi cally rejected Nazism and expressly mentioned the Jews, noting that in the Catholic Church there is “neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision.” Th e head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller, commented that the encyclical was “directed exclusively against Germany.” So outspoken was it that the Royal Air Force and the French air force dropped 88,000 copies of it over Germany. One strong piece of evidence that Dalin produces against the concept of “Hitler’s Pope” is the audience 206 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? granted by Pius XII in March 1940 to the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, the only senior Nazi offi cial to visit the Vatican during his Papacy. After Ribbentrop rebuked the Pope for “siding” with the Allies, the Pope responded by reading from a long list of German atrocities and religious persecution against Christians and Jews, in Germany, and in Poland, which Germany had occupied six months earlier. Th e New York Times, under the headline “Jews’ Right Defended,” wrote on March 14, 1940: “Th e Pontiff , in the burning words he spoke to Herr Ribbentrop about religious persecution, also came to the defense of the Jews in Germany and Poland.” DALIN DRAWS ATTENTION in this book to the man whom he regards as the missing personality in the story: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, a position of infl uence in the Muslim world to which Hajj Amin had been appointed by the British in 1922. Th is senior Muslim prelate met Hitler several times during the war, called openly for the destruction of European Jewry, and intervened with Hitler to prevent rescue eff orts. Having been given an offi ce in wartime Berlin, Hajj Amin mobilized political and military support for the Nazi regime. Traveling to German-occupied Yugoslavia, he helped raise a Muslim Waff en SS company, which turned its savage attentions against both Jews and Serbian Christians. In one of his many broadcasts from Germany to the Middle East, Hajj Amin said of the Jews: “Th ey cannot mix with other nations but live, as parasites among the nations, suck out their blood, embezzle their property, corrupt their morals . . .” Hitler found the Mufti a useful tool. In answer to Daniel Goldhagen’s charge that the Roman Catholic Church remains a danger to the Jews today, Dalin writes: “It is radical Islam—Hitler’s overt ally in World War II—not the Catholic Church, that threatens Jews today.” In his book Hitler’s Pope, John Cornwell calls Pius XII the “most dangerous” cleric in modern history. Dalin feels that the Mufti is the one who deserves this title. As Dalin writes: “Hitler’s Mufti is truth. Hitler’s Pope is myth.” Professor Dalin’s book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the reality of Pope Pius XII’s support for Jews at their time of greatest danger. Hopefully, his account will replace the divisively harmful version of papal neglect, and even collaboration, that has held the fi eld for far too long. Sir Martin Gilbert is Winston Churchill’s offi cial biographer and the author of ten books on the Holocaust. His latest book, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction, was published in June by HarperCollins. 207 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? * Since the time of the writing of this book and this review, new information has come to light with regard to the actions that ended the arrest of the Roman Jews on October 16, 1943. It was not Von Weizsäcker who stopped the arrest, rather the further eff orts of Pope Pius XII through his close friend and confi dant, Superior General of the Salvatorians in Rome, Fr. Pancratius Pfeiff er. Father Pfeiff er appealed to the city commander of Rome, General Rainer Stahel, to stop the arrests. He acted because of the threat Pope Pius had made to publicly condemn these actions, which would have potentially sparked the Pope’s arrest. General Stahel called Heinrich Himmler, and with a military threat, the arrests stopped at 2:00 p.m. on the day they had begun. http://spectator.org/archives/2006/08/18/hitlers-Pope/print 208 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? In Hitler’s Pope, John Cornwell off ered that Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli, Nuncio to Germany, allegedly refused to help the Chief Rabbi of Munich obtain the Palms needed to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Succoth in 1917 as proof of his anti-Semitism. Documents indicate that Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli did indeed passionately try to intervene on behalf of the Jewish community and Rabbi Werner, Chief Rabbi of Munich to try to gain release of the palms. His eff orts were unsuccessful. At times, Pacelli’s expression of old and new diplomatic tactics seemed to be in confl ict. In March 1939, for instance, Pacelli wrote to Hitler in response to a telegram of congratulations from the Führer, on the occasion of Pacelli’s elevation to the papal throne. Using open diplomacy and writing with standard statesmanlike largesse, Pius’s fl owery prose gave to author John Cornwell the impression, as he relates in Hitler’s Pope, that Pius was genuinely affi rming Hitler and his regime. But the recently discovered Pacelli report suggests that nearly a year before he became Pope, and well before he wrote to Hitler, Pacelli employed private diplomacy to make clear to the Allied leadership his intense disdain of the Nazis. 209 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Author John Cornwell retracts his position taken in Hitler’s Pope in reaction to evidence and debates following the publication of his book. Cornwell now acknowledges the enormous pressure on the Pope under the heel of Mussolini, and later under German occupation. 210 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Author of Hitler’s Pope, John Cornwell, recants his statements and opinion on Pope Pius XII. –Prof. Ronald Rychlak In his 2004 book, Th e Pontiff in Winter, John Cornwell admitted that Hitler’s Pope lacked balance. He reported that “in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope,” Pope Pius XII “had so little scope of action” that it is impossible to judge his motives “while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”[i] Th e Economist reported that Cornwell was “chastened” by the experience. In an article from the Catholic World Herald, titled “I’ve Never Accused Pius of Being a Nazi,” Cornwell said: “A lot of people have misunderstood the book, and possibly it’s my fault—the title could so easily be misunderstood.”[ii] He went on to explain: “I’ve changed my mind about the extent to which one could call in question Pius XII’s motives and conscience over his silence.” [iii] He continued: “I’ve never accused him of being a wicked man, a Nazi or anything like that.” [iv] Cornwell remained critical of the centralization of power in the church, and he said that Pius should have explained himself better after the war, but he essentially recanted his attack on Pius XII’s motives. In 2008, Penguin Press released a new edition of Hitler’s Pope. Th e only apparent change was a new preface in which Cornwell admitted that Pius was not a Nazi sympathizer, did not favor Hitler, and was not an anti-Semite. Cornwell also noted that he had qualifi ed his criticism of Pius XII’s handling of the roundup of Roman Jews in October 1943, and here he also acknowledged the reality of the threat of an invasion of the Vatican, which he had previously downplayed.[i] In the new edition, Cornwell still argues that Pacelli was “an ideal church leader” for Hitler to exploit. “I am not inclined to alter this view despite the many citations of Pacelli’s alleged deeds of mercy toward Jews and others, or his private criticism of Hitler, or his cautious, even-handed reproaches against both the Axis and the Allied powers.” Cornwell now wants to focus on the early 1930s, when Secretary of State Pacelli “entered into a series of negotiations with Hitler, culminating in the Reich Concordat.”[ii] He also says that Pacelli’s postwar claim to have “on various occasions” condemned the “fanatical anti- Semitism infl icted on the Hitler people” is “a blatant lie.” In the end, he reasserts that Pius XII was “a deeply fl awed human being from whom Catholics, and our relations with other religions, can best profi t by expressing our sincere regret.” 211 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? References: [i] See Exonerated, National Catholic Register, Jan. 23–29, 2005, page 1 (“the author most responsible for spreading the Hitler’s Pope myth admits he was wrong”); John Conway, Book Review: Gerard Noel, Pius XII: Th e Hound of Hitler, XV Association of Contemporary Church Historians Newsletter, March 2003 (Hitler’s Pope . . . has by now been largely discredited, as Cornwell himself has acknowledged.”) Cornwell still faults Pius for not being more outspoken following the end of the war. For more discussion of that charge, see cross reference. [ii] “I’ve never accused Pius of Being a Nazi,” Th e Catholic World Herald, July 27, 2007. [iii] Id. [iv] Id. [i] He also admits that he may have misdated the October meeting between Hitler and Tittmann. See cross-reference. [ii] Aside from noting that concordats are properly attributed to the reigning Pope, not the secretary of state, and pointing out the many positive things that came from the concordat, it is important to say that Pacelli never met Hitler. See Charles Rankin, “Pius the Man and his Eff orts for Peace,” in Th e Pope Speaks at 21. Th ey certainly did not negotiate faceto- face. Cornwell ignores that the concordat approach was the long-standing policy of Pope Pius XI and that it was employed with other nations. He also wrongly attributes the collapse of the Center Party to pressure from Pacelli. Cornwell builds his case almost exclusively on an account provided by Heinrich Brüning, the German chancellor from 1930 to 1932 and leader of the German Catholic Center party. As others have noted, however, “Brüning’s account has little foundation in reality” Heinz Hürten, Stimmen der Zeit, March 2000, pp. 205–208. Brüning’s own biographer agrees that Brüning “was misguided . . . to insinuate that the Vatican bore responsibility for his fall as chancellor or the dissolution of the Center Party in 1933 . . . [T]here is no evidence that the Vatican undermined Brüning’s position” William Patch, Heinrich Brüning and the Dissolution of the Weimar Republic 327 (Cambridge University Press, 1998). As reported by the head of the Commission for Contemporary History in Bonn, Germany, the newly released archives of Pius XI’s pontifi cate, which encompass the Concordat/Catholic Center Party demise period, vindicate Pacelli and destroy Cornwell’s speculative claims. Karl-Joseph Hummel. Der Historischen Wahrheit Auf Der Spur: Vor fünfzig Jahren starb Pius XII. –Zum Stand der Debatte nach der Öff nung der vatikanischen Archive, Die Tagespost, September 10, 2008. 212 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? In the absence of documentation, therefore, one is left to surmise that there is logic that justifi es this critical book? In her book Under His Very Windows, Susan Zuccotti apparently refused to accept any eyewitness testimony. She would only accept an actual document, which had the signature of the Pope ordering the Catholic Church to intercede on behalf of the Jews. Th ere exisit numerous fi rsthand testimonies where Catholic clergy received their directives verbally and acted. In one case, September 1943, Fr. Aldo Brunacci recalled how he was called in to meet Archbishop Nicolini of Assisi and shown a Vatican document asking Nicolini to do everything possible to help the Jews. Because he didn’t physically see the signature on the directive, it was of no consequence to author Zuccotti. Zuccotti also completely discounts the confi rmed testimony that Pius XII’s personal actions stopped the arrest of the Jews of Rome on the day they began. She also does not accept that there existed a direct threat against the Pope’s life, the curia, and the Vatican State itself, by the Nazi occupiers of Rome. Th is serious omission of evidence is clearly exemplifi ed by the concluding sentence in her book: “In Italy, at least, large numbers of priests, nuns, monks, and Catholic laypersons risked their lives to save Jews with little guidance from the Pope.” Below is a sentence from Zuccotti’s book where she so defi nitively states that the action to save the Jews of Assisi “did not come from the Pius XII.” She came to this conclusion because a bishop of Perugia would not help the Jews, and so she concludes based on his actions there could not have been a papal directive. She seems to be naïve about human nature here where even when directives may be given, they may not, in every case, be obeyed. She is silent about how so many other bishops throughout Europe and the world did act on papal instructions, and many have testifi ed to this fact. She also does not acknowledge the presence of spies within the Vatican necessitating secret orders and verbal-only exchanges. Papal critic Susan Zuccotti defi nitively stating in her book that “the initiative did not come from Pius XII.” Please see the interview of Father Brunacci with Dr. Robert Moynihan, of Inside the Vatican magazine, where he sets the record straight. Father Brunacci is recognized as Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem. 213 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Critic Susan Zuccotti went through parish archives throughout Italy. Time after time, she found that Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, and laypersons fed, sheltered, and clothed Jewish refugees. She claimed, however, to fi nd no evidence of papal help with this rescue work. When overwhelming oral evidence of papal support was pointed out to her, she rejected anything except contemporaneous written evidence. Not fi nding any, and assuming that the Vatican would have published any such documents if they existed, she assumed that there was no valid evidence of papal involvement in rescue eff orts. She was wrong. Initially, it should be noted that Zuccotti’s thesis is illegitimate. She builds her case not on evidence, but on a lack of evidence. In doing this, she violates the Talmudic rule: “not to have seen is not yet a proof.” Th is has also been called “rule one” of archaeology: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Th e same maxim applies to legal analysis. No honest historian should make such an argument. Holocaust denier (and close friend of Th e Deputy’s author, Rolf Hochhuth) David Irving once off ered a reward for anyone who could fi nd a document linking Hitler to the extermination of Jews. Serious historians rightfully rejected his argument. A lack of existing written evidence is not suffi cient to prove that Hitler lacked responsibility for the Holocaust. Everyone who arrested a Jew, informed on those who sheltered refugees, or helped run a concentration camp knew that Hitler approved of this work. By the same token, everyone who helped rescue Jews knew that they were fulfi lling the Pope’s wishes. He inspired them. He encouraged them. Zuccotti frequently notes that Pope Pius XII allowed his underlings to carry out lifesaving work on behalf of the Jews. For instance, on page 214 of Under His Very Windows, she reports: “He may not always have known the extent of the rescue work, but . . . (he) did not prohibit these activities.” On page 188, she writes: “he allowed Benedetto’s [rescue] activities to continue.” On page 236, she informs the reader: “Pius XII did not prohibit (rescue operations in north Italy).” On 299, one reads: “Pius XII and his advisors undoubtedly knew what Bernardini was doing, and approved.” On page 243, she even goes further, saying that rescuers “may have been encouraged” by Pius XII’s public statements or by articles about his work that appeared in local parish bulletins. Unfortunately, like Irving, she rejects overwhelming evidence simply because she could not fi nd the written order. Zuccotti’s theory is bad logic for a Holocaust denier, and it is bad logic for her. At the end of the day, we have Zuccotti on one side arguing that there is no evidence of papal involvement. On the other side, we have a mountain of testimony from rescuers, victims, Germans, Jews, priests, nuns, the New York Times (and other papers), seven cardinals, and two Popes. We also now have the written archival confi rmation of papal involvement in the rescue of Jews that Zuccotti thought did not exist. In other words, the evidence all weighs in favor of Pope Pius XII. To ignore that evidence is to deny history. With this subject, that is a very dangerous thing to do. – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 214 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Below is Father Brunacci’s recollection of his interview with Susan Zuccotti, as told to Dr. Robert Moynihan of Inside Vatican Magazine. Q. Did you actually see the letter? BRUNACCI: I did not actually see the text of the letter, but look, I was alone with the bishop in the room, he held the letter up and showed it to me. He said he had received the letter from Rome, and he read what it said “that the Holy Father wanted us to see to it in our diocese that something would be done to ensure the safety of the Jews” and the bishop wanted to consult with me on what to do. Q. So you never actually read the letter? BRUNACCI: No, the bishop read the letter to me. Q. Th en, as Zuccotti suggests in her book, it might be possible that the letter was not what Bishop Nicolini told you it was, that he was in some way deceiving you? BRUNACCI: (Laughs) Impossible, impossible. (Laughs again) It is not possible that Bishop Nicolini was deceiving me. I am certain of that. Look, we were alone in the room and he read the letter to me. It was clearly from the Vatican, there is no doubt of that. Not from the Pope himself, personally, but from the Secretariat of State. It was a letter asking the bishop to do all he could to help the Jews, and the bishop wanted me to advise him on the best way to carry out that request. In fact, this same order went out to many other diocese in Italy . . . - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope 215 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Vatican actions, like those of the allies, had to be secret. Th ese activities are normal in a time of war. Many of the critics of Pius XII, including Dr. Zuccotti, have asked, “Where is the letter signed by Pius XII to save the Jews of Rome?” Th e defenders have responded that these letters had to be destroyed. To further this argument, the defenders have said, “Show me the signed orders from Adolf Hitler ordering the fi nal solution of the Jews.” Are we to believe that with the absence of this document that Hitler had nothing to do with the fi nal solution? Absurd. Countess numbers of eyewitnesses attest to seeing these papal orders, but this does not appear to satisfy critics like Dr. Zuccotti. Many lifesaving documents had to be encrypted or destroyed. Th e letter below, dated May 20, 1944, is from British Ambassador D’Arcy Osborne to Harold Tittmann, the assistant to Myron Taylor, President Roosevelt’s Representative to the Holy See. It clearly addresses the concern that documents could fall into enemy hands and the need to destroy them. 216 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Author of two critical books, Black Sabbath and Death in Rome, Robert Katz is sued in Italy for defamation against Pope Pius XII. Robert Katz was another early critic of Pope Pius XII. Katz fi rst leveled false charges against Pope Pius XII in his 1967 book Death in Rome and then again in his 1969 book Black Sabbath. He also authored the screenplay for a movie titled Massacre in Rome. In each of these works, Katz severely criticized Pope Pius XII for failing to take a more fi rm stand in opposition to the Nazis. In 1974, the niece of Pope Pius XII, Elena Pacelli Rossignani, commenced a legal action against Katz, movie producer Carlo Ponti, and director George Cosmatos, charging that they had unfairly defamed the memory of the late Pope. Central to that suit was Katz’s charge about the slaughter of 335 innocent Italians at the Ardeatine caves August 24, 1944. On November 27, 1975, Katz was found guilty of defamation. Th e court ruled that Robert Katz wished to defame Pius XII, attributing to him actions, decisions, and sentiments, which no objective fact and no witness authorized him to do. He was fi ned four hundred thousand lire, given a thirteen-month suspended prison sentence, and required to pay various expenses related to the plaintiff ’s lawyers. Katz appealed that judgment, and on July 1, 1978, an appellate court absolved Katz, ruling that he could not be punished due to his right to free speech and expression. Since Katz could not be punished, neither could the fi lmmakers. Th e general procurator of Rome appealed this ruling, and on October 19, 1979, the Corte di Cassazione (the highest court) held that the sentence could not be enforced against the fi lm due to a general amnesty that had been put in place in 1970. As for the action against Katz based upon his book, the court remanded the case to the appellate court for a new hearing. On July 7, 1981, the appellate court held that even though the Italian edition of Katz’s book was fi rst published in 1967 (thus predating the 1970 amnesty and therefore not being punishable), other editions had been published with Katz’s consent after 1970, so the amnesty was not applicable. Th e new editions constituted a continuation of defamation against Pius XII. Essentially, the 1975 sentence condemning Katz was confi rmed, and he was ordered to pay a fi ne of four hundred thousand lire, plus legal expenses, and to be held in jail for thirteen months. 217 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? A review of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s A Moral Reckoning By Mark Riebling “Jesus, Jews, and the Shoah” by Mark Riebling from National Review, January 27, 2003, pp. 43–44. © 2003 by National Review, Inc., Reprinted by permission. A Moral Reckoning: Th e Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfi lled Duty of Repair, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen I began this book as an admirer of its author. Goldhagen’s 1996 work, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, forcefully rejected the leftist paradigms that had come to dominate study of the worst event in human history. Where other historians posited exculpatory social structures, collectivities, or “irresistible forces,” Goldhagen presented Germans as individual moral agents, as thinking and choosing beings. From this fi rst eff ort, it was clear that Goldhagen had one of those rare minds that, across labyrinths of sophistry, and through mazes of irrelevant facts, could cut right to the point. In one area, it is true, that earlier work was marred by some dubious speculation. “European anti-Semitism,” Goldhagen wrote, was “a corollary of Christianity”: Because Jews rejected the revelation of Jesus, they challenged Christians’ certitude in that revelation. Doctrinal Christianity was shaped by that early challenge and, over the centuries, warped by it. Such a thesis, even if true, would be diffi cult to prove; but to his credit, Goldhagen sharply diff erentiated Christian from Nazi attitudes. Th e Volkisch worldview, he stressed, “contradicted and did not admit the Christian one that had held sway for centuries.” Th at fi rm and clear distinction—and the book’s overwhelming focus on German secular racism—ensured that Hitler’s Willing Executioners was far from a bigoted attack on Christianity per se. In the afterword to the paperback edition of that book, however, signs of a “Goldhagen Problem” emerged. In the US he was attacked by venerable Holocaust scholars, whose works he had eviscerated; but in a tour of Germany, where the book became a bestseller, Goldhagen was hailed as the scholarly equivalent of a rock star. His self-celebratory account of that “huge success”; his gloating reminders of the “frequent and vigorous” applause bestowed by “large audiences”; his inability to refrain from noting that German newspapers hailed his visit as a Triumphzug (triumphal procession)—these would have been turned, by any writer with a modicum of self-consciousness, to the purpose of some humbling and endearing ethos. But in the afterword to Hitler’s Willing Executioners, that shoe never dropped; and in A Moral Reckoning that same self-righteousness, now cancerously advanced, ruins what should have been a sober and important work, in a fi eld where one is greatly needed. A Moral Reckoning is, among its other faults, a 352-page exercise in intellectual bad manners. Reading it is like listening for three days to Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe. Goldhagen’s sour, jut-lipped attitude is apparent even in the introduction, where—in a single two-page stretch—he preemptively deems his critics “philosophically bizarre,” “strange,” “odd,” and “silly” (this last word he uses repeatedly). His own views, of course, are “obvious,” “overwhelming,” or, most typically, “facts.” oss ut s f 218 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Th at Goldhagen should have written this book with attitude need not have been fatal. Many good writers, from Montaigne to Mencken, have been impolitic, colicky, or sassy. But Goldhagen’s smug and disrespectful stance does not inspire confi dence that he will turn each issue carefully, catching all sides of it in reason’s light. Th at he should attempt to do so is vital; for, as he himself allows, “some of the evidence can be read in multiple ways.” Th e book begins with an attack on the World War II-era Pope, Pius XII, originally written for the New Republic under the taunting title, “What Would Jesus Have Done?” Goldhagen does not actually answer that question, but he does imply that a wartime Jesus would have done more than Pius, who “was serving . . . the closest human analogue to the Antichrist, Hitler,” and who “tacitly and sometimes materially aided in mass murder.” As other critics do, Goldhagen alleges that Pius was silent on the fate of the Jews. During the Holocaust, Pius “chose again and again not to mention the Jews publicly . . . [In] public statements by Pius XII . . . any mention of the Jews is conspicuously absent.” In fact, Pius used the word “Jew” in his very fi rst encyclical, Summi Pontifi catus. Th ere he insisted that all human beings be treated charitably—for, as Paul had written to the Colossians, in God’s eyes “there is neither Gentile nor Jew.” In saying this, the Pope affi rmed that Jews were full members of the human community— which, in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, had been Goldhagen’s own criterion for establishing “dissent from the anti-Semitic creed” (emphasis added). Th at Goldhagen gets Pius wrong is perhaps due to his near-total reliance, in the treatment of the wartime period, on secondary sources hostile to the Catholic Church. Th e biased and arguable interpretations in these works are gulped down whole. Since an exhaustive listing of Goldhagen’s derived misreading has already been published by Ronald J. Rychlak (in First Th ings, June July 2002), it seems best to draw over this unfortunate section the curtain of oblivion. More interesting by far is Goldhagen’s implication that it was Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels, who made the Holocaust possible. It would be futile, of course, to deny that the Nazis built a vast mass of evil on a vast mass of prejudice. It would be equally futile to deny that strong prejudices against the Jews existed among Christians during the centuries before the Shoah. Since, moreover, the childhood of the European nations was passed under the tutelage of the clergy, we should not be surprised that these prejudices were, in part, ecclesiastically inculcated. Th at this general anti-Judaism contributed to a moral climate in which Europeans became willing executioners of Jews has been argued by some, beginning with Jules Isaac in 1948. But, in the main, these critics stopped short of blaming Christianity for the Holocaust. Th e great exception is Hyam Maccoby, who in the 1980s posited that the Jesus of the Gospels was anti-Semitic. Goldhagen takes up Maccoby’s view. In Hitler’s Willing Executioners, as noted, Goldhagen distinguished between the Nazis’ “eliminationist anti-Semitism” and Christian anti-Judaism. But in A Moral Reckoning that distinction is obliterated by a hurricane of ostensibly contrary proof. “You brood of vipers . . . you are evil . . .” So said Jesus, Goldhagen reminds us, to “the Jews who were Pharisees.” One could, of course, just say “the Pharisees,” without reminding us they were Jewish; but then, the passage wouldn’t seem anti-Semitic. Th is sleight-of-hand continues in the next sentence, where Goldhagen sneaks from “the Jews who were Pharisees” to Jesus’ alleged indictment of “such a people,” i.e., the Jews. Farther down the page, after quoting more criticisms of the Pharisees, Goldhagen mischaracterizes those words, too, as an “account of the Jews.” At the tail end of this disastrous passage, he even inserts the word “Jews” in brackets where the text just says “you,” meaning the Pharisees. 219 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? He also puts in brackets “Jewish,” where Matthew says merely “the whole people (laos)”—which could mean the Jews, but could also mean the general Judean populace, including its many pagan Greeks and Romans. (Th ese passages are often requoted as proof of anti-Semitism, with the bracketed insertions of Jewishness always stuck to them like pilotfi sh.) Th e paragraph closes with a false reassertion that Jesus “decrees Jews to be a ‘brood of vipers’” when in fact—as Goldhagen himself said at the paragraph’s outset—Jesus was merely addressing “the Jews who were Pharisees.” Having thus manufactured evidence of anti-Semitism—having set up this straw Jesus—Goldhagen wheels round his guns. Christ’s denunciations of the Pharisees—misrepresented as “speeches from Jesus deprecating the unbelieving Jews”—are “the Christian Bible’s libels.” Th ey thus constitute the major premise in Goldhagen’s high argument: that Christianity is inherently anti-Semitic. Th e anti-Semitism of the Christian Bible is not incidental to it but constitutive of its story of Jesus’ life and death and of its messages about God and humanity . . . Christianity has consecrated a heinous set of charges against Jews in its foundational text . . . Th e Christian Bible is . . . a profoundly anti-Semitic text . . . Christianity is a religion that consecrated at its core and, historically, spread throughout its domain a megatherian hatred of one group of people: the Jews . . . Th e cumulative damage of the Christian Bible’s defamatory account of Jews to their image and reputation among its credulous readers would be hard to exaggerate. Goldhagen exaggerates it. He argues that Catholic “demonology of Jews” was “compatible with or implied eliminationist solutions, including perhaps extermination.” But in fact, Pope Calixtus II’s 1120 bull Sicut Judaeis specifi cally forbade the harming of Jews. Goldhagen fails to mention this. From what he calls his “measured and nuanced account of (Catholic) culpability for various aspects of the Holocaust,” Goldhagen deduces proposals for restitution. Th e Church must not merely pay Jews money, and must not only “support, protect, and sustain” Israel, but must also change its doctrine. Specifi cally, the Church must cease to be Catholic: It must disavow its universalist claims and instead affi rm that “Th e Jews’ way to God is as legitimate as the Christian way.” Th e Pope should convene a Th ird Vatican Council, as proposed by the liberal former priest, James Carroll, at which “Jews would have a full voice.” At this congress it might be agreed, as Carroll urges, that “the Church not treat the Christian Bible as a divine and sacred text” and that “the anti-Semitism of the Christian Bible be excised.” Granting, however, that the Church is unlikely to do any of these things, Goldhagen proposes a prophylactic dose of political-religious correctness: (Th e Church) could include in every Christian Bible a detailed, corrective account alongside the text about its many anti-Semitic passages, and a clear disclaimer explaining that even though these passages were once presented as fact, they are actually false or dubious and have been the source of much unjust injury. Th ey could include essays on the various failings of the Christian Bible, and a detailed running commentary on each page that would correct the texts’ erroneous and libelous assertions. Goldhagen does not say it, but one has the sense that he would affi x, to every Christian Bible, the warning label: “Th is text contains hate speech.” It is a shame that someone who wrote such a good book in 1996 should have allowed himself to become a rank pamphleteer. Among the many sad results of his fi xation on Catholicism is that Goldhagen overlooks a more compelling interpretation of the Shoah—one that he, as a “big picture” historian, might otherwise have been well equipped to probe. As Lucy Dawidowicz saw in 1946, the Holocaust was the product not of Christendom, but of Christendom’s collapse. Th e destruction of Christendom eff ected (1) the rejection of Catholic natural law and (2) the rise of the 220 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? absolute nation-state, previously impossible because Popes could depose and counterbalance kings. Hitler, to be sure, contributed a neo-paganism and anti-Semitism all his own. But in mobilizing opinion and wielding power, he was helped more by these two innovations than by any Catholic doctrines. Goldhagen does not turn the issue in the light to catch this edge of it. Instead, he mounts his hobbyhorse for a spree of intellectual wilding. Mindful that he must not seem a bigot, he sprinkles, at intervals, some deferential disclaimers: “Th e Catholic Church and its moral creed . . . (are), at (their) core, good and admirable.” But as we ride with him, these caveats become increasingly desultory and rhetorical; and by the work’s end, he fi nds that “the Catholic Church . . . by its actions has forfeited its claims to deference.” For indeed, if what Goldhagen writes about the Church is true, then the Church is at its core not good, but evil. And that Goldhagen in fact believes Christianity, as such, is bad for Jews—even deadly to them—is suggested by the weight and odor of abuse he heaps upon it. 221 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? Did the Vatican feel that the Nazis would be a bulwark against Communism? Not at all . . . 222 What Caused the Changes in International Sentiment toward the Actions of Pius XII? While Pope Pius XII has been accused of being “Hitler’s Pope,” there was a true religious leader who allied himself with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi agenda of the extermination of the Jewish people. Th is was “Hitler’s Mufti,” the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni. Th e Mufti was a frequent visitor to Berlin and to Adolf Hitler. “Hitler’s Mufti” encouraged Hitler’s fi nal solution to annihilate the Jewish people. Th e Mufti created a Muslim military SS section from Bosnia. One of the most surprising revelations of our investigation of the Papacy of Pope Pius XII is that virtually no one from the general population holds negative feelings for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni. Husayni is as guilty as some of the most infamous Nazi criminals, and yet it is Pope Pius XII’s name that has been so damaged. 223 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses 224 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses What are some of the commonly held beliefs about Pope Pius XII today? Th e following statements represent the current thinking endorsed by many institutions, authors, and lecturers. We hope to be able to shed light on the true facts based on newspaper accounts, actual statements, and eyewitness testimonies. Pacelli was anti-Semitic or at least shared an a • nti-Judaic worldview. • Pacelli associated Jews with Godlessness and Bolshevism. • Pacelli was obsessed with atheistic Communism, and his fanatic anti-Communism blinded him toward the evils of Nazism. • Pacelli’s primary concern throughout his ecclesiastical career was to protect the institution of the Catholic Church; human suff ering, especially Jewish suff ering, took a backseat. • Pacelli did not believe that the church had an obligation to protect and care for non-Catholics. • Pacelli provided no leadership to Catholics during the war; he failed to teach them their moral and Christian obligations. • Pius was a moral coward who was afraid to act against the Nazis. • Pius was foolishly reckless in some endeavors. • Pacelli was a “control freak” who could not delegate anything. • Pacelli let his housekeeper virtually run the Vatican. • Pacelli met with Hitler (and may have provided him with money) in the 1920s. • Pacelli is to be condemned for signing an agreement (the Concordat) with Germany in 1933, thereby recognizing the Nazi regime. • Pacelli did not publish the encyclical prepared by his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, in 1939, which would have prevented anti-Jewish actions at an early stage of Hitler’s power. • Pacelli spoke out forcefully about defending other groups of people, yet did not do so on behalf of the Jews. • Pacelli only became somewhat helpful in the latter part of the war, when it was clear Hitler’s days were numbered. • Mother Pascalina alleged reported that “Pacelli had a blind eye for the Jews.” • A Vatican “ratline” helped Nazis escape to South America. • Th e charges against Pius were often inconsistent with one another. He was charged with being too involved with minutia, being completely remote from reality, caring only about fi nancial matters, caring mostly about a central Papacy, being a recluse, being a racist, being a moral coward, being recklessly brave, helping war criminals escape justice, being an anti-Semite…the list goes on. As 225 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses each new charge was thoroughly rebutted, the critics would shift to a new one. Sometimes old caricatures would be recycled. Daniel Goldhagen wrote Pius XII was an “anti-Semitic Pope . . . o • ne of the most rampant wouldbe kidnappers of modern times . . . Th e Pope’s and the church’s policy was, in eff ect, to kidnap Jewish children, perhaps by the thousands . . . Its plain purpose was to implement a plan that would cruelly victimize the Jews a second time by depriving these bodily and spiritually wounded survivors of the Nazi hell of their own children.” • Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said, “Pius ordered the mass kidnapping of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children . . .” • Jack Chick, infamous for his anti-Catholic comic books, tells us in Smokescreens: “Pope Pius XII should have stood before the judges in Nuremberg. His war crimes were worthy of death.” • Anti-Catholic writer Dave Hunt writes, “Th e Vatican had no excuse for its Nazi partnership or for its continued commendation of Hitler on the one hand and its thunderous silence regarding the Jewish question on the otherhand . . . (the Pope) continued in alliance with Hitler until the end of the war, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in payments from the Nazi government to the Vatican.” 226 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th is is the former placard at Yad Vashem, World Center for Holocaust Research, regarding the Papacy of Pius XII. It was placed in 2005 and subsequently changed in 2012: Pius XII’s reaction to the murder of the Jews during the holocaust is a matter of controversy. In 1933 when he was secretary of the Vatican State he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German Regime to preserve the Churches rights in Germany even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist Regime. When he was elected Pope in 1939 he shelved a letter against racism and anti-Semitism that his predecessor had prepared. Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing. In December 1942, he abstained from joining the allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. When the Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz the Pope did not intervene. Th e Pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war with the exception of appealing to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia towards its end. His silence and absence of guidelines obliged churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react. 227 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Comments following the statements displayed beside the Yad Vashem photo of Pope Pius XII Th e Pius material at Yad Vashem has been on display since 2005 next to a photograph of Pope Pius XII. Th e caption consists of a series of statements, eighty-two words in all, describing the Pope’s alleged attitude toward Hitler, Nazism, and the Jews caught in the Holocaust. In an interview with John Allen, Dr. Eugene Fisher, long-time representative on Catholic-Jewish matters for the US Bishops, called this Yad Vashem caption “inexcusable.” Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League—himself often at odds with the Holy See—found Yad Vashem’s statement “too judgmental, too conclusory” based on what is presently known. Below we give the statement (in italics) followed by a very brief critique (in bold print). “Pius XII’s reaction to the murder of the Jews during the holocaust is a matter of controversy.” Controversy among historians is normal. It is an inevitable part of describing past events and personalities. But the controversy about Pius has to a large degree been generated by those who ignore his endless eff orts over many years to help Jewish victims of Hitler. “In 1933 when he was secretary of the Vatican State he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German Regime to preserve the Churches rights in Germany even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist Regime . . .” Pacelli negotiated the Concordat, under instructions from Pius XI, in order to provide the church a legal basis on which to resist the Nazis’ human rights violations and to try to avert Hitler’s planned destruction of the Catholic Church. Pius XI had sought a Concordat with Germany since the 1920s. He obtained Concordats with many other nations during his pontifi cate. In no way did the Concordat lessen the church’s fi erce condemnation of Nazi racial and anti-Semitic doctrines, as Pacelli himself explained in the L’Osservatore Romano (July 26–27, 1933). Concordats were not usually sought with countries on good terms with the Vatican, but with nations at odds with the church. Protecting the church under a ruthless totalitarian regime, via the Concordat, meant that the church could assist persecuted peoples; and in fact, the little freedom that the Concordat left the clergy and hierarchy was widely used to save as many persecuted Jews as could be saved. Th e Concordat was based on Canon Law and did not amount to recognition of the Nazi regime. Th e placard also says nothing of the Haavara Agreement, which was a Concordat signed in August 1933 by the Jews of Palestine with Germany, one month before the Vatican agreement was ratifi ed. In 1935, it was endorsed by the World Zionist Conference. Th e Vatican’s Concordant was not recognition of the political regime of the new Germany, still less to the principles of Hitlerism. It was not an agreement with Hitler, but with the German state. 228 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses In August 1933, one month before the Vatican concordat was ratifi ed, Germany and the Jews of Palestine signed the Haavara Agreement. It was endorsed by the World Zionist Conference in 1935. Does this mean the Jews of Palestine also recognized the Nazi regime? Pius XII’s eff orts to secure this very agreement, specifying benevolent treatment of Jews, is criticized today at Yad Vashem. “When he was elected Pope in 1939 he shelved a letter against racism and anti-Semitism that his predecessor had prepared . . .” Th ere were three drafts, which Pius XI rejected in writing, according to high Vatican sources who read the fi le on this subject. Pius XI was on his death bed. Th e drafts, which did not refl ect the thinking of either Pius XI or Cardinal Pacelli, were full of misstatements and grossly anti-Semitic statements about Jews and their society. Th e LaFarge draft actually said that Catholics opposed the persecution of the Jews, but the Jews brought it upon themselves because of their low morality, their business practices, and their rejection of Christ. Six months after his election, Pope Pius XII did write his own encyclical, Summi Pontifi catus, which used almost two-thirds of the LaFarge draft, except that Pope Pius XII removed the anti-Semitic statements, stressing the unity of Jews and Christians. Newspapers around the world recognized its condemnation of Nazism. One can only imagine if the LaFarge draft was used, it would have delighted Adolf Hitler, who would have said that even the Pope agrees with our assessment of the Jews. “Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing . . .” Th is is a factually inaccurate statement. As soon as he learned about the Rome roundup, on October 16, 1943, Pius XII issued two forceful protests, one through Cardinal Maglione, his secretary of state, the other via his assistants, to German eneral Stahel, doing everything possible to stop it. According – Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak 229 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses to the leading authority on the matter, Jewish historian Michael Tagliacozzo, himself a survivor of the raid, thanks to the church, the Pope’s eff orts did succeed in bringing the roundup to an unexpected end, around 2:00 p.m. on the day it commenced. Th e secret diaries of Adolf Eichmann, released in 2000, reveal how the Vatican’s actions infuriated the Nazis and obstructed their plans, saving many Jewish lives. As Robert M. W. Kempner, former prosecutor at Nuremberg, testifi ed, Pius issued scores of protests—both public and private—in his fi rst encyclical and Christmas addresses, in meetings with German representatives, in letters to bishops, in L’Osservatore Romano, through Vatican Radio, and in many audiences. Th ese statements and diplomatic interventions continued even when the Nazis entered Rome. “In December 1942, he abstained from joining the allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews . . .” Th is statement ignores the facts. Pius did not join with the Allies because it was essentially a declaration of war. Sir Martin Gilbert concluded that had he signed this condemnation, the Pope’s participation would have meant the loss of Vatican neutrality, and he would have joined with the Allies. Breach of Vatican neutrality would have allowed Nazis to then enter hundreds of the ecclesiastical institutions hiding Jews and would have condemned the thousands of refugees and their Catholic caregivers to death. Nonetheless, Pius shortly thereafter issued his own condemnation, in his famous 1942 Christmas address, condemning mass murder on account of race and provoking the Nazis to denounce him as “the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.” “Even when the Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz the Pope did not intervene . . .” As soon as he learned about the Rome roundup, on October 16, 1943, Pius XII issued two forceful protests—one through Cardinal Maglione, his secretary of state; the other, via his assistant Fr. Pancratius Pfeiff er, to German General Stahel—doing everything possible to stop it. Sir Martin Gilbert stated that through Pius XII’s eff orts to hide Jews in Rome, almost all of an estimated seven thousand to twelve thousand were hidden. Also according to Gestapo documents and from the Nuremberg Trials, the Jews of Rome were to be held as hostages in the labor camp Mauthausen, not sent to the death camp of Auschwitz. It is generally assumed that the order to send them to Auschwitz was made by Eichmann when Himmler ordered the arrests to stop after a call from General Stahel. “Th e Pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war with the exception of appealing to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia toward its end . . .” Pius XII was in regular contact with the anti-Nazi resistance, and he approved a plot to overthrow Hitler before the German invasion of France. He was named in the Gestapo Kaltenbrunner report to Hitler as a co-conspirator in the 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. Pius XII reported troop movements to the allies. He intervened to secretly negotiate with the British not to invade Germany if Hitler was eliminated. Sir Martin Gilbert said that the Pope intervened at the exact moment when their deportation from Hungary was so critical. Th e Pope also intervened in Slovakia in 1942, not near the end of the war. He intervened to save the Jews of Romania and acted to save Jewish lives whereever his infl uence meant anything. Moreover, Hitler himself so hated Pius that he wanted to kidnap, deport, and possibly even murder him. Pius XII protested against Hitler long before he came to power and protested publicly about war crimes in all Nazi-occupied lands, from the very outset of the war, not just later. “His silence and absence of guidelines obliged churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react . . .” 230 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Many bishops, priests, nuns, and laypeople worked heroically to save Jews and others in danger, precisely because Pius XII, through written and oral directives, told them they should. Th is claim ignores a mountain of contemporary evidence and amounts to an embarrassing act of historical revisionism. This is the current placard at Yad Vashem, which was altered and installed on July 1, 2012. Archbishop Antonio Franco, Papal Nuncio to Israel called it a “demonstration of trust” among those researching the record of the Papacy of Pius XII. Professor Dan Michman, head of Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research said, “We are committed to an academic approach and to research that brings up new things; these fi ndings cannot be expressed even in 200 words, but we’re moving towards it.” Th e Vatican, under Achille Ratti, and represented by Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, signed a concordat with Nazi Germany in July 1933, in order to preserve the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. Th e reaction of Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli, to the murder of the Jews during the Holocaust is a matter of controversy among scholars. From the onset of World War II, the Vatican maintained a policy of neutrality. Th e Pontiff abstained from signing the Allies’ declaration of December 17, 1942 condemning the extermination of the Jews. Yet, in his Christmas radio address of December 24, 1942 he referred to “the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or ethnic origin (stirpe) have been consigned to death or to a slow decline.” Jews were not explicitly mentioned. When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the Pontiff did not publicly protest. Th e Holy See appealed to the rulers of Slovakia and Hungary on behalf of the Jews. Th e Pope’s critics claim that his decision to abstain from condemning the murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany constitutes a moral failure: the lack of clear guidance left room for many to collaborate with Nazi Germany, reassured by the thought that this did not contradict the Church’s moral teachings. It also left the initiative to rescue Jews to individual cleric and laymen. His defenders maintain that this neutrality prevented harsher measures against the Vatican and the Church’s institutions throughout Europe, thus enabling a considerable number of secret rescue activities in which Jews were rescued. Until all relevant material is available to scholars, this topic will remain open to further inquiry. 231 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Pius XII’s Confrontational Meeting with Germany’s Foreign Minister, During the First Year of the War, is Left Unmentioned. Th e New York Times (March 14, 1940) reported: “Th e pontiff , in the burning words he spoke to Herr von Ribbentrop about religious persecution, also came to the defense of the Jews in Germany and Poland.” Just recently, new archival documents were discovered in Germany revealing that “Nazi spies within the Vatican were concerned at Pius’s eff orts to help displaced Poles and Jews.” In one, the head of Berlin’s police force tells Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Th ird Reich’s foreign minister, that the Catholic Church was providing assistance to Jews “both in terms of people and fi nancially” (Daily Telegraph of London, March 31, 2007). “Vatican Radio constantly reported on the Nazi murder machine, inspiring Catholics everywhere to resist it. During the German occupation of Rome, after a raid on St. Paul’s Basilica—in which dozens of anti-Nazi offi cers and Jews had received sanctuary—Vatican Radio declared its support for the arrested persons, and stated: ‘It is not a paradox, nor is it absurd, that the Church is for everybody and for nobody. Charity is above human constitutions. On this point the priest can never yield. It is the demarcation line between good and evil. Men of honest views will permit us to continue with it’” (“Th e Vatican Repeats Pledge of Haven: Church Will Always Provide Sanctuary for All,” the New York Times, February 9, 1944.) 232 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th roughout the campaign against Pope Pius XII, many have accused him of anti-Semitism where they say that he referred to Jews as “enemies of Christ and the Catholic Church.” Th e critics have continuously identifi ed a 1938 speech delivered by Cardinal Pacelli in Hungary at the Eucharistic Congress as an example proving their allegation. Th e following are excerpts from an article written by Ronald J. Rychlak and William Doino Jr Pius XII and the Distorting Ellipsis Reprinted with permission from First Th ings, “On the Square,” http://www.fi rstthings.com. As charge after charge that Pope Pius XII failed to resist the Germans or even that he was indeed “Hitler’s Pope” has been refuted, the critics have advanced new and more remote accusations. First, critics attacked him for what he said or did (or failed to say or do) during the war. When those accusations were proved to be without merit, they charged him with failures after the war. When those were refuted, they shifted to the Pope’s actions before he was Pope. John Cornwell, the author of Hitler’s Pope, based his case on two letters, one written in 1917 and the other in 1919. On Th e O’Reilly Factor, he agreed that action to thwart Hitler would have to have been taken by 1933, and that the Pope could have done nothing in 1938 or 1939. Pius XII did not become Pope until 1939. Th e current charge claims that in a presentation Pius XII gave at an International Eucharistic Congress in Hungary in 1938—when he was still Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican Secretary of State—he referred to Jews as enemies of Christ and the Catholic Church. (It should be noted that the Germans had refused to send a delegation to the congress when they learned that Pacelli would be there, and permitted no news of it to be transmitted in Germany. Pacelli had, after all, berated them the year before when he went to France for the Pope.) Th e critics claim that on May 25, 1938, just after the Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria), but before the Shoah or even the outbreak of World War II, Pacelli said: Jesus conquers! He who so often was the recipient of the rage of his enemies, he who suff ered the persecutions of those of whom he was one, he shall be triumphant in the future as well . . . As opposed to the foes of Jesus, who cried out to his face, “Crucify him!” we sing him hymns of our loyalty and our love. We act in this fashion, not out of bitterness, not out of a sense of superiority, not out of arrogance toward those whose lips curse him and whose hearts reject him even today One major critic of Pius, Moshe Y. Herczl, claimed that Pacelli was clearly assailing Jews: “Pacelli relied on 233 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses his audience, realizing that hints would suffi ce . . . He was sure that his audience understood him well.” Cornwell concurred: “Pacelli, representative of the Pope at the Eucharistic congress, was making it clear that the ‘comprehensive love’ he preached at the meeting did not include the Jews.” Michael Phayer added that Pacelli, was “making reference to Jews ‘whose lips curse (Christ) and whose hearts reject him even today.” Th ere is reason to be suspicious of this quotation, and the anti-Semitic interpretation applied to it. First, no one at the time thought that Pacelli was speaking of Jews. He spoke of the “military godless” and those who wanted to “impose a new Christianity,” statements applicable only to the Communists and Nazis. Time magazine reported on the Eucharistic Congress and noted that while the host cardinal’s opening speech had “contained no hint of the fact that he is fi rmly anti-Nazi,” Recently on the Australian blog Galus Australis, for example, Gabriel Wilensky wrote: “(W)ho cares if the conference was about atheist Nazis or the health benefi ts of eating spinach?” Wilensky, author of a book titled Six Million Crucifi xions, continued: “Th e Pope was talking about the Jews. Th e Pope was not referring to Nazi lips that curse Christ and Nazi hearts who still reject Christ even today. He was referring to the Jews. You know this.” A defender of Pius, Gary Krupp, asked Wilensky whether he had reviewed the original text of the speech. Wilensky admitted that he did not have “the entire speech . . . nor do I have the original quotes in French. I assume you ask for the original in French for the sake of archival completeness, and not because you suspect the paragraph I quoted is mistranslated and/or is a misrepresentation of the original?” Krupp, of course did suspect a mistranslation (or worse), and he was right. With the assistance of Vatican historian Fr. Peter Gumpel, we reviewed the original text of the speech as it was published in Discorsi e Panegirici. Th e quote as given by the critics does not appear therein. Th e ellipsis was used to link very diverse passages from diff erent pages of Pacelli’s speech, producing a complete distortion of Pacelli’s words. He referred to the masses that called for the Crucifi xion and said they had been “deceived and excited by propaganda, lies, insults and imprecations at the foot of the Cross.” Th ose identifi ed as enemies of Christ included Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Roman soldiers, the Sanhedrin, and their followers. He did not call out “all Jews” or “the Jews.” Why have critics like Phayer and Cornwell simply repeated the charge, relying upon this English translation of a Hebrew translation from a Hungarian translation of a speech originally made in French by a native Italian speaker? Th e manufactured quotation blatantly distorted the words of the future Pope. Inasmuch that quote was inconsistent with so much other evidence of Pacelli’s character, it should have been strictly scrutinized. Instead it was readily accepted and insuffi ciently analyzed by critics eager to discredit the Papacy and the Catholic Church. Th ey should be ashamed. 234 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th e Concordat: A Refl ection of the Tense Relations between the Holy See and the Th ird Reich – Ronald J. Rychlak In an error-riddled article titled “What Would Jesus Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust,” published in the New Republic, and based upon his forthcoming book, controversial author Daniel Goldhagen reports that in 1933, Vatican secretary of state Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, “hastened to negotiate for the Church a treaty of cooperation, the concordat, with Hitler’s Germany” and that the concordat was “Nazi Germany’s fi rst international treaty.” In fact, as recently declassifi ed fi les from the Nuremberg prosecutions make clear, the Four Powers Pact between Germany, France, Italy, and England preceded the concordat’s signing. Hitler’s representatives were also fully accredited and recognized by the League of Nations and took part in disarmament discussions, which came before the concordat. Th e Soviet Union renewed a trade and friendship agreement with Germany more than two months before the concordat was signed, and on that same day, the UK Parliament voted to accept an Anglo-German trade agreement. In other words, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the whole League of Nations accredited the new German government before the concordat was signed. Nevertheless, critics of the church continually misrepresent these facts. Th at makes it important for ordinary Catholics to know the truth. Th e Background Eugenio Pacelli was sent to Munich during the First World War as the Holy See’s Nuncio (ambassador) to the German state of Bavaria. He remained in Munich after the war, representing the Holy See’s interests in the state of Bavaria. Later he opened a second nunciature in Berlin and took on the additional duty of representing the Holy See in its dealings with the Weimar Republic. Pope Pius XI viewed concordats (treaties or agreements) as the best way to safeguard the Catholic faithful and to defend essential elements of Catholic life. Such agreements assured the church the right to organize youth groups, make ecclesiastical appointments, run schools, and conduct religious services. Under the leadership of Pope Pius XI, the Holy See reached agreement with twenty-one countries. As Nuncio in Germany, Cardinal Pacelli was largely responsible for negotiating the agreements with Bavaria (1924), Prussia (1929), and Baden (1932). He also started negotiations with the Weimar Republic and attempted to secure an agreement with the Soviet Union. As a lawyer and a diplomat, Pacelli agreed with the Pope that this was the best way of preserving the church’s freedom of action. In 1929, Pacelli was called back to Rome, elevated to the cardinalate; and shortly thereafter, he was named Vatican secretary of state. Not long later, Adolf Hitler came to power. Th e German constitution provided for an elected president who could appoint a chancellor. On January 30, 1933, Pres. Paul von Hindenburg named Hitler as his chancellor. A month later, less than a week before new Reich elections were scheduled, the Reichstag building suspiciously burned to the ground. Hindenburg signed an emergency order suspending the constitutional guarantees of individual freedom, freedom of the press, private property, and the privacy of mail. Hundreds of people (particularly Catholics and Communists) were incarcerated. 235 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses On March 5, 1933, with many of their opponents in jail or intimidated, the Nazis and their Nationalist allies won a majority in the Reichstag. Hitler began establishing his Th ird Reich, which he said would follow in the tradition of the Holy Roman Empire and the unifi ed German Empire established by Bismarck. It would, he said, last for one thousand years. Its establishment was considered a “major defeat for the powers of Jewry, capital, and the Catholic Church.” On March 23, the newly elected Reichstag adjourned, giving Hitler’s cabinet the power to rule by decree. An Enabling Act granted Hitler dictatorial powers for an initial period of four years, making permanent the authority he had already assumed with the emergency order in February. In his last address to the disbanding Reichstag, Hitler announced that “treason toward the nation and the people shall in the future be stamped out with ruthless barbarity.” Signing the Concordat Th e Holy See’s concordats with the individual German states of Bavaria, Prussia, and Baden had little meaning now that Hitler had centralized power over Germany. Besides that, the church had been seeking an agreement with Germany for well over a decade. In fact, Pacelli had worked toward a concordat with Germany ever since he was appointed papal Nuncio to Bavaria. Now, however, the church found itself in a bind. Because of the Enabling Act, which meant that he did not need Reichstag approval, Hitler could avoid the obstacle that had blocked all previous eff orts of Vatican diplomacy to obtain a concordat. Hitler was happy to accept all of the church’s long-standing demands, because he never intended to keep his word. (“I will be one of the few men in history who have deceived the Vatican,” he boasted.) A confi dential report to the British Foreign Offi ce from its minister to the Holy See reported that Hitler’s initial overtures had been “coolly received” at the Vatican. Hitler’s negotiator, Franz von Papen, however, made it quite clear that if the church were to reject the Führer’s off er to meet the Vatican’s existing demands, Hitler would simply publish his own terms and blame the Pope for having rejected a very favorable treaty. As Clive also reported, “a concordat . . . does not imply mutual respect, still less aff ection.” In the weeks leading up to the signing of the concordat, Hitler unleashed a massive campaign of terror against Catholic organizations throughout Germany. Nazis arrested ninety-two priests, searched sixteen Catholic youth clubs, and shut down nine Catholic publications. Nazis attacked and beat Catholic youth at a Munich rally. In a private conversation with Ivone Kirkpatrick, British ambassador to the Vatican, Pacelli expressed “disgust and abhorrence” at Hitler’s reign of terror. “I had to choose between an agreement on their lines,” he said, “and the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the Reich.” Kirkpatrick reported to the British Foreign Offi ce: A pistol, (Pacelli) said, had been pointed at his head and he had no alternative. Th e German government had off ered him concessions, concessions, it must be admitted, wider than any previous German Government would have agreed to, and he had to choose between an agreement on their lines and the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the Reich. Not only that, but he was given no more than one week to make up his mind. Th e church did not view concordats as endorsements of the existing government. In fact, in two separate articles that were published in L’Osservatore Romano in early July 1933, Pacelli expressly rejected the contention that the concordat was a recognition of the Nazi regime. Pius XI explained his thinking in 1937, in his encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety): 236 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses When, in 1933, We consented . . . to open negotiations for a concordat, We were prompted by the desire . . . to secure for Germany the freedom of the Church’s benefi cent mission and the salvation of the souls in her care, as well as by the sincere wish to render the German people a service essential for its peaceful development and prosperity. Hence, despite many and grave misgivings, We then decided not to withhold Our consent for We wished to spare the Faithful of Germany . . . the trials and diffi culties they would have had to face . . . had the negotiations fallen through. It was by acts that we wished to make it plain, that the pacifi c and maternal hand of the Church would be extended to anyone who did not actually refuse it. Without some form of agreement, the Holy See could not eff ectively protect and minister to its people. From the Vatican’s perspective, at least on paper, the German concordat was surprisingly favorable. Th e state essentially met all of the demands that had been made years earlier, including independence of Catholic organizations, freedom for Catholic schools, free communication with Rome, church control over religious orders and ecclesiastical property, religious education in public schools (taught by teachers approved by the bishop). Only minimal restrictions were placed on ecclesiastical appointments, and the Vatican also received the long-sought right to maintain theological faculties at state institutions and to establish seminaries. Th us, more than a decade after Pope Pius XI fi rst made these demands, the Vatican at least got the promise of what it wanted not just in one section of the nation but throughout Germany. Unfortunately, Hitler ignored his obligations from the beginning. Th e Holy See, however, quickly learned how to use the concordat in its battle against the Nazis. For one thing, the concordat gave the Holy See the right to criticize all aspects of Hitler’s religious policy, which it regularly did. In addition, the church would not accept the view that a person who had been duly converted to Catholicism was still a Jew. Accordingly, as part of the concordat, German offi cials agreed to regard baptized Jews as Christians. Th is gave the Vatican the ability to protest human rights violations and to shield Jewish people by distributing false baptismal certifi cates. Widespread activity of this type so angered Hitler that he vowed to get rid of the concordat: Once the war is over we will put a swift end to the Concordat. It will give me the greatest personal pleasure to point out to the Church all those occasions on which it has broken the terms of it. One need only recall the close co-operation between the Church and the murderers of Heydrich. Catholic priests not only allowed them to hide in a church on the outskirts of Prague, but even allowed them to entrench themselves in the sanctuary of the altar. Th e Impact of the Concordat On July 25, just fi ve days after Germany ratifi ed the concordat, the Reich government announced a sterilization law designed to achieve “perfection of the Aryan race.” Germans who were less than perfect were to be sterilized for the glory of Reich. Sterilization was, of course, in direct confl ict with Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life. Prominent Catholic clergy immediately denounced the program. On July 30, the Nazis took the fi rst steps to dissolve the Catholic Youth League. Soon thereafter, Nazis began arresting large numbers of Jews and political prisoners and sending them to concentration camps. Th e arrests constituted violations of the concordat, and the Vatican fi led several protests. In September, the Nazis passed 237 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses the Nuremberg Laws, which defi ned German citizenship and paved the way for later persecution. Th e Vatican condemned these new laws in its newspaper and on Vatican radio. As the National Socialists became more confi dent of their control in Germany, persecution of Catholic offi cials increased. Hundreds of priests and Catholic offi cials were arrested or driven into exile, while others were accused of violating currency regulations or morality rules. Erich Klausener, leader of Catholic Action, was murdered in a June 1934 purge. Between April 1, 1933, and June 1936, the Vatican fi led more than fi fty protests against the Nazis. Even before the concordat was ratifi ed, the Vatican had made several objections to German offi cials. (German foreign secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop testifi ed at Nuremberg that he had a “whole deskfull of protests” from Rome.) Th e fi rst protest, dated April 1, 1933, regarding the anti- Jewish boycott, and the ninth one, fi led on September 9th, 1933, asking for protection of Jews converted to Catholicism, was among the many that Hitler never bothered to answer. Th e Vatican issued so many complaints that by 1938, the Nazis were trying to disavow the concordat. On February 17, 1938, Das Schwarze Korps, the offi cial paper of the SS, contained an article arguing that the concordat was based largely on the Weimar Constitution of 1918, not the Th ird Reich of Adolf Hitler. As such, the concordat was out of date and should be abandoned. Th e article argued that in 1933, Hitler had expected the moral support of the church in his work of national reconstruction, but he had not been supported. Instead, pastoral letters, sermons, pamphlets, and encyclicals had insulted the Nazis. Some authors, including John Cornwell, have argued that direct political involvement by Catholic clergy could have held Hitler in check but that the concordat prevented this from happening. Th is criticism is based upon three assumptions: (1) that the party would have remained viable; (2) that the concordat eff ectively silenced the German bishops; and (3) that the party would have opposed Hitler. Two of these assumptions are demonstrably false, and the third is far from certain. Th e assumption that the Catholic Center Party in Germany would have remained viable but for the concordat is completely unreasonable. Hitler’s power was suffi ciently secure, and his means suffi ciently brutal, that by March 1933, no political institution could stand up to him. By early 1933, Hitler had already stripped the Catholic Center Party of its power. It was almost gone by March 1933. For several months, the Nazis brutalized the remaining members of the party as well as other Catholics. On July 5, 1933, two weeks before the concordat was signed, the party voluntarily dissolved. Th e Belgian ambassador in Rome reported that the party had not consulted Rome and that Pacelli was irritated about how it all took place. Th e important point, however, is that the party was not negotiated away with the concordat. Th e Nazis brought down the Catholic Center Party, not the concordat. Th e assumption that German bishops would have been outspoken against the Nazi regime but were silenced by the concordat is wrong. Th e German bishops voted to ratify the concordat without delay. Th ey understood that they would not be silenced by this concordat. Th e relevant provision, paragraph 32 of the concordat, said, “Th e Holy See will prescribe regulations which will prohibit clergymen and members of religious institutes from membership in political parties and from working on their behalf.” Th e supplemental protocol relating to this paragraph said, “Th e conduct enjoined upon the pastors and members of religious institutes in Germany does not entail any limitation of the prescribed preaching and interpretation of the dogmatic and moral teachings and principles of the Church.” Th e church did not in any way agree to restrictions on its right to involve itself in politics whenever “the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.” With this language, the concordat set forth traditional church teaching about politics and the clergy. Priests and bishops are not supposed to take sides on matters of economics and politics unless they deal with human dignity or the right and ability of the church to carry out her mission. Under the concordat, Catholic clergy 238 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses were not restricted from making statements that went to basic human rights, and many did make such statements about the Nazis. Moreover, Catholic laypersons were in no way restricted from political activity by the terms of the concordat. As it turned out, barring the Catholic clergy from direct participation in the political process ended up being a good thing. At the time the concordat was signed, the only remaining party in Germany was the National Socialist Party. Nazis often pressured clergy to join the party. Catholic priests and bishops, however, used the concordat to resist this pressure. Protestant ministers did not have a similar legal basis for resisting these approaches. Even the assumption that the Catholic Center Party would have opposed Hitler but for the concordat is subject to question. Th e party was split, and many Roman Catholics were attracted by the early achievements of the Nazis, as were most Germans. In fact, the party had considered forming a coalition with the Nazis in 1932, just for survival. Today one wonders how this could have been possible. At the time, however, Hitler promised to provide economic prosperity, free Germany from the Treaty of Versailles, end daily street fi ghting, and promote social justice. Add to these matters that Hitler’s socialistic programs seemed to help people who were in need, and it becomes easier to see how some Christian people might have been attracted to his policies. Conclusion Th e concordat, which may on the surface seem to indicate friendly relations between the Holy See and Nazi Germany, was in fact an indication of precisely the opposite. It was not a recognition of Hitler’s Th ird Reich. It did not indicate the Holy See’s support for Nazism, and in no way did it suggest that Pope Pius XII or the Holy See supported the German cause in World War II. It was, instead, Hitler’s attempt to take advantage of the Vatican. He accepted long-standing demands, forced the Holy See to agree to them, and then ignored his commitments. Ultimately, however, this proved to be but one more serious miscalculation made by the most notorious madman of the twentieth century. Th e concordat came back to haunt the Nazis, as Pope Pius and the Catholic Church used it to shield Jewish victims and resist Nazi advances. Th ose who write otherwise are distorting the truth. 239 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th e Hidden Encyclical Th e “Hidden Encyclical” of Pope Pius XI – Ronald J. Rychlak Th e so-called hidden encyclical of Pope Pius XI is a story told by many papal critics. Th e typical version is that Pius XI was prepared to make a strong anti-Nazi statement. He developed a complete statement, but he died before releasing it. For some nefarious reason (the reasons vary), his successor, Pope Pius XII, decided not to issue it. Critics argue that had Pius XII not “hidden” this encyclical, much Jewish suff ering would have been avoided. Th at is an interesting concoction, but it does not stand up to historical analysis. Th e true story is that Pope Pius XI did plan to issue an encyclical on the events in Europe. He asked the American Jesuit John LaFarge to work up a draft. LaFarge, in turn, sought help from two other Jesuits, fathers Gustav Gundlach of Germany and Gustave Desbuquois of France. With their help, LaFarge wrote a draft encyclical. Although it was long thought otherwise, we now know that the LaFarge draft did indeed make it to Pope Pius XI before his death. We also know that the Pope rejected the draft because it of its anti-Semitism.* Th e LaFarge paper argued that the rejection of Christ by the Jews caused them “to perpetually wander over the face of the Earth.” It also made negative comments on Jews’ business ethics and morals. Had the Holy See published this document, it certainly would have played right into Hitler’s anti-Semitic propaganda. Instead, Pope Pius XI wrote something to the eff ect of “I don’t want to use this” on the LaFarge paper, near the anti-Semitic section. When Pope Pius XII became Pope, he agreed that it was time for a papal statement on world events. Working with Father Gundlach, he drafted a new encyclical that drew heavily on LaFarge’s earlier work, but eliminated the anti-Semitic sections. Th e resulting encyclical, Summi Pontifi catus (Darkness over the Earth), was released on October 20, 1939 (just weeks after the outbreak of World War II). In this encyclical, Pope Pius XII condemned racists and dictators; and he urged the restoring of Poland, which Germany had just invaded. He made reference to “the ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” who “deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ” and want to “break the Tables of God’s Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards . . .” Pius charged that Christians who fell in with these enemies of Christ suff ered from cowardice, weakness, or uncertainty. In a clear slap at Nazi racial theory, he quoted scripture to explain that within the church, all people were the same; there was “neither Gentile nor Jew.” Th e world well understood Pius XII’s message. A headline in the London Daily Telegraph read: “Pope condemns Nazi theory.” Th e New York Times gave it a three-column above the fold headline that said: “Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism; Urges Restoring of Poland.” Th e story explained: “It is Germany that stands condemned above any country or any movement in this encyclical.” Father LaFarge wrote in America magazine that it was obvious that Summi Pontifi catus applied to the Jews of Europe. He was only concerned that Americans might not realize that it also applied to racial injustice in the United States. Th e Germans also understood the Pope’s message. “Th is Encyclical,” wrote Heinrich Mueller, head of the gestapo in Berlin, “is directed exclusively against Germany, both in ideology and in regard to the German- Polish dispute; how dangerous it is for our foreign relations as well as our domestic aff airs is beyond dispute.” Reinhard Heydrich, leader of the SS Security Offi ce in Warsaw, wrote: “Th is declaration of the Pope makes an unequivocal accusation against Germany.” French planes dropped eighty-eight thousand copies of the encyclical over Germany in a propaganda battle. Critics rarely mention any of this. 240 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th e story of the “Hidden Encyclical” is a fi ction. Unfortunately, papal critics use it to drive Catholics and Jews apart. Th at is a real shame. When the true eff orts of Pope Pius XII are known, and these myths are set aside, people will look to this era as a time of historic goodwill between Catholics and Jews, instead of being a point of division. *A high-ranking member of the Curia read these statements. LaFarge has indeed condemned the persecution of the Jews but added that the Jews brought this upon themselves because of their low morality, their business practices, and their rejection Christ. 241 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Answering the Critics. 1. Saul Friedlander ACCUSATION: Th e character of Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) was “Distant, autocratic and imbued with a sense of his own intellectual and spiritual superiority, Pacelli was as fi ercely conservative in politics as in church matters.” Th is helps to explain his coldness toward the Jews. REBUTTAL: Th ere is nothing from the Pope’s lifetime that gives the slightest credence to such a description— quite the opposite. Th e two best biographies of Pacelli—Igino Giordani’s classic Pius XII (1961) and Andrea Tornielli’s just-published Pius XII: A Man on the Th rone of Peter—collect many contemporary testimonies that contradict this unfair characterization (which, revealingly, only arose following the 1963 play, Th e Deputy). Testimony from his childhood friend, Orthodox Jew Dr. Guido Mendes, indicates just the opposite. Documentation collected indicates not a coldness toward the Jews but a love and dedication to improve Catholic Jewish relations. ACCUSATION: “Th ere is no specifi c indication that the Pope was anti-Semitic . . . Yet it does not seem that Pius XII carried the Jews in his heart.” REBUTTAL: How, then, are we to explain Pacelli’s early intervention, as Nuncio in Germany, for Jewish musician Ossip Gabrilowitsch against an anti-Semitic pogrom? Or later, Cardinal Pacelli’s assistance to his lifelong Jewish friend Guido Mendes, whose family he helped immigrate to Palestine, after Mussolini passed his draconian anti-Semitic laws? How are we to account for all those who testifi ed on Pius XII’s behalf, during the Vatican’s painstaking investigation of his cause for sainthood? We have many articles counterfactual evidence available to discredit this charge. His relations with World Zionist president Nahum Sokolow helping to move the notion of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and Pacelli’s actions to save the Jews of Palestine from as early as 1917. His actions to stop antikosher slaughtering laws from being enacted in Poland in 1938 also indicate his true feelings about the needs and concerns of the Jewish people. ACCUSATION: Pius XII deliberately failed to mention the plight of the Jews in both his Christmas address of 1942 and in his allocution to the College of Cardinals on June 2, 1943: “It seems that most German offi cials . . . missed the portent of the papal address: Ambassador Bergen, who, at the Vatican, followed every detail of Pius’ policy, did not refer to the speech at all.” REBUTTAL: In fact, German foreign minister Ribbentrop “realized what it meant” and ordered Bergen, on January 24, 1943, to confront Pius XII directly for having posed “a political position against Germany. You are to inform him that in that event Germany does not lack physical means of retaliation.” After doing just that—and protesting that the L’Osservatore Romano (the Pope’s newspaper), “day in [and] day out pours out its poison against Germany,”—Bergen reported back to Berlin on January 26: “Pacelli is no more sensible to threats than we are.” ACCUSATION: On October 19, 1943, three days after the Nazis began to round up the Roman Jews, Pius XII meets with Harold Tittmann, the American chargé d’aff aires at the Vatican. Th e Pope makes no mention of the plight of the Jews, and by mentioning only the “abnormal situation,” displays his callous indiff erence to recent events. REBUTTAL: An often-repeated calumny, but factually untrue. Tittmann never met Pius XII on October 19; he met him on October 14, two days before the Nazi roundup. We know this because the Vatican keeps exact records of offi cial meetings with the Pope, via the Maestro di Camera (master of the chamber); and these 242 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses records prove the meeting took place on the fourteenth. Indeed, the day after the meeting, a front-page article in the L’Osservatore Romano stated that Tittmann had been received by the Pope, privately, on the fourteenth. Th e Pope’s critics have nevertheless continued to repeat the charge, even knowing it is untrue. ACCUSATION: “Personally he [Pius XII] was not involved in any of the rescue operations throughout Italy. No trace of any written directive has ever surfaced; moreover, from among the main religious personalities involved in assistance to the victims, in Rome or elsewhere, no indication of an oral directive from the Holy See to help the fl eeing Jews has ever been mentioned. Th e rescue activities were mostly spontaneous.” REBUTTAL: Even Fr. John Morley, a critic of the wartime church, affi rms: “Offi cial sanction and assistance were given to the lodging of thousands of Jews in the religious institutions of Rome, and all canonical restrictions were suspended. Th ese eff orts, no doubt, saved thousands of Jews.” Grazia Loparco, professor of church history at the faculty of Educational Sciences Auxilium in Rome, who has extensively researched the matter, concurs: “From the documentation and testimonies emerges evidence of the full support and instruction of Pius XII.” We have very many testimonies and new evidence proving the intimate links the Pope had with rescue operations, e.g., nuns allowing Jewish men to shelter in convents, where a direct papal order would be required to suspend the cloister. ACCUSATION: Pius XII sympathized with fascism because he saw it as a bulwark against communism, which he saw as worse. REBUTTAL: Th is notion is destroyed by volume 5 of the Vatican’s wartime archives, Actes et Documents. Even standard biographies of Franklin Roosevelt note the Pope’s dramatic and successful intervention for America’s lend-lease policy to Russia. Th ere are numerous news accounts of the Vatican’s acts to consider signing a concordat with the Soviet Union. In addition, critics of Pius XII have never been able to explain why this supposedly cautious pontiff maintained relations with the anti-Nazi German resistance until the very last days of the War; why Pius actually approved the “Valkyrie” plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler; and why the Pope told his closest aide, Fr. Robert Leiber, “Th e German opposition must be heard.” Nor have they ever been able to explain why, if Eugenio Pacelli so complied with German designs, Hitler had plans to kidnap, deport, and possibly even murder him (as we will show in detail). 2. Susan Zuccotti ACCUSATION: Rome, 1943: On October 25, while thousands of sheltered Jews trembled with fear, the Vatican distributed placards to Rome’s religious institutions declaring that, even under martial law, they were immune from being searched. Wouldn’t this bespeak papal support for sanctuary? Not by Zuccotti’s lights. “Th at placard . . . was distributed . . . regardless of whether [an institution was] harboring illegal fugitives.” REBUTTAL: Th us, argues Zuccotti, its intent was “to affi rm and protect the special prerogatives of the Church rather than to protect fugitives.” Ah, yes, instead rescue houses—and rescue houses only—should have received big “No Jews Hidden Here” signs! (Kevin Ward). In her eagerness to fi nd fault in every single one of Pius’s actions, Zuccotti seems to abandon common sense. ACCUSATION: Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini of Assisi told a priest that he had a letter from the Vatican requesting help for endangered Jews. Zuccotti insists, however, that the prelate bluff ed just to motivate his subordinates. Otherwise, he would have preserved the dangerous paper to someday exculpate Pius. 243 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses REBUTTAL: But as Owen Chadwick demonstrated in Britain and the Vatican during the Second World War, the Holy See bordered on the paranoid when it came to German interception of incriminating documents (several priests were executed by the Gestapo after having been caught with incriminating material—see Raleigh’s Rome ’44), and so there is a readily available explanation for why such documents have not survived. Th at explanation, moreover, is consistent with another set of facts: that Jewish organizations and publications around the world had already begun praising the Pope for his diplomatic interventions. ACCUSATION: An Alsatian cleric named Calliste Lopinot ministered for three years at Ferramonti internment camp where he compassionately aided and zealously advocated for Jew and non-Jew alike. Zuccotti claims that in helping Jews he had “act(ed) on his own” and that “the Vatican cannot claim credit for his dedication, vision, and personal initiative.” REBUTTAL: Lopinot apparently disagreed, for after the war, he accompanied a group of freed internees to thank Pius for his solicitude. In fact, the Vatican gave Lopinot money to help feed 494 Jews. A papal Nuncio later contributed additional funds for Lopinot’s humanitarian work. Lopinot’s very assignment to the camp came from the Vatican, where Lopinot had been working. ACCUSATION: Zuccotti claims that when Pacelli was secretary of state to Pius XI, the Vatican never spoke out against anti-Semitism. REBUTTAL: In fact, as Ron Rychlak points out: Mussolini’s “Aryan Manifesto” was issued on July 14, 1938. On July 28, 1938, Pius XI made a public speech in Rome in which he said: “Th e entire human race is but a single and universal race of men. Th ere is no room for special races. We may therefore ask ourselves why Italy should have felt a disgraceful need to imitate Germany.” Th is speech was reprinted in full on the front page of L’Osservatore Romano on July 30, under a four-column headline: La parola del Sommo Pontefi ce Pio XI agli alumni del Collegio di Propaganda Fide. Th e sub-headline mentioned both “universal concepts” and the “great human family.” Other articles regarding anti-Semitism include ones that appeared on July 17, July 21, July 23, July 30, August 13, August 22–23, October 11–18, October 20, October 23, October 24, October 26, October 27, November 3, November 14–15, November 16, November 17, November 19, November 20, November 21, November 23, November 24, November 26, December 25, and January 19, 1939. Th ere are numerous condemnations from Vatican Radio to anti-Semitic actions throughout Europe. As Rychlak notes, “Th e victims of the Nazis certainly took note of the Pope’s commitment.” In January 1939, the National Jewish Monthly reported that “the only bright spot in Italy has been the Vatican, where fi ne humanitarian statements by the Pope have been issuing regularly.” ACCUSATION: Zuccotti claims that the lack of a written order from Pius XII to shelter the Jews shows that he had nothing to do with it and that priests and nuns acted only on their own initiative. REBUTTAL: In fact, it was not only normal but essential for any incriminating documents, even slips of paper, to be destroyed lest they fall into Nazi hands and endanger the carrier or the referee. In fact, as Rychlak points out, Zuccotti had spelt this out herself in an earlier book where she was not attacking Pius XII: 244 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses “Any direct personal order would have had to be kept very quiet to protect those who were actually sheltered” (Th e Italians and the Holocaust, 1987). In fact, Allied offi cials were quite aware of the risks associated with written messages, as refl ected in the May 20, 1944, cover letter from D’Arcy Osborne, the British ambassador to the Holy See, to Harold Tittmann, the US ambassador to the Holy See, which suggested that the note would be destroyed because it would incriminate a priest involved in recuing Jews “if it fell into enemy hands.” And as Rychlak points out, with regard to Zuccotti’s “method” (i.e., absence of evidence constitutes proof): In arguing that Pius cannot be associated with Catholic rescue eff orts because she cannot fi nd existing written documents in the Pope’s handwriting, Dr. Zuccotti is actually advancing an argument that was made by Holocaust denier David Irving. He once off ered a reward for anyone who could fi nd a document from Hitler linking him to the extermination of Jews. Serious historians rightfully rejected his argument. A lack of existing written evidence is not suffi cient to prove that Hitler lacked responsibility for the Holocaust. In a response to this vein of criticism that can be applied more generally, Rychlak says: So how is that Dr. Zuccotti argues that Pope Pius XII had no role in rescue eff orts, when so many witnesses testifi ed that he did? Th e answer is that—time and time again—she discounts or dismisses the testimony of people who were there. He lists many examples where Zuccotti simply dismisses explicit testimony for no good reason. 3. Daniel Goldhagen ACCUSATION: He charges that Pius XII never reproached or punished Franciscan friar Miroslav Filopovic- Majstorovic for his evil actions in Croatia. REBUTTAL: Actually, the so-called Brother Satan was tried, laicized, and expelled from the Franciscan order before the war even ended (in fact, before the concentration camp role and his most serious wrongdoing). Other critics lament that Pius never punished the defrocked Franciscan after the war, conveniently forgetting to point out that Filopovic had been executed for war crimes by the communists in 1945, and so—being already dead—was unamenable to Vatican justice. ACCUSATION: Goldhagen attempts to trivialize and diminish Pope Pius XII’s famous 1942 Christmas statement and its clear denunciation of Nazi ideology, saying that it didn’t single out Jews as victims of Nazism and failed to criticize Hitler. REBUTTAL: Th is is representative of the one-sided, biased approach that permeates Goldhagen’s work. Pius XII actually said that mankind owed this vow to all victims of the war, including “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction” (emphasis added). In making this statement and others during the war, Pius used the word “stirpe,” which according to 245 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Zanichelli’s Italian and English Dictionary, can mean stock, birth, family, race, or descent, but which had been used for centuries as an explicit reference to Jews. Obviously, in contrast to what Goldhagen would have us believe, everyone knew to whom the Pope was referring, including the Axis powers. Himmler’s offi ce reported: In a manner never known before, the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order . . . It is true, the Pope does not refer to the National Socialists in Germany by name, but his speech is one long attack on everything we stand for . . . God, he says, regards all people and races as worthy of the same consideration. Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews . . . (H)e is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews, and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals. ACCUSATION: Goldhagen discusses the so-called hidden encyclical. Th e story here is that in June 1938, more than a year before the outbreak of World War II, when Eugenio Pacelli was Vatican secretary of state, Pope Pius XI commissioned a draft papal statement attacking racism and anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, he died before it was completed. According to Goldhagen, Pius XI drafted it, Pius XII buried it, and it remained hidden until it was published in France in 1995. REBUTTAL: Th e source upon which Goldhagen relies, Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky’s Th e Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI, deals with the French and the English papers, but not the German one. Th at book also makes clear that—contrary to what Goldhagen reports—Pius XI was not the author of any of the documents. In fact, as that book further makes clear, there is no evidence that either he or Pius XII even saw these documents. A copy was sent to Pius XI, but by that time, he was already gravely ill. When it was found after his death, there were no notations suggesting that he ever reviewed it. Th e book also explains that the paper disappeared immediately after Pius XI’s death, and the men who were working on the project believed (indeed were certain) that Pius XII had not seen it. He therefore could not have buried it. Finally, this matter was made public in 1972 by the National Catholic Reporter and again in 1973 by L’Osservatore Romano, not in 1995 when Passelecq and Suchecky’s book came out. Goldhagen also dismisses that the text in all of the drafts were blatantly anti-Semitic in nature. Th ey actual stated that the Jews brought this upon themselves because of their low-moral lifestyle and business practices and their rejection of Christ. Publication of this document would have given Hitler joy us saying that even the Pope agrees with us about the character of the Jews. Th e primary author of the German draft, Prof. Gustav Gundlach, SJ, helped Pius XII with his fi rst encyclical, Summi Pontifi catus, which was released on October 20, 1939, just after the outbreak of war. Not surprisingly, Summi Pontifi catus (which expressly mentions Jews and urges solidarity with all who profess a belief in God) contains language that is similar to the paper on which Gundlach had worked. ACCUSATION: Th e 1933 concordat with Germany (NOT, n.b., Hitler’s Reich): Goldhagen claims that “Pacelli hastened to negotiate for the Church a treaty of cooperation, the concordat, with Hitler’s Germany.” Like other critics, he implies that this means Pius endorsed Hitler and the Nazis. REBUTTAL: It meant nothing of the sort, in fact the opposite, and was a legal attempt to protect Catholics within a “rogue state.” Had Germany been a democracy with a civil government rather than a dictatorship, with the rights of individuals protected under the rule of law, there would have been no need for a concordat. Th e concordat also had a clause that gave the Vatican the right to protect Jews who had converted; these 246 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses people would be considered Christian. Th is ultimately enabled the Vatican to use this provision to save all Jews, converted and nonconverted, without directly endangering their neutral status. Th e recently released confi dential report from the Nuremberg prosecution confi rms that the concordat was a “Nazi proposition.” Th e Nazis accepted terms that the church had previously proposed to Weimar, but which Weimar had rejected. Th e Nazis told the Vatican that the choice was to accept those terms (which assured that the church would be able to function) or face severe persecution. In fact, to prove that they were serious, the Nazis severely persecuted German Catholics in the weeks leading up to the concordat. In a private conversation with the British chargé d’aff aires to the Vatican, Pacelli said that the choice was “an agreement on their lines, or the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the Reich.” See Rychlak: http://www.fi rstthings.com/article/2007/01/goldhagen-v-pius-xii-23 ACCUSATION: Th at Pius did nothing for the Jews of Budapest until late in the war (1944). REBUTTAL: Th e fact is (as Martin Gilbert reiterates in his interview with Gary Krupp), Pius intervened with the Jews of Budapest exactly at the point at which they most needed help: it was not until 1944 that they were threatened with deportation. As soon as they were, Pius set about saving them—and succeeded. Th e Jews of Rome and Budapest (the only two cities whose Jewish populations were saved from the Nazis) both owed their survival directly to the actions of Pius XII. ACCUSATION: Goldhagen claims that Pius XII supported Nazi Germany’s “war of extermination against the Soviet Union, because he considered Bolshevism to be the Church’s mortal enemy.” REBUTTAL: Wrong. Pius XII actually assisted the Soviet Union during World War II. In response to diplomatic appeals made by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt in the fall of 1941, the Pope agreed that American Catholics could support the extension of military aid, through the Lend-Lease program, to the Soviet Union after it was invaded by the Nazis. Although the Vatican always condemned Communism (and Nazism), the Pope believed that it was important to help the Russian people, who were the innocent victims of Nazi aggression. In their book, Th e Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (1953), William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason discuss the Pope’s surprising concession to Roosevelt by citing documents in the American archives. Th is episode is always ignored by Vatican critics because it blows a big hole in their theory that Pius XII turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities; their argument being that Pius didn’t want to undermine Germany during its war against the Soviet Union. 4. Paul O’Shea ACCUSATION: Pacelli’s behavior during the war confi rms his essential consistency, but also reveals the tragic fl aw that relegated the Jews to be “lesser victims.” His failure points to the moral crisis within many parts of the fractured Christian Commonwealth, as well as the personal culpability of Pacelli, the man, and Pope. REBUTTAL: Th e next generation of criticism of Pius XII is represented by O’Shea’s “psychological theories.” As the evidence of the Pope’s huge involvement in protecting and rescuing Jews in WWII mounts up, it is growing impossible to any longer make the claim that he was sympathetic to Nazism. Instead, we now learn that he was humane, but that personal/psychological fl aws, along with his Catholicism and the cultural history behind it, condemned Jews in Pius’s eyes as second-class humans—this despite the evidence that the opposite was true. It also means that O’Shea has to present a perverse and willful misinterpretation of Pacelli’s early life and upbringing. O’Shea’s lack of documented proof also gives literally no support to most 247 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses of his allegations, which appear to be theoretical. Paul O’Shea, as literally all of the critics, has simply never bothered to travel to Rome for original document study in the open Vatican Archives. Th is calls into question his sources of information. 5. Michael Phayer ACCUSATION: Presumably, Pius could have been more outspoken about events in Italy. Just before the roundup of Rome’s Jews, Pius off ered to lend, at most generous terms, any amount of gold the Jews needed for ransom. Yet when the Jews of Rome were seized in October 1943, Pius said nothing. Why? REBUTTAL: We do not need to ask why, because we know what Pius did to halt the râfl e and subsequently protect Rome’s Jews against the Nazis. Phayer’s tone throughout is sneering and hostile to Pius. ACCUSATION: Phayer says Pius helped smuggle Nazi war criminals to South America. REBUTTAL: It is an incredible charge for which there is no shred of evidence (and a book just published, Hunting Evil by Gary Walter, that shows Pius knew nothing about fl eeing Nazis following the armistice). Of all the critics, Phayer sounds the most rabid and unreasonable. His charges are made recklessly in the face of commonly acknowledged facts, as if he has never heard of the established and settled evidence even on the most uncontroversial of matters. With the new irrefutable historical evidence of Pius XII’s hatred of National Socialism and Adolf Hitler along with the real threat to kidnap and kill Pius XII, the notion that Pius would turn around and now save Nazi war criminals is outrageous. 6. Sergio Minerbi ACCUSATION: Pius XII was a willing and convinced accomplice in the Nazi roundup of Jews in Rome in October 1943. REBUTTAL: It must also be said that the most shocking, weakly supported, and, frankly, unrealistic hypothesis (at Yad Vashem in March 2009, during discussion over changing the critical exhibit concerning Pius XII) was the one presented by Minerbi, based on anonymous testimony attributed to an unidentifi ed German offi cial. Th is unsupported rumor had already been refuted in a collection of documents relating to the Second World War published decades ago (volume 9, document 383, p. 519, of Actes et Documents). Th e groundless rumor claimed that Pius had given his personal “green light” to the deportation of the Roman Jews provided the Germans agreed to carry it out quickly. Th at this allegation is still being made by supposedly respectable academics beggars belief. Even more unbelievable is the fact that we have documents that prove Pius XII personally intervened to save Minerbi’s (Jewish) parents from the Nazis. Minerbi is aware of this but continues to make his accusations. Intriguingly, the most extreme animosity toward Pius today emanates from the Roman Jewish community. For example, a plaque from the war generation (the now-deceased parents of today’s Roman Jews), erected to express their thanks to Pius for saving them, has been taken down by their children. It is extremely strange behavior—perhaps it has to do with resentment at being helped (for helped they most certainly were); but also perhaps because many of Rome’s Jews today are in the Italian Communist Party—which is a sworn enemy of the Vatican, and likely still acting at the behest of Moscow and the FSB (formerly the KGB). Or the origin of the resentment may be simpler: the Chief Rabbi of Rome in WWII, Israel Zolli, converted to Catholicism 248 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses after the liberation—ergo not to save himself from the Nazis, but at least partly due to his witnessing the actions of Pius XII. He even took Pius’s baptismal name, Eugenio. 7. John Cornwell ACCUSATION: Th e cover photo of Hitler’s Pope (a title that Cornwell denies is prejudicial to the reader’s opinion of Pius XII). REBUTTAL: (Ron Rychlak—well worth quoting at length) Th e dust jacket of the British edition shows Nuncio Pacelli leaving a reception given for German president Hindenburg in 1927. Th e photograph, a favorite of those who seek to portray Pius XII in an unfavorable light, shows the Nuncio dressed in formal diplomatic regalia (which could easily be confused with papal garments), as he exits a building. On each side of him stand soldiers of the Weimar republic. In front of him stands a chauff eur saluting and holding open the square-looking door, typical of automobiles from the 1920s. Th ose who do not recognize the diff erences in uniform details could easily confuse the Weimar soldiers with Nazi soldiers because of their distinctive helmets associated with Nazi-era German soldiers. Use of this photograph, especially when coupled with a provocative title such as “Hitler’s Pope,” gives the impression that Pope Pius XII is seen leaving a meeting with Hitler. Making matters even worse is the caption from inside the rear cover of the dust jacket on early British editions of the book. Th is caption says that the photograph is from March 1939. By this time, Hitler was chancellor of Germany, and this was the month Pacelli was made Pope. A fair-minded person reading the caption could easily conclude that Cardinal Pacelli paid a visit to Hitler immediately prior to or just after being elected Pope. Th e American version of Hitler’s Pope never had the wrong date, but—given that the date might have been an honest error—it is far more revealing about the intentional misinformation that went into the marketing of this book. Th e US edition uses the same photograph as the British edition, but it is cropped to eliminate two important points of reference: the soldier nearest the camera and the square door of the automobile. Both of those images provide clues to the true date of this photo (1927), and author apparently did not want that known. Even more telling is the intentional blurring of the background. Looking at this cover, Nuncio Pacelli is in focus, but the soldier to his left and the chauff eur are both badly blurred. Th ey are so badly blurred that it is impossible even for a well-trained observer to recognize that the soldier wears a Weimar uniform rather than a Nazi uniform. Th e chauff eur, due to the blurring and cropping that eliminates the car door, takes on the appearance of a saluting SS offi cer. Even a civilian in the background could seem to be a military (Nazi) offi cial. Since none of the images on the British edition are blurred, and since Nuncio Pacelli is in focus on the US cover, but the other images are blurred, the only logical conclusion is that Viking Press intentionally altered the photograph to support the author’s thesis. Unfortunately, this is not the only dishonest aspect of the book (Ron, p. 520). ACCUSATION: Concerning Pius’s “anti-Semitic upbringing”: According to Cornwell, the headmaster of Eugenio’s school “was in the habit of making speeches from his high desk about the ‘hard-heartedness of the Jews.’” REBUTTAL: Cornwell cites for this proposition N. Padellaro, Portrait of Pius XII, the English translation. Th e original Italian version of this work, however, provides the true quotation about young Pacelli’s headmaster: he scolded “not against hard-hearted Jews, but against block-headed pupils.” An error in translation completely 249 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses changed the meaning of the whole incident. Cornwell does not acknowledge Pacelli’s childhood Orthodox Jewish friend Guido Mendes with whom Pacelli would share Sabbath dinners. Pacelli learned to speak some Hebrew and borrow the books of the great rabbis. Th e thrust of Cornwell’s argument was that casual anti-Semitism was part of Pius’s background, and this erroneous example was cited. As Ron Rychlak concludes: “(Cornwell) argues that as a young boy, Pacelli saw anti-Semitism and authoritarianism in the men he respected and goes on to argue that ‘the impressions gained by small children are never lost.’” ACCUSATION: Cornwell argues that Pacelli, as Nuncio and secretary of state, withdrew support from the Catholic Center Party in Germany, transferring power to the Holy See. In particular, Cornwell faults Pacelli for having negotiated the 1933 concordat with Germany. Th is agreement, according to Cornwell, silenced political priests and bishops who might have held Hitler in check. REBUTTAL: Th e Center Party dissolved itself without Pacelli’s help (shortly before all opposition parties were banned by Hitler). Pacelli lamented that, had the Center Party lasted a little longer, he could have used it as leverage against Hitler when negotiating the concordat. In other words, he thought and acted the opposite to the ways in which Cornwell claims. Th e concordat, as already stated, is willfully and fundamentally misunderstood by Pius’s critics. It was not an endorsement of the Nazis but a way of protecting Catholics (and Jews) from Hitler—had Germany been a democracy, it would not have been needed. Pacelli knew that Hitler would break the terms of the concordat immediately, but at least with something on paper, Rome would be able to make offi cial, substantive complaints. As one cardinal said: “With the concordat we are hung; without it, we are hung, drawn and quartered.” As to Pacelli being responsible for the terms of the agreement, and so much else, Rychlak has this to say: . . . the British Minister to the Holy See, Francis D’Arcy Osborne, wrote that “it was always (Pacelli’s) task to execute the policy of the late Pope rather than to initiate his own.” In fact, Osborne reported that Pacelli had not garnered the ill will typically found between the Secretary of State and other cardinals precisely because he only carried out Pius XI’s objectives. Contrary to what Cornwell would have us believe, Secretary of State Pacelli took pride in executing the will of his Pope, Pius XI. Th e Pontiff himself said, “Cardinal Pacelli speaks with my voice.” Either young Pacelli dominated the Church’s international policies years before he had any true authority (as Cornwell asserts) or he carried out the will of his superiors (as Pope Pius XI and others who actually knew Pacelli said). Cornwell’s argument is at odds with all relevant evidence. ACCUSATION: Cornwell argues that the Holy See granted de facto recognition to Ante Pavelić’s Fascist Ustashi government of Croatia in 1942. REBUTTAL: In actuality, the Vatican rebuked Pavelić and refused to recognize the Independent State of Croatia or receive a Croatian representative. When Pavelić traveled to the Vatican, he was greatly angered because he was permitted only a private audience rather than the diplomatic audience he had wanted. He might not even have been granted that privilege, but for the fact that the extent of the Ustashi atrocities that had already begun were not yet known. 250 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses 8. Rychlak concludes: Cornwell’s problem with Croatia is simply that he has relied too strongly on post-war Communist propaganda. As more evidence comes to light, the situation in Croatia will look less and less like a problem for the Catholic Church and more like another case where the Church defi ed the Nazis. ACCUSATION: Cornwell’s evidence that Pacelli was anti-Jewish rests chiefl y on his bizarre interpretation of a report Pacelli sent in 1919 to the Vatican from Munich, where he was papal Nuncio. In the report, Pacelli describes how a shabby cadre of young communists, together with a gang of young women “with lecherous smiles” took temporary control of the city and established a soviet there just two years after the Russian revolution. (Th ey also temporarily invaded the Archbishop’s palace.) He goes on to note that the leaders were all Russian Jews, and describes one of them as “pale, dirty, with drugged eyes, hoarse voice, vulgar and repulsive” who treated Pacelli’s priest-representative with contempt. Th is language, says Cornwell, constitutes anti-Semitic stereotyping, proof of Pacelli’s “secret” hatred of Jews, and helps to explain his indiff erence to the Holocaust (Kenneth L. Woodward http://www.newsweek.com/id/89597/output/print). REBUTTAL: As Rychlak points out, Pacelli had not witnessed the scene he described in this letter. His assistant, Monsignor Schioppa, is the one who actually went to the palace and met the aggressive Bolsheviks. Pacelli did no more than relate Schioppa’s description, whose language was not nearly as bad as Cornwell translates. “Jewish” was part of the description, because the Munich revolutionaries in the meeting were indeed Jewish. Cornwell took a six-page letter and used ellipses to cut it down to a single paragraph. Th e accurate use of the word “Jew” three times over six pages does not come across as anti-Semitic. Th at feeling was created by Cornwell’s editing, which kept every reference to “Jew” as he drastically cut down the letter. Cornwell added to that feeling with some horrible mistranslations, making “gruppo feminale” (“female group” or “group of women”) a “female rabble.” 251 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Accusation: Pope Pius XII was the Greatest Kidnapper of Jewish Children. A 1946 Document on Jewish Children Tells a Diff erent Story. Undercuts Tale Th at Vatican Tried to Keep Th em from Th eir Families ROME, JAN. 12, 2005 (Zenit.org). Th e latest in a series of accusations about Pope Pius XII’s behavior visà- vis the Jews and Nazi persecution seems to have little basis in fact. Th e latest round began Dec. 28 when an Italian newspaper published passages of an alleged 1946 Vatican document that supposedly aimed to keep baptized Jewish children from being returned to their families. Th e text, as stated in Il Corriere della Sera by Alberto Melloni, Director of the G. Dossetti Library of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences of Bologna, was “a disposition of the Holy Offi ce,” as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was formerly known. Th e document was said to be dated October 20, 1946. But after careful research, ZENIT discovered that the document, in fact, was not of the Holy Offi ce and did not bear evidence of the reported date. Nor did it state what the article in Il Corriere said it did. Th e document, whose original is in French, was written under the oversight of the then Apostolic Nuncio in Paris, Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII. It was meant to explain to the French clergy the instructions he had received from the Holy See, specifi cally, from the secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Aff airs, Monsignor Domenico Tardini. ZENIT also verifi ed that the document is dated Oct. 23, 1946, three days later than that mentioned by Il Corriere, and that the terms of the Vatican proposal are very diff erent from what the Italian newspaper had reported. Th e original document contradicts Mellon’s version. It states, in fact, that the children should be returned to their original Jewish families. Regarding “Jewish institutions,” which during those months were working in Paris and throughout Europe to transfer children to Palestine, the document states that each case must be examined individually. ZENIT learned that the history of the document began in March 1946, when Isaac Herzog, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, addressed a letter to Pope Pius XII in which the former wrote: “Th e Jewish people very much remember with profound gratitude the help given by the Holy See to the people that suff ered during the Nazi persecution.” Profound thanks are given for the “thousands of children who were hidden in Catholic institutions,” and the rabbi requests that these children be returned to the Jewish people. Herzog emphasized how Pius XII “has worked to banish anti-Semitism in many countries” and concluded with an invocation: “God willing, may history remember that when everything was dark for our people, His Holiness lit a light of hope for them.” Pius XII took to heart the fate of these Jewish children and, in that same month of March, asked the Holy Offi ce to study the case. 252 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th e Holy Offi ce, after hearing from several consultors, prepared a document in response to the Pope’s request. In August 1946, some French bishops and, specifi cally, Coadjutor Archbishop Emile Guerry of Cambrai and Cardinal Pierre Gerlier of Lyon, asked Nuncio Roncalli for pointers as to how to resolve the situation of Jewish children saved from Nazi persecution. Angelo Roncalli gathered all this material and, at the end of September, sent a letter to the Vatican Secretariat of State requesting instructions. Roncalli was answered by Monsignor Tardini, secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Aff airs, not in the way quoted by the article in Il Corriere, but rather in the way mentioned above. Journalist Andrea Tornielli told ZENIT that the Church in France resolved the problem in the vast majority of cases by returning the children, whose lives it saved, to their surviving families. During the war, priests and religious received orders from the Holy See and bishops not to baptize these children. Baptism requires the consent of the person receiving the sacrament or of the parents, if the recipient does not have the use of reason. Th is is revealed in documents quoted on www.vaticanfi les.net. 253 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Accusation: Pope Pius XII is Guilty of Kidnapping Jewish Children and Refusing to Return them to their Families. Did the Vatican order the protectors of Jewish children not to return them to their parents? Th is is the belief today as written in the following quote from an article from June 16, 2009. “A letter from Pope Pius XII to his representative in Paris on November 20, 1946, shows that he ordered Jewish babies that were baptized during the Holocaust not to be returned to their parents . . .” - Hillel Fendel from the article in Arutz Sheva Israel National News, June 16, 2009 Th e Origin of this Myth and Response – Rabbi David Dalin, Th e Myth of Hitler’s Pope On March 31, 1946, the Palestine Post reported that Rabbi Herzog “told of his audience with the Pope, who had received him on a Sunday early in March. Their conversation . . . was mainly on the subject of the 8,000 Jewish children in Poland, France, Belgium, and Holland who were (being) brought up in monasteries and by Christian families. He had the Vatican’s promise of help to bring those children back into the Jewish fold.” The Pope must have come through on his promise, because Rabbi Herzog “continued to praise his conduct toward the Jewish community throughout the Pope’s life.” Th e testimony of other Jewish leaders confi rms this assumption. Mr. Leon Kubowitzky of the World Jewish Congress said in 1965: “I can state now that I hardly know of a single case where Catholic institutions refused to return Jewish children.” More recently, French Jewish Holocaust historian and anti-Nazi attorney Serge Klarsfeld has emphatically stated that this new controversy over the fate of Jewish children hidden by Catholic families during the Holocaust is “a storm in a teacup,” because “almost none were with-held from their Jewish families afterward.” Klarsfeld, who has studied the fate of Jewish children during the Holocaust and has been involved in the prosecution of several Nazi war criminals who operated in France, said that most baptized “hidden children” probably went back to Judaism when they were reunited with relatives after the war. “Th ey never stopped being Jews,” he said. “Th ey simply had a paper in their pockets saying they had been baptized.” In fact, soon after his March 1946 meeting with Herzog, Pius instructed the Vatican’s Holy Congregation of the Holy Offi ce to draw up guidelines on how the Church could best work with Jewish families and institutions that wanted to reclaim or adopt Jewish children still residing in Catholic homes. Basing his words on the Holy Offi ce’s guidelines, one of Pius XII’s assistants, Monsignor Domenico Tardini, sent a memo dated September 28, 1946, in Italian to Nuncio Roncalli in France, explaining how French Church offi cials should deal with this issue. In his article, Melloni quotes a French translation (by an unknown writer) of Tardini’s instructions. The French memo, dated October 23, 1946, mistranslates a key phrase about the claims that surviving Jewish relatives had on Jewish children under the Church’s care. Unlike the original Tardini document, which explicitly encourages French Catholic officials and laymen to return 254 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses all rescued Jewish children, baptized or not, to their appropriate surviving relatives or to Jewish institutions, the French translation leaves “the impression that the Church should hold on to these children, especially if they were baptized, even if the surviving parents now came back to reclaim them.” The French translation directly contradicts Tardini’s original version of Pius XII’s instructions. Subsequent actions by both Pius XII and Roncalli, as well as by the French Catholic hierarchy, all “make clear that Pius’s post-war policy was to support reuniting Jewish children with their surviving relatives, as quickly and humanely as possible.” Why this contradiction? Because it turns out that the French memo, an alleged “papal document”—is not authentic. Alberto Melloni’s article, as Ronald J. Rychlak has pointed out,” was based on a bad translation (perhaps an intentional fraud).” Th e memo is a “fabricated” document, defi nitely “not from the Vatican.” Th is purported papal document “was not signed, not on the Vatican letterhead, and Vatican offi cials immediately noted that the words used were not typical for directives from the Vatican.” Indeed the very fact that the letter was in French and not Italian is enough to show that it was not authentic “instruction from the Pope to his Nuncio.” Th e credibility of Melloni’s sensational anti-Pius allegations, which were uncritically reported by the New York Times and other liberal media in the United States, has been categorically refuted by two of Italy’s preeminent authorities on Pius XII and his pontifi cate. Th ey are Andrea Tornielli, the respected Vatican correspondent for the Milan newspaper Giornale, and the diplomatic historian Matteo L. Napolitano. Tornielli and Napolitano co-authored the recent book Il Papa che salvo gli Ebrei (Th e Pope Who Saved the Jews). Alberto Melloni did not identify the Church archive in France from which his alleged papal document came, but Tornielli found the original and authentic papal instructions in the Centre National des Archives de l’Eglise de France. In a front-page article in II Giornale, “Ecco il vero documento su Pio XII e i bimbi Ebrei,” Tornielli compared the original Vatican document to Melloni’s version and proved Melloni’s allegations against Pope Pius XII false. Th e amazing thing, notes one scholar who has read this authentic papal document, is that the instructions from Pius XII “are almost exactly the opposite of Melloni’s account, which was so enthusiastically embraced by the papal critics. Nowhere do they suggest that Jewish children should be kept from their families—precisely the opposite!” Similarly, in a separate article in Giornale, Matteo Napolitano “severely chastises Melloni for rushing to judgment, and for rushing to publish an incomplete, totally misleading story based upon a dubious memo unrelated to Pius XII—something that no serious historian would ever do.” For Melloni, a left wing critic of Pius XII and John Paul II, no evidence was too dubious to further the myth of Hitler’s Pope. Th e liberal American media asked no questions. For example, the New York Times merely reiterated the unverifi ed anti-Pius allegations. Much of the liberal media followed suit. Th e Jewish Forward, the New Republic, and National Public Radio produced editorials, articles, op-ed pieces, and broadcasts based on Melloni’s discredited article. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, writing in both the Jewish Forward and the New Republic, called for the Vatican to create and fund an independent international commission “to determine how many Jewish children the Church kidnapped across Europe and the precise role that Pius XII . . . played.” Rather than thank the Catholic Church for saving the lives of Jewish children, the liberal media attacked the Church and Pope Pius XII, leaping to judge and condemn on the basis of a fraudulent memo. 255 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Document 1: Original Vatican directives ordering Jewish children must be returned to their families. Document 2: An explanation of the French mistranslated document, which started the controversy. – Courtesy of William Doino Jr. 256 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Why the Contradiction? Did Pius XII Kidnap Jewish Children or Not? Th e French memo, an alleged “papal document”, is not authentic. Alberto Melloni’s article, as Ronald J. Rychlak has pointed out, “was based on a bad translation (perhaps an intentional fraud).” Th e memo is a “fabricated” document, defi nitely “not from the Vatican.” Th is purported papal document “was not signed, not on the Vatican letterhead, and Vatican offi cials immediately noted that the words used were not typical for directives from the Vatican.” Indeed the very fact that the letter was in French and not Italian is enough to show that it was not authentic “instruction from the Pope to his Nuncio.” “Th ere was no campaign at the very highest levels of the Catholic Church to (kidnap) Jewish children in 1945 and 1946.” – Conclusion from Prof. Michael R. Marrus from his 2007 article “Th e Vatican and the Custody of Jewish Child Survivors after the Holocaust.” History Professor Robert Ventresca of Canada, who studied under Michael Marrus (noted critic of Pius XII), and whose forthcoming biography of Pius XII is much anticipated, has said attitudes about Pius XII are gradually shifting—for the better—and that no responsible historian takes the polemical anti-Pius literature seriously anymore. Even Professor Gerhard Besier, a disciple of the late historian Klaus Scholder (who was very critical of the Vatican, and whom Cornwell drew upon so heavily) has commented: “Th e memoirs of Harold Tittmann Jr., Myron C. Taylor’s assistant, which recently appeared, redress the balance in favor of Pius XII, for they restore to their context many quotations which had been torn from it, and give brilliant testimony to Pacelli who saved many lives. Th ese and other publications seem to herald a new phase of research into this period. Th is is less a question of anything spectacular than an honest historiographical attempt to understand the role of Pacelli and that of the Roman Catholic Church in the age of the dictatorships” (Th e Holy See and Hitler’s Germany, 2007, Palgrave-Macmillan, pp. ix–x). 257 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Documents Prove the Pope was Advised Not to Speak Out, For Fear of Serious Political Repercussions. Th e document below, dated November 7, 1944, is to American diplomat Myron Taylor, President Roosevelt’s Representative to the Holy See, explaining that the British Ambassador to the Holy See, D’Arcy Osborne, recommends that something be done to prevail upon the Pope not to speak out with an appeal in favor of the Hungarian Jews, since he would also condemn the crimes the Russians were committing in occupied countries. Th is would have serious political repercussions. He was assured that the Pope was not considering such a speech on Vatican Radio because he would have to condemn the Russians. 258 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Many Accused Pope Pius XII of not Using the Word “Jews” and Stated that the Pope Only Acted to Save Converted Jews. Th e 1933 Concordat signed with the German government specifi cally stated that Jews who converted would be considered Christians. Using this important principle, the Vatican was free to act on behalf of converted Jews if documents and directives were intercepted by enemy agents. Th e Vatican was also infi ltrated with spies justifying, what many call Vatican Paranoia, when sending messages either written or verbal. In many cases letters and directives were written cryptically, to provide another level of security for those who sent the message, and those to whom they were written. Th is is normal during war time. One of their greatest dangers to the Holy See was to lose their neutrality, since this would not only have risked the lives of the thousands of refugees being protected, but would have endangered the Catholic caretakers as well. Mindful of this, the only way Pope Pius XII could save what he called “this vibrant community” was to deceive some of the host countries like the United States, Canada, Brazil, and many others. He would simply refer to the protectees as “Non Aryans Catholic” or “Converted Catholics.” Th is description has never been used in history by the Catholic Church either before the war or up to this very day. Th e Vatican handed out tens of thousands of false baptismal papers. Morally, the church would not lie, but they had to accomplish their objective. Had these refugees actually been converted and baptized, they would simply have been Catholics, not “non-Aryan Catholics,” “Jewish Catholics,” or “Converted Catholics.” In addition, it must be remembered that during this period, Jews themselves would refer to their community as “Israelites” or “Hebrews” and rarely used the word “Jews.” 259 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses A Personal Article Written in 1964 in Defense of Pope Pius XII. “I saw him crying like a child and praying like a saint.” Th e Pope, who stood beside me, heard me deeply moved to be tense and then he lifted his hands in the sky and said to me: “After I shed many tears and many have prayed, I saw that a protest on my part, not only would not help, but would cause a large increase of raging anger against the Jews and the horrors conjured up only by would have happened, because they were defenseless. Maybe I would have gotten the praise of the civilized world, but for the poor Jews it would have meant an even harsher and more severe persecution than the one they already suff er.” – Testimony of Msgr. Pirro Scavizzi Th e niece of Msgr. Pirro Scavizzi sent a copy of a personal article written in 1964 in defense of Pope Pius XII from the lies of the Hochhuth play, Th e Deputy. Monsignor Scavizzi recounts how he saw the Pope crying like an infant for the suff ering of the Jews after he personally reported the Jewish killing and starvation. He also states that he was ordered to verbally deliver messages to the Nuncios of Europe. He explains the Pope could not speak out for fear of further retaliation against the Jews and Catholics. 260 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th e US Deputy Chief of Counsel at Nuremberg, Dr. Robert Kempner, Said Pope Pius XII Would be “provoking suicide” to Protest Against Hitler. Th e US Deputy Chief of Counsel at the Nuremberg War Trials, Dr. Robert M. W. Kempner, who was Jewish, wrote, “Every propaganda move of the Catholic Church against Hitler’s Reich would have been not only ‘provoking suicide’ . . . but would have hastened the execution of still more Jews and priests.” German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring testifi ed: “If (Pius XII) did not protest, he failed to do so because he told himself, quite rightly, ‘If I protest, Hitler will be driven to madness—not only will that not help the Jews, but we must expect that they will then be killed all the more.’” “Th e detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican,” reported one bishop who was imprisoned at Dachau (where about 2,500 priests died and another 1,000 were held captive). “We all had the impression that our wardens made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked . . . Whenever the way we were treated became more brutal, the Protestant pastors among the prisoners used to vent their indignation on the Catholic priests: ‘Again your big naive Pope and those simpletons, your bishops, are shooting their mouths off . . . why don’t they get the idea once and for all, and shut up. Th ey play the heroes, and we have to pay the bill.’” American diplomat Harold Tittmann reported back to Washington: Th e Holy See is apparently still convinced that an open denunciation by the Pope of the Nazi atrocities, at least as far as Poland was concerned, could have no more result but the violent death of a great many more people. Th e deputy chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg, Dr. Robert Kempner, agreed: protests did not stop the Nazis and they often made things worse. As reported by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints following a thirty-nine-year investigation into Pope Pius XII: Loud protests achieve nothing and only cause damage . . . Th e only means to save the Jews was, therefore, secret but effi cient ways to shelter them, provide them food and clothing, and move them to neutral countries. Pius XII did this in a manner unequaled by any state of organization, as was attested by many Jewish authorities and individuals. 261 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Did the Vatican Condemn the Treatment of the Jews? Jenö Lévai, in his study, “Hungarian Jewry and the Papacy: Pope Pius XII did not Remain Silent” (1968), makes use of documents, records, and reports from church and civil archives to prove that the Pope did not remain silent in showing what Pius did to help the Jews in Hungary. In studying the evidence, Lévai concluded that Pius XII did more than anyone else to help the Jews in Hungary during the Holocaust. 262 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th e Alleged Silence of Pius XII From an article reprinted with permission from Zaglada ydów, Studia I Materialy as “Papie Pius XII i ydzi. Diaczego powinien zosta beatyfi kowany?” in Zaglada ydów, Studia I Materialy, vol. 5 (2009) by Vincent Lapomarda (I)t is necessary to speak directly to the allegation that Pius XII was silent during the Holocaust. Th e historical record demonstrates that he was not silent in either word or action during the Holocaust. Publicly his words were carefully phrased so that the Nazis got the message but privately he worked through his representatives to save the Jews. Th at was the unanimous thinking of the Jewish community before the publication of Rolf Hochhuth’s play made headlines in 1963. Prior to that development against the reputation of the Pope, which was launched by the KGB according to some experts, the sentiment of the Jewish community was that articulated by Golda Meir at the time of the Pope’s death when she recalled how Pius had helped the Jews during the Holocaust. Th ereafter, especially since the pontiff ’s death and the growing possibility of his canonization, the Jewish community has been split over Pope Pius XII. While there are scholars outside of the Jewish community like James Carroll, John Cornwell, Carlo Falconi, Charles R. Gallagher, Giovanni Miccoli, John Morley, Gerard Noel, Paul D. O’Shea, John T. Pawlikowski, Michael Phayer, and Garry Wills whose studies support those Jewish critics opposed to Pius XII, what is surprising is that there is an impressive number of Jewish scholars who have come to the defense of the Pope like Richard Breitman, David G. Dalin, Martin Gilbert, Pinchas E. Lapide, Jenö Lévai, Michael L. Feldkamp, Livia Rothkirchen, Michael Tagliacozzo, and Andrea Tornielli who take a position contrary to that of Rolf Hochhuth and those like Daniel J. Goldhagen, Michael Marrus, Sergio I. Minerbi, Robert S. Wistrich, and Susan Zuccotti who tend to side with him. As for other defenders of the Pope, there can be added the writings of those outside the Jewish community like Pierre Blet, Th omas Brechenmacher, M. L. T. Brown, William Doino, Jean- Dominique Durand, Antonio Gasparri, Robert A. Graham, Michael Hesemann, Justus George Lawler, Grazia Loparco, Margherita Marchione, Matteo Luigi Napolitano, Michael O’Carroll, Ralph McInerny, and Ronald J. Rychlak. To these, one should add Hans Jansen whose study, Th e Silent Pope? (2000) catalogues what the Pope had actually done for the Jews before and during his Papacy. To put this question of the alleged silence of the Pope in perspective, it is necessary to recall three signifi cant points. First, the call for Pope Pius XII to speak out was not unanimously supported by the Jews themselves. As Robert A. Graham, the Jesuit historian, used to point out, words were not helpful during the Holocaust, what was needed was action which the Pope quietly provided. Many Jewish leaders realized that public papal declarations would not have improved the victims. In the words of Marcus Melchior, Chief Rabbi of Denmark, who helped to save Jews in his own country: “If the Pope had spoken out, Hitler would have probably massacred more than six million Jews and perhaps ten times ten million Catholics.” Such retaliations were customary in the concentration camp at Dachau where Bishop Jean Bernard of Luxembourg, who had been imprisoned there between 1941 and 1942, declared: “Th e detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest from a religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican.” Secondly, what the Chief Rabbi of Denmark had said was proven in the case of the Roman Catholics in Holland in July of 1942. Regarding the eff ects of this letter, which was inspired by Pius, Pinchas Lapide wrote: “Th e saddest and most thought-provoking conclusion is that whilst the Catholic clergy in Holland protested more loudly, expressly, and frequently against Jewish persecutions than the religious hierarchy of any other Nazi-occupied country, more Jews—some 110,000 or 79 percent of the total—were deported from Holland to death camps.” In fact, this was confi rmed by Pascalina Lehnert, the Pope’s housekeeper who, in her memoir, pointed out that Pius had prepared a very strong protest against the Nazi treatment of the Jews but decided to destroy it precisely because he did not want it to result in many more deaths that followed the publication of the pastoral letter by the Dutch bishops. 263 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Th irdly, even in Poland, where there has been criticism of the Pope, no less a person than the Adam Stefan Sapieha, the Archbishop of Krakow, pleaded with Pius near the end of 1942 to avoid publishing his letters about the horrible conditions in that country lest the Nazis worsen the situation there. In this regard, he was supported by at least two other bishops from the same country, but this request of the archbishop was undoubtedly based on the treatment of the Polish people as given in the reports to the Pope by August Cardinal Hlond (1881–1948), the controversial Primate of Poland, about Th e Persecution of the Catholic Church in German-Occupied Poland (1941) which had been aired over Vatican Radio. Given the horrible fate of the Polish victims of the Nazis at that time, Archbishop Sapieha’s plea was not only quite reasonable but absolutely necessary in a nation with thirty million Polish Catholics. Of course, many of the Pope’s critics will discount those three considerations as irrelevant. However, since they were not in those dire circumstances under the Nazis, they have not really been in a position to off er an objective judgment, especially since it is very easy for them unrealistically to remain aloof from such explanations of the Pope’s actions. If Pope Benedict XVI has more than once come out in defense of Pope Pius XII, it is precisely because he considers such explanations very relevant to the current controversy. Fortunately, in the midst of the current criticism against his predecessor, there has arisen in New York City, the Pave the Way Foundation which is led by Gary Krupp, a director of Jewish descent, and is dedicated to the defense of the deceased Pope. Th e mission of the foundation has been stated in this way: “In furtherance of the mission of PTWF, we are attempting to remove obstacles between the religions. Mindful of this, we have initiated the independent investigation of the Papacy of Pope Pius XII.” In his address to the participants of the symposium that was held in Rome in September of 2008, Benedict XVI expressed his appreciation for the foundation which has contributed to the emerging stream of evidence in defense of Pius by making available sources that were unknown to the Vatican and Yad Vashem,. Moreover, the relationship between the defenders of Pius XII and his critics was further complicated in late January of this year when it was made known that one of the schismatic bishops who was being restored by the current Pope to the unity of the Roman Catholic Church had publicly declared on Swedish television that six million Jews had not died in the Holocaust. Although the Vatican had not known of his denial of the Holocaust before the excommunication was lifted on that bishop, such a denial certainly was not the view of the current Pope nor of that bishop’s superior in the St. Pius X Society. By the end of that same January, Bishop Richard Williamson had insuffi ciently retracted that declaration in an expression of regret “for having caused . . . the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems.” Unfortunately, for the Holy Father, the Vatican had to endure a fi restorm of criticism until Pope Benedict XVI came out with a demand for a stronger retraction from Williamson, especially in the wake of demands by Jewish leaders and Germany’s cardinals and prime minister. While the road to the canonization of Pope Pius XII has been plagued with thorny issues for the Vatican, the process leading to the Pope’s beatifi cation has been signifi cantly delayed. However, the calumnies and vilifi cations raised against the Pope have not derailed the canonization process. Nevertheless, Benedict had made it clear that he will not, in his journey to Israel between May 8th and 15th, visit the Holocaust Museum where is located the exhibit dishonoring Pope Pius XII even though he will give a speech at Yad Vashem. If this authority does not change the exhibit to correspond with the objective evidence, then, in the words of the editor of Inside the Vatican, Yad Vashem will be “misrepresenting or ignoring a wide range of witnesses and documents.” 264 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses 1946 Statement of Pope Pius XII About His Alleged Silence: Impartiality of the Supreme Pontiff At the outbreak of the last terrible and long war, we had done everything in our power, by word, with the exhortations and action, to fi nd a way to a fair and just peace is that all people, without any diff erence in their race, might fi nd a way to unite in a friendly and brotherly way, and to cooperate to achieve a greater prosperity. Never, even at that time, came out of our mouths a word that might seem unfair or harsh to some of the belligerents. Certainly we have rejected, as was to be any iniquity, any violation of the law, but what we did was, with the utmost care, to avoid anything that could become, though unjustly, cause of more trouble for the oppressed peoples. And when a certain party put pressure on us to approve the war against Russia in 1941, we completely refused to do that, as we explained openly on February 25, 1946, in Our speech before the sacred College and to all diplomatic missions to the Holy See [Cf AAS 38 (1946), P.154]. 265 Current Calumnies and Statements about Pius XII with Responses Did the Vatican Condemn National Socialist Doctrines? Below is a small sampling of the hundreds of articles in L’Osservatore Romano. - Th anks to John Paul Cox July 9, 1938 “La Situazione Religiosa in Germania”—condemns National Socialism July 10, 1938 “La Situazione Religiosa: Propaganda Antireligiosa”—condemns National Sociualism July 14, 1938 “Le Nuove Matrimoniale Tedesca”—condemns National Socialism September 1, 1939 “Le Nuove Misure Militari in Polonia: Le Richieste tedesche communicate a Varsavia”—condemns Hitler and National Socialism September 2, 1939 “Le Ostilita’ fra la Germania e la Polonia iniziate stamane”— condemns Hitler and National Socialism October 6, 1939 “La Riunione di Reichstag Per il discorso di Hitler”—condemns Hitler May 11, 1940 “Le Truppe Germaniche Varcano Le Fronte del Belgio, Olanda e Lussembourg”—condemns National Socialism and Hitler January 5, 1941 “Messagi di Capodanno Germania”—condemns National Socialism and Fascism February 1, 1941 “Un Discorso del Cancelliere Hitler”—condemns Hitler March 4, 1941 “Documentazioni- Problemi Monetari”—condemns National Socialism March 9, 1941 “Documentazioni- Problemi Monetari”—condemns National Socialism 267 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Critics Blame The Vatican For The Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy 268 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Th e Mistake that Many Make when Analyzing Events Before, During, and After the War. When one examines the criticisms leveled against Pope Pius XII, a commonly accepted generalization surfaces. Th e Pope dictates all actions (and lack of actions) of all Roman Catholics and each department within the Vatican State. Th is appears to be the universal belief when many say, “If the Pope had ordered it, all Catholics must follow these orders without question.” History and reality show us that nothing can be further from the truth. “Papal infallibility” refers only to matters dealing with the dogma of Roman Catholic theology, not political, economic or diplomatic issues. Within Vatican operations, each department, whether it is the Vatican Library and Archives, the Secretary of State, or the papal household, all is directed by a prefect or director. He is basically “in charge” and rarely do the higher authorities, including the cardinals or even the Pope, overrule these individual leaders. Each is akin to little corporations headed by the CEO. As an example, the Prefect of the Library is the operating offi cer, the Cardinal Librarian and Archivist is the chairman of the board of the library, and the Pope would be the sole stockholder or owner. Th ere is a mechanism, by Canon Law, which requires some interaction between the various commissions where approval must be sustained by diff erent departments, under specifi c circumstances.. When a political statement is made by a member of the Catholic clergy, many times it is incorrectly assumed that this is the offi cial policy of the Vatican. When priests, nuns, or other clergy express opinions which are in direct opposition to Vatican policy, the Holy See distances itself from such statements with offi cial policy directives from the Vatican through L’Osservatore Romano or press releases. Many members of the international Catholic clergy acted to save Jewish lives and many did not. Th e Pope “asked” the clergy to do anything they could to save the lives of the refugees, but each was free to do what he or she felt was possible. Th e German bishops complied with Canon Law when they lifted the ban of excommunication of 1930 against any German who joined the “Hitler Party,” wore the uniform, or fl ew the fl ag. Th e ban had to be lifted as soon as the National Socialist government was democratically elected in 1932. Had the government come to power by a coup d’état, the results may have been diff erent. Th e Church’s public condemnations of the policies of the Nazis, however, never changed.. Pacelli was vehemently opposed to National Socialism and to Adolf Hitler. Coupled with his knowledge of the Nazi plot to kidnap and assassinate him, supports the belief that. there is no way Pope Pius XII would permit, enable, or encourage Vatican help for Nazi war criminals. 269 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Were Some Catholic Clergy Deceived by the Nazi’s? Th ere were sympathizing priests and bishops, many of whom were deceived by the Nazi’s. Th e Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Th eodor Innitzer, publicly endorsed Anschluss (the annexation of Austria by Germany.) In his written endorsement, he signed the document with “Heil Hitler.” In addition, Cardinal Innitzer ordered that all Austrian churches fl y the swastika fl ag, ring bells, and pray for Hitler’s birthday. Vatican Radio broadcast a vehement denunciation of the action, and Cardinal Pacelli (soon to become Pope Pius XII) ordered Innitzer to report to the Vatican. Before meeting with Pius XI, Innitzer met with Pacelli, who was outraged by Innitzer’s statement. He made it clear that Innitzer needed to retract his comments and issue a new statement on behalf of all the Austrian Bishops, which stated, “Th e solemn declaration of the Austrian Bishops . . . was clearly not intended to be an approval of something that was not and is not compatible with God’s law.” Th e Vatican newspaper also reported that the Bishops’ earlier statement had been issued without the approval of the Holy See, disagreeing totally with Innitzer (below). Soon after, in October 1938, thousands of Catholic youngsters gathered in the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna for prayer and meditation. In his sermon Innitzer stated: “Th ere is just one Führer: Jesus Christ.” Th e following day, about one hundred Nazis, among them many older members of the Hitler Youth, ransacked the Archbishop’s residence. Th e ordered retraction of Cardinal Innitzer in L’Osservatore Romano and a corresponding article that appeared in the Palestine Post are below. Innitzer eventually became an open critic of Hitler and the Nazis. “In the light of various, often tendentious, interpretations [even on the part of those from whom it would not be expected], regarding the well-known declaration of the Austrian episcopate, we have been authorized to communicate, as a statement of fact, and leaving aside any consideration or question of a political nature, that this [declaration] was formulated and signed (subscribed) without any approval, either previously understood or subsequently, by the Holy See, and [thus] under the sole responsibility of the Austrian episcopate.” TRANSLATION L’Osservatore Romano Front page article, April 2, 1938, article above is the retraction that Pacelli ordered. It distances the Vatican from the statements by the Austrian episcopate and Cardinal Innitzer. 270 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Palestine Post article describing the long meeting between Innitzer and Pacelli clarifying the church’s position. 271 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy How the Catholic Church Sheltered Nazi War Criminals Article preview from Commentary Magazine By Kevin Madigan—December 2011 About the Author: Kevin J. Madigan is Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Here is an incredible example of the technique used by the historical revisionist to condemn the entire Catholic Church because of the actions of this Bishop and a few others. If the author had properly researched this subject and at the very least read the autobiography of Bishop Hudal (“Roemische Tagebuecher” (Roman Diaries) by Bishop Alois Hudal, Graz (Austria) 1976), he would have discovered how he was hated by the Curia and was persona non grata in the Vatican. Th is article deals with the actions of Bishop Alois Hudal, an acknowledged Nazi sympathizer. With much gratitude to Michael Hesemann for the following translations from Hudal’s book: p. 200 f.: “When the Substitute of the Pontifi cial Secretary of State, Monsignore Montini, visited me in the Anima (the German National Church in Rome, Santa Maria dell Anima) and off ered me to take over the humanitarian care for the Jews in Rome and the surrounding areas and to open a kind of representation of the Jewish Joint in the Anima, I unfortunately had to refuse, since high ranking German personalities from all fi elds frequently visited the Anima and this would endanger such an important work to save the persecuted. Later, this matter was, on my recommendation, taken over by the Generalate of the P. (Premonstratensiens) who later received a generous compensation for their services by the Joint. Maybe I made a mistake not to centralize the help for Jewish refugees at the Anima, since soon several important circles withdrew their support for the Anima . . . and as a fi rst indirect warning the reply telegraph on my Christmas Greetings for the Holy Father in 1939 was addressed to “Al Collegio ariano (!) dell’Anima.” Th is was a clear sign. Center of the resistance against Faschism and NS (National Socialism) became the Papal Lateran Palace . . .” p 204: “. . . in the Second World War, when the Vatican took a clear position against the Th ird Reich, although Communist Russia was among the Allies and the Roman Church had nothing to expect from it . . .” p. 213: “Th e Jesuit Leiber (Secretary of Pope Pius XII) . . . replied in a letter that ‘Russia in a certain way fi ghts a holy (!) War for the fatherland.’ Further you could not go in the hate against Germany.” p. 214: “During the war, I met excellent German men like the Generals Stahel, Maeltzer, von Rintelen, die Ambassadors Mackensen and Weizsäcker, the Representative Wemmer at the Vatican, who all did their very best to improve the relationship between the Italian government and the German soldiers, Colonel von Veltheim, contact offi cer between the two headquarters, who gave me more than 500 protection documents for Monasteries and religious Institutes, so that several thousands, among them many Jews, were saved (I delivered them partially to the nephew of the Pope, Carlo Pacelli) . . .” p. 295f.: “1944: After the arrival of the Allies who visited me several times (SIS, Secret Service), I had to experience several repercussions, including a threat to become court-martialed because I did not deliver German soldiers, who escaped to me from the Frontier Nettuno, immediately to the military authorities . . . no wonder I soon received the honorary title of a ‘nazi-faschist Bishop’” (. . .) p. 296f.: “1946: First demand of the Substitute of the Pontifi cal Secretary of State Montini . . . the Viennese Cardinal Innitzer may work towards my removal from the Anima, since I was because of my positive position 272 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy towards the Th ird Reich not bearable for the Vatican any longer in the changed situation, also in the age of democracy.” p. 297 f.: “1949: Wednesday in the Holy Week, Audience of 400 Austrian pilgrims of a Youth organization, brought to Rome by a Jesuit from Vienna. Since I was asked to arrange the Papal audience, I believed that, as it was an old custom, I would be allowed to accompany this pilgrim group into the Vatican. But as soon as we reached the Sala delle Benedizioni, a Papal chamberlain arrived and explained to me in an emotional form, lacking all education: ‘Vostra presenza é qui indesiderata, se Lei non va via, il Santo Padre non viene’ (Your presence is undesired; if you don’t leave, the Holy Father will not come). What a shameful treatment of a Bishop!” p. 298: “1949. In the Roman hospital Santo Spirito died in my arms the Vice Gouverneur of Poland, Lt. General and SS Offi cer Baron von Waechter who was searched for by the Allies and Jewish institutions. When his superior Frank was hanged in Nuremberg, Waechter managed to survive in Rome for several months under a false name, under the moving selfl ess care of Italian monks, until he was poisoned, as he believed, by American spies. (. . .) Heavy attacks against my person in the leftist press of Rome caused my call into the Pontifi cal Secretary of State by Monsignore Montini. A defense of my person in the ‘Osservatore Romano’ against this defamation campaign . . . was refused (by Montini) with the words: ‘Non è opportuno, non si difende un Vescovo nazista’ (It is not opportune; there is no defense for a Nazi bishop).” p. 301: “1951 . . . A few months later, the Pontifi cial Secretary of State wrote to the Cardinal Protector of the Anima the following letter: “Th e Holy Father demands that the Bishop A.H. gets removed from the Anima . . .” It is Pius XII who bears the brunt of these accusations which are made by a “distinguished Professor” from Harvard University. Th is is without question the best example of poor scholarship and insuffi cient research. 273 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Examples of Actions Taken by Catholic Clergy, Which were not Sanctioned by the Vatican. In February 1944, the then governor of the Vatican City State, Cardinal Nicola Canali, speaking of the refugees protected in Vatican City, complained that there were too many “guests” inside the Vatican. Cardinal Canali was justifi ably fearful of a Nazi raid on Vatican territory, but Pius XII’s actions valued human life above the fears of the Cardinal. Canali issued an order to “fl ush out” a number of the “guests.” Th ey were not only Jews but also Italian fugitives, partisans, etc. When Pope Pius XII heard of this complaint, he made it clear that anyone who wanted to leave the safety of the Vatican, was free to do so, but no one was ever forced out. Th e Pope telephoned this directive to Cardinal Canali, and the order was followed. From October 1943 to June 1944, not one single Jew was ever forced out of the Vatican. Th e Vatican remained a sanctuary throughout the German occupation of Rome. Th e number of “guests” protected in the Vatican itself varied, since through the “underground network”, many refugees were able to emigrate Europe. Th e existence of Catholic priest, Father Krunoslav Draganovic’s “ratline” has been confi rmed by Vatican historian, Father Robert Graham: “I’ve no doubt that Draganovic was extremely active in siphoning off his Croatian Ustashe friends.” However, Graham insisted that Draganovic was not sanctioned in this by his superiors: “Just because he’s a priest doesn’t mean he represents the Vatican. It was his own operation. Th e ratline initially focused on aiding members of the Croatian Ustashe movement, most notably the Croat wartime dictator Ante Paveli.” 274 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Th e Austrian Rector of Santa Maria dell’Anima, the German National Church in Rome, was Bishop Alois Hudal, a known Nazi sympathizer. In the archives of Santa Maria dell’ Anima, two handwritten documents were found, from Franz Stangl and Gustav Wagner, the Commandants of Treblinka death camp and Sorbibor concentration camp, seeking refuge after the war. Hudal asked for a description of their wartime actions, which are in the letters below. While studying the archives of Bishop Hudal in Santa Maria dell’Anima, Prof. Matteo Sanfi lippo discovered a letter from Monsignor Montini (the future Pope Paul VI), expressing outrage at Hudal’s suggestion that the Vatican help Nazis escape. An abundance of evidence suggests that, because of Bishop Hudal’s Nazi leanings, he was excluded from all offi cial Vatican aff airs of the day. 275 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Examples of How the Vatican Distanced Itself From Nazi Sympathizer Bishop Alois Hudal and Others. Th is claim was most fully developed by the self-styled “investigative journalists,” Mark Aarons and John Loftus. Th ey fi rst brought it up in their 1991 book: Unholy Trinity: Th e Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks. In a later book, (Th e Secret War Against the Jews, 1994) Aarons and Loftus expanded their argument and asserted that almost every entity in the world from the Vatican to the Bush family is at war with the Jews. Commenting on their argument, Anti Defamation League director Abraham Foxman called it so exaggerated, so scantily documented, so overwrought and convoluted in its presentation, that Loftus and Aarons render laughable their claim to off er a glimpse of the world as it really is. According to the authors, the major powers of the world have repeatedly planned covert operations to bring about the destruction of Israel. During the Six-Day War, the US and British governments, while pretending to be on Israel’s side, were giving all of Israel’s secrets to the Arabs. Particularly appalling is their discussion of the attack on the USS Liberty during the Six-Day War. (See James M. Ennes Jr., Book Review: Th e Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus and Mark Aarons, St. Martin’s Press, 1994). (In the end, the only thing Loftus and Aarons seem to have gotten right is the fact that the attack was no accident.) Th e Vatican has acknowledged that Bishop Alois Hudal of Austria and a Croatian priest named Krunoslav Draganovic helped war criminals escape from Europe. Evidence shows, however, that this was done without approval from Vatican authorities. In a letter published in the New York Times on March 13, 1984, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal wrote: the bishop recalled that among the Roman Curia he became known as the “Nazi, Fascist Bishop” and that eventually “Vatican politics” regarded him as no longer tolerable . . . Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Vienna, February 24, 1984 In the 1950s, when I was working on the Eichmann case, I was in Rome and found out how this escape route operated after 1945. I never heard of Dr. Willi Nix, the focus of one of your articles, but I did hear about the German bishop in Rome, Alois Hudal. Th ere is no evidence that Pope Pius XII ordered or knew about this escape route at the time it was run, but Bishop Hudal, in his diary published in 1969, had this to say: “. . . So the Allies’ war against Germany had in its last consequence nothing to do with ideals. Th is was not a Crusade but the rivalry of economic complexes . . . Slogans such as democracy, race, religious liberty and Christianity were used as bait for the masses . . . (All this) led me after 1945 to devote my charitable eff orts mainly to former National Socialists and Fascists, especially to the so-called ‘war criminals,’ who were being persecuted by Communists and ‘Christian Democrats.’” 276 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Recently opened archives confi rm that Wiesenthal was correct: Hudal “acted without Rome’s permission or knowledge.” Th e Vatican recently permitted Prof. Matteo Sanfi lippo, a member of CEANA, (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de las Actividades del Nazismo en la Argentina) to examine Hudal’s personal papers. Sanfi lippo found no evidence that the Pope encouraged Hudal’s activities. In fact, Sanfi lippo uncovered a letter from Montini to Hudal expressing outrage at his suggestion that the Vatican should help members of the SS and the Wehrmacht. - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope Prof. Matteo Sanfi lippo’s essay—Ratlines and Unholy Trinities: A Review-essay on (Recent) Literature Concerning Nazi and Collaborators Smuggling Operations out of Italy concludes: Th e real “Ratline,” which was run by US Intelligence with the help of Draganovic in Genoa, and a second one, the Monastery line, organized by Hudal and other German priests, together with members of the Pontifi cia Commissione Assistenza. Th is second line was not the product of the Church pro-Nazi position, but the action of single members of the Catholic clergy. Nazi sympathizer Bishop Alois Hudal. Above are the description letters given to Bishop Alois Hudal from Nazi criminals Stangl and Wagner attempting to convince Hudal to help them escape. 277 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Anti-Semitic priests existed then, and they exist today. Hatred of others is not exclusive. Unfortunately, this malady exists within all of the world’s faiths. Rev. Charles Coughlin spread his hatred by radio and in print media. A Catholic priest in the United States, he made anti-Semitic charges that were denounced by the Vatican. Many critics make the assumption that whatever any Catholic priest says is refl ective of Vatican policy. Th is is absolutely not true. Personal opinions do not necessarily refl ect the opinion of the Catholic Church or the Holy See. . French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre so opposed the declarations of the Second Vatican Council that he broke from the Pope and from the Roman Catholic Church. He began an international traditionalist Catholic organization, the Society of Pius X, in 1970. He intentionally disobeyed Papal orders not to ordain bishops, which automatically triggered his excommunication. Th is was a religious action. 278 Critics Blame Th e Vatican For Th e Unauthorized, Negative Activities Of Some Catholic Clergy Bishop Richard Williamson is one of the illicitly ordained Bishops of Lefebvre, the Society of Pius X. His political views of the denial of the Holocaust are an example of how the remarks of just one clergyman have been erroneously attributed to the Vatican. Th ese remarks surfaced just after the Vatican lifted the ban of excommunication. Th e lifting of the ban of excommunication only allowed church offi cials to speak to this group, in order to negotiate the return to full communion for the one million plus members of the Society of Pius X, the breakaway, right-wing group described above. Many were led to believe that this Bishop’s remarks were approved by the Vatican and that the members of the Society of Pius X had been welcomed back into the church. Th is was, and is not true. Th e Holy Father commented, “Th e positions of Bishop Williamson on the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and are fi rmly rejected.” Th is community may never be welcomed back into full communion with the Catholic Church, since it rejects the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate. Th is is a major requirement the Vatican has demanded of before they can be brought back into the fold of the Church. “Vatican Rejects ‘Chosen People’” is the headline from a statement from Lebanon-born Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros, who asserted that “Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands.” Th is statement does not refl ect the opinion of the Catholic Church. “Th e Catholic Church denounced this teaching at the landmark Vatican II conclave.” Archbishop Bustros then restated his remarks. Anti-Semitic Polish Priest Tadeusz Rydzyk. Th e offi cial Vatican website states that Rydzyk’s radio station “became much more involved in spreading risky politics than in spreading the Gospel.” Rydzyk allegedly referred to the then Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, as someone who was under the infl uence of Jews. Th e support of Rydzyk and his radio for the death penalty brought him into direct confl ict with Catholic teaching. 279 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War The Vatican Responds and Clarifies Actions Taken During the Second World War 280 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Perhaps the most important recent development in understanding Pope Pius XII is the completion of the thirty-nine-year study into his life that was undertaken by historians for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Th is report, which fi lls eight volumes, includes 1,420 pages on his life (Vita Documentata); almost one thousand pages of sworn testimony transcripts given by ninety-eight witnesses (Summarium); a three-hundred-page synthetic exposition of his virtues of faith, hope, charity, and prudence (Infozmatio); and a three-hundred-page appendix addressing specifi c issues in the life of Pius XII, including his work vis-a-vis the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Cumulatively, these documents are known as the Positio. Th e particular importance of the Positio comes not from the evidence that it reviews but from the analysis of that evidence. It sets forth a compelling case that Pius XII lived a life of heroic virtue. As for the charges raised by a slew of papal critics, the Positio concludes that they are part of a campaign to denigrate his personality and his work. Th e evidence that it reviews is essentially the same evidence that has been available to all researchers in this area. Th e diff erence is that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has a history of looking into the lives of important people. It uses reasonable standards of general applicability and tries to apply them fairly. All charges and claims on both sides of the issue are explored, and true scholars take as much time as is necessary to reach the right conclusion. In a forum such as that, the charges against Pope Pius XII fall by the wayside. - Courtesy of Ronald Rychlak Hitler, the War, and the Pope All we hear today from the critics is “we will wait for the War Years to open before judging this period.” In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI ordered the complete Vatican Secret Archives up to 1939 open for scholarly study. Th ese contain all actions up to 1939 and 65 percent of Eugenio Pacelli’s ministry and career. Preparation was made by the Vatican archival personnel to make room for the expected hordes of scholars who were expected to come and study this period. Surprisingly, when opened offi cially, literally no one showed up, according to the sign-in sheets at the archives. Since 2006, a limited few of the known critics and historical institutions have come to study the open archives. 281 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War VATICAN Vatican Archives Will Exonerate Pius XII, Say His Defenders – By Edward Pentin Register Correspondent July 23–August 5, 2006, Issue | Posted 7/23/06 at 7:00 a.m. Reprinted with permission from the National Catholic Register http://www.ncregister.com/ VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI has decided to open the Vatican secret archives covering the pontifi cate of Pope Pius XI from 1922–1939, partly to help dispel controversy surrounding the wartime relationship of his successor, Pope Pius XII, with Nazi Germany. In a June 30 statement, the Vatican said the prewar material will be available to scholars Sept. 18. Benedict’s decision follows the wishes of Pope John Paul II, who in 2002 called for the release of the material as soon as possible. In addition, John Paul authorized the archives to make available to scholars the material from Pius XI’s pontifi cate that dealt directly with Vatican-German relations. Th e 2003 opening of the Vatican-German papers was unusual, because normal Vatican practice is to catalog and open all material from an entire pontifi cate at the same time. Th e Vatican had said the early publication of the selected material was a sign of John Paul’s desire to “render a service to historical truth without clamor, fear or delay.” Th e documents were considered especially sensitive because they covered the period in which Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, served as Nuncio in Germany and then as Vatican secretary of state before being elected Pope in 1939. Pius XII’s critics believe the opening of the entire prewar archives will confi rm their accusations that he was sympathetic to Nazism and indiff erent to the Jews during this period. According to such critics, he maintained these biases while leading the Church during World War II. Father Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, said that “billions of sheets” will be available to historians after four years of collating, organizing and numbering. He would not discuss the ongoing controversy concerning the wartime Papacy of Pius XII, saying “only historical researchers will be able to point out the relevance of Pius XI’s pontifi cate compared with Pius XII’s.” Th e Facts But much of the world’s secular press has already made up its mind. “Sunlight on the Vatican’s Dark Hours” was the headline of a Los Angeles Times story about the decision to open the archives. Other secular media organizations reported the news similarly, welcoming the documents’ release but questioning whether they would be suffi cient to exonerate Pius XII. 282 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Yet for scholars who have seriously looked at historical records already available during that period, there is little need for “sunlight” and no “dark hours” to relive. “Th ere won’t be anything there damaging to his reputation,” said James Bogle, chairman of the Catholic Union of Great Britain and author of an essay, “Th e Real Story of Pius XII and the Jews.” “I’d be willing to bet on it because I know him, I’ve studied him, and I know he wasn’t remotely interested in anything else than saving Jewish lives.” Others are equally certain. “Th e archives will explain certain things in more detail, will give some additional information and clarify some controversial issues,” said Sister Margherita Marchione, author of Consensus and Controversy, Defending Pope Pius XII. “But we know all the facts already.” Th e facts, according to Sister Margherita, a Filippini Sister and Fulbright Scholar who has spent more than 10 years campaigning for an objective assessment of the wartime Pope, are that Pius XII “condemned Nazism wholeheartedly” both as Nuncio and as secretary of state. For example, he was the primary author of Mit Brennender Sorge (With Deep Anxiety), Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical that condemned Nazism and rejected racism as un-Catholic. And there is plenty of other evidence exonerating Pius XII. “Th ere are already 12 volumes on Pius XII’s life on which researchers can consult,” said Sister Margherita. “Th e diffi culty is people never make the eff ort to read them.” Bogle said that as secretary of state, Cardinal Pacelli was doing almost “100% of the negotiating” with Germany. “He spoke perfect German and was heavily involved, doing his best to contain Nazism,” Bogle said. “But world powers take little notice of the Church and the Pope at their peril, and then who gets the blame? Is it Western governments? No, it’s the Pope who in this case is victim of an orchestrated campaign of dishonesty.” For 20 years after the war, Pius XII was widely praised for speaking out as openly as he could before and during the war and for helping to save Jews in secret. Israel Zolli, Rome’s Chief Rabbi after the war, converted to Catholicism and took for his baptismal name Eugenio in honor of Pius XII. But public opinion changed in 1963 when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth depicted Pius XII in “Th e Deputy” as a cynic who kept silent despite knowing about the Holocaust. More recently, Pius XII’s reputation was further smeared by books like John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope, a work that the author later admitted contains research fl aws. In each of the accusatory books, the main charge made against Pius XII is that he remained silent during the war. But according to Bogle—who is also a convert from Judaism—Pius XII and the Vatican were acutely aware of the dire consequences of speaking out. Th ese became apparent in 1943 when Holland’s Catholic bishops condemned Nazism publicly, resulting in greater numbers of Jews being sent to death camps. “As soon as he heard what had happened in Holland, Pius XII changed his mind, and burnt the paper he was going to issue because Jews advised him that more people would die if he spoke out,” said Bogle. In his book Th e Myth of Hitler’s Pope, Rabbi David Dalin argued that critics of Pius were primarily liberal Catholics who “exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today.” Sister Margherita also thinks that hidden agendas are at play in the attacks on Pius XII. “It’s disconcerting because the facts are so clear, but people don’t want to know the truth; they don’t want to be told, they want to condemn someone,” she said. “But for as long as I’m alive, I’m not going to let that happen and will continue the battle for the truth to be known.” (CNS contributed to this report.) Edward Pentin writes from Rome Copyright © 2007 Circle Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 283 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Vatican Secret Archives—Why Aren’t Th ey Open? For centuries, the Vatican has kept archives that are privately maintained for the Popes. Th ese have been called the “Secret Archives.” It is not that they are a secret per se, as we defi ne the word in English, but more that they are private. It has been at the discretion of each individual Pope to decide when these are to be opened, but tradition has held that they remain closed for at least seventy years after the death of a Pope, in order to protect the named individuals, who would have likely passed on by then.. Five years after the death of Pope Pius XII, the Soviet campaign to destroy his reputation, through the production of the play Th e Deputy gained international recognition and began quickly changing the worldwide appreciation and understanding of his wartime activities. Part of this feeding frenzy of negativity highlighted the fact that the Vatican Secret Archives of the war years and the Pontifi cate of Pope Pius XII remained sealed. Th is only added to the controversy. Even though the archives of many nations remain closed, including the Soviet Union’s KGB records and some Israeli archives, which are sealed, this became a focal point. Th e implication was that there was something to hide, rather than the Vatican was simply following protocol. Th e process of archival organization in the Vatican is as follows. First, individual pages are bound together in books, which are numbered, to prevent theft. Th en each page is read, summarized, and stamped with the Vatican seal. Th e Papacy of Pope Pius XII is estimated, between private notes, those of the Secretary of State and all of the Nunciatures worldwide to be as many as thirty-one million pages. Th e notion of strangers perusing through fi fty thousand cases of uncatalogued, original documents is obviously not possible. Th e Vatican Archives employ a total of seven individuals to carry out these tasks, and so progress can be slow. Recently, in an attempt to hurry the opening of the Pius XII Pontifi cate, Pope Benedict XVI ordered the increase of trained archival personnel to twenty-nine. It is hoped that this will help to open this questionable section as soon as possible. In 2003, Pope John Paul II ordered the archives opened for the sections that were complete up to the Pontifi cate of Pope Pius XI. Th en in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI ordered all of the archives up to 1939 to be opened, upon completing the cataloguing process. As discussed above, the critics and institutions who have called for updated information have largely not come to Rome to research or study these archives. 284 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War In An Attempt to Counter the Fictitious Play Th e Deputy, in 1964, Pope Paul VI Ordered a Preliminary Review of the Sixteen Million Documents Contained Within the Pontifi cate of Pope Pius XII. Th is unprecedented action produced a collection of 5,125 documents, contained in twelve volumes, and was published in 1981. Th is did little to satisfy the critics who had limited access to the collection. Pave the Way Foundation requested of H.Em. Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, permission to digitize this collection and post it on the foundation’s website, as well as on the Vatican website. Th is project was completed in February 2010 and now makes the collection, with full search capabilities, available for worldwide study. 285 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Th e Vatican published the letters of Pope Pius XII to the German bishops. Acta Apostolicae Sedis Commentarium Offi ciale Speeches of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII 286 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Vatican Workers Sort Inquiries to Help Locate Family Members and Answer Concerns About Wartime Activites. In 2004 the Vatican published Inter Arma Caritas— Vatican information offi ce for prisoners of war established by Pope Pius XII. Th e volumes contain documents, letters and the results, which report the individual investigations conducted by the Vatican in its attempts to locate and unite prisoners of war for relatives from 1939–1947. Archbishop Alesandro Eveinoff , Director of the Vatican Information Offi ce, overseas this massive operation. – Photos courtesy of Sr. Margherita Marchione Sisters of Santa Marta prepare answers for families. 287 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War In 1964, Pope Paul VI ordered a study of the documents in the Vatican Secret Archives war years in order to combat the false accusation of the fi ctitious play Th e Deputy. In 1981, the four Jesuits published the Acts and Documents of the Holy See during the Second World War. Th is collection contained 5,125 documents. It appeared that literally none of the critics of Pius XII bothered to acquire these volumes for study. In 1998, Edward Cardinal Cassidy proposed a study group of Jews and Catholics to review what had been published. Th e following article reveals what really happened, which resulted in a failure of the study group known as the Jewish Catholic Commission. It should be noted that Pave the Way Foundation requested permission to digitize the entire collection and to create a search engine to enable scholars to access this material online. Th ese volumes are now available on the Vatican website and on www.ptwf.org. Th is article originally appeared in the July–August 2002 issue of the New Oxford Review and is reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2002 New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, USA, www. newoxfordreview.org. THE VATICAN: GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT? Th e Commission Th at Couldn’t Shoot Straight July–August 2002, Dimitri Cavalli writes biographies for the H. W. Wilson Company, a reference publisher, in the Bronx, New York. He is planning to write books about Pope Pius XII and Joe McCarthy, the late manager of Th e New York Yankees. On July 23, 2001, Seymour Reich, the chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), announced the suspension of Th e International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission evaluating a collection of Vatican documents on Pope Pius XII’s actions during the Holocaust. What went wrong? Th e Commission, which was set up by the IJCIC and the Vatican’s Pontifi cal Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, concluded that the documents left many unanswered questions and requested the opening of the Vatican archives. Reich told the press that Walter Cardinal Kasper, the current president of the Pontifi cal Commission, explained that “technical reasons” were keeping the archives closed for the present. Without additional materials, the scholars on the panel said that they could not continue their inquiry. Reich expressed his “deep disappointment” with the Vatican’s decision, and the Jewish scholars on the Commission publicly criticized the Vatican. On August 8, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, published a reply by the Rev. Peter Gumpel, SJ, the Vatican offi cial who is the independent judge for Pius XII’s beatifi cation. Gumpel asserted that the Commission did a poor job of evaluating the material and accused some of the Jewish scholars of undermining the Vatican’s initial co-operation with the Commission by leaking confi dential information to the press and making false, infl ammatory statements against the Vatican. Many Jewish groups were angered by Gumpel’s statement, insisting that his charges were “totally unfounded.” How did the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission come into existence, and what went wrong? 288 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War In March 1998, the Vatican issued its statement on the Holocaust, We Remember: A Refl ection on the Shoah, which was drafted by a committee headed by Edward Cardinal Cassidy, then president of the Pontifi cal Commission. Some Jewish organizations strongly objected to the statement’s defense of Pope Pius XII and called on the Vatican to open its archives from World War II. Th e Vatican replied that it already published many documents from its archives in the 11-volume collection with the French title Actes et documents du Saint Siege relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Actes), which has received little attention from historians and journalists. In response to Rolf Hochhuth’s play Th e Deputy (1963), which condemned Pius XII for his “silence” during the Holocaust, Pope Paul VI in 1964 asked a team of three Jesuit historians, the Rev. Pierre Blet, SJ, the Rev. Burkhart Schneider, SJ, and the Rev. Angelo Martini, SJ, to conduct research in the Vatican archives and publish the relevant documents from the war. A few years later, the three Jesuits were joined by the Rev. Robert A. Graham, SJ, the author of an acclaimed book about Vatican diplomacy. Th e fi rst volume was published in 1965, the last in 1981. In each volume the documents are presented in their original languages, with most in Italian. Volumes I, IV, V, VII, and XI detail the Vatican’s diplomatic relations with all the belligerent governments during the war. Volumes VI, VIII, IX, and X record the Vatican’s eff orts to alleviate the suff ering of civilians, especially the Jews. Volume II is a collection of Pius XII’s private wartime letters to the German bishops. Volume III, which is published in two parts, discusses the persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland and the Baltic nations. Th e Actes reveal that until his death in August 1944, Vatican Secretary of State Luigi Cardinal Maglione, the fi rst person to see the Pope every morning, frequently instructed the Vatican’s diplomatic representatives in many Nazi-occupied and Axis nations, including Japan, to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews. After Cardinal Maglione’s death, his deputy, Msgr. Domenico Tardini, the Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Aff airs, continued to send out instructions until the end of the war. Dismayed by the criticism of We Remember and the continued attacks on Pius XII, Cardinal Cassidy, in 1998, proposed the creation of a joint panel of Catholic and Jewish scholars to study the Actes. At fi rst, Jewish groups rejected the off er. In a letter to the editor published in the New York Times (Nov. 7, 1998), Reich explained that “the published items were selectively chosen by Vatican administrators and constituted a small fraction of the total wartime archive.” Reich added that until “independent researchers” were given free access to the complete archives, Pius XII’s role during the Holocaust “will remain an enigma.” Th e implication was that the four Jesuit editors may have refused to publish incriminating documents. In late 1999 Reich changed his mind without any public explanation and agreed to Cassidy’s proposal. Cassidy recruited Dr. Eugene Fisher, the American bishops’ highly respected representative in dialogue with Jewish organizations, to serve as the “Catholic coordinator” for the Commission. Reich named Rabbi Leon Feldman, a Professor Emeritus in Hebraic Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, to serve as the “Jewish coordinator.” Reich and Cassidy agreed to a panel of six scholars, three Jewish and three Catholic, who were assigned to study the Actes. On Fisher’s recommendation, Cassidy appointed the Rev. Gerald Fogarty, SJ, Professor of Religious Studies and History at the University of Virginia, the theologian Eva Fleischner, Professor Emerita at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and the Rev. John F. Morley, Professor of Religious Studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. On the Jewish side, Reich selected Michael Marrus, Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto, Robert S. Wistrich, Professor of History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Bernard Suchecky, a researcher with the Free University in Brussels, Belgium. Th e Commission’s makeup immediately caused concern. Five out of the six scholars, Fleischner, Morley, 289 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Marrus, Wistrich, and Suchecky, had previously criticized Pius XII in their writings and public statements. For example, in an interview with the Jerusalem Report (Dec. 20, 1999), Wistrich said, “Pius XII did not perform in a way that refl ects any credit on the Vatican or on the Catholic church. He wound up in a position where he was complicit in German policy.” Marrus told the Toronto Star (Nov. 24, 1999) that the Pope’s top priorities during World War II were preserving “the institutions of the church so souls can be saved . . . this was the supreme value over everything else, including the victims of the Holocaust.” According to the National Catholic Reporter (Apr. 10, 1998), Morley described Th e Deputy as a good thing “because it forced the Vatican to start making statements.” In 1997 Fleischner and Michael Phayer co-wrote the book, Cries in the Night. Women Who Challenged the Holocaust, which contrasted the heroic actions of individual Catholics to save Jews with the indiff erence of the Vatican. (Th e odd man out, Catholic scholar Fogarty, had published books on the Holy See’s relations with the American bishops, but was not known for defending Pius XII.) Several observers asked why other scholars with diff erent perspectives on this controversy, such as the Rev. Vincent Lapomarda, SJ, the Rev. John Jay Hughes, Sr. Margherita Marchione, John Conway, William Rubinstein, John Lukacs, Sir Martin Gilbert, Michael Tagliacozzo, Monica Biffi , Ronald Rychlak, Owen Chadwick, the Rev. Michael O’Carroll, Michael Feldkamp, Emma Fattorini, and many others, were not approached. Th e makeup of the Commission invited allegations that it was deliberately stacked with scholars who were critical of Pius XII in order to ensure that it reached unfavorable conclusions. In October 2000, the Commission submitted its preliminary report to the Vatican. “No edited collection can put such an important historical issue defi nitely to rest,” the report said. “It is plain from the [Actes] that important pieces of the historical puzzle are missing from that collection.” Th e Commission drew up 47 questions, which it claimed could not be answered by the Actes or other sources. In the same month, the six scholars, Fisher, Reich, and Feldman all traveled to Rome to see if the questions could be answered by opening the archives. Th e Vatican referred the Commission to Gumpel, who prepared detailed answers to all 47 questions, many of which could be easily answered. Th e Jesuit said that his meeting with the scholars, which was recorded on tape, was cordial. At one point, Rabbi Feldman said that he personally remembered Eugenio Pacelli, the papal Nuncio in Germany and future Pius XII, keeping silent and not doing anything as he watched the Nazis burn books in Berlin in 1933. Gumpel politely replied that this was impossible since Pacelli had left Berlin in 1929 to become the Vatican Secretary of State and never returned. “After that,” Gumpel told this writer, “Feldman sat back down, didn’t say another word, and eventually fell asleep.” After Gumpel answered about six of the questions, Bernard Suchecky leaked the report to the Paris daily Le Monde and attacked Pius XII in an interview with the newspaper on October 25, 2000. Th e worldwide publicity that followed ended Gumpel’s co-operation with the Commission. Despite the Vatican’s outrage over the leak, Reich never removed Suchecky from the panel. Several months before the Commission’s work was suspended, Reich, Fogarty, and Marcus all publicly said how they were still waiting for the Vatican to reply to the report, acting as if the meeting with Gumpel never took place. (Fleischner resigned from the Commission in December 2000, and no replacement was announced.) Wistrich even attacked Gumpel and the Vatican in the German magazine Der Spiegel (Apr. 24, 2001) and told the Jerusalem Report (Jul. 2, 2001) that the Vatican had acted in “bad faith” by refusing to open the archives. Reich and Wistrich have asserted that “the Vatican” promised them the scholars would have access to the archives, a claim that both Fisher and Fogarty have denied. Th ere isn’t a single statement in the public record by Pope John Paul II, Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Cardinal Sodano, or any other Vatican offi cial making such a promise. If Reich and Wistrich received an assurance in private from a Vatican offi cial, then they should have little diffi culty in revealing his name, but they have refused to do so. 290 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Th e Commission’s 47 questions are prefaced with general statements that provide small pieces of information. Apart from this, the report provides few insights into what the 11 volumes contain and does not address to what extent the documents refute the allegations against Pius XII. A review of the report shows that the six scholars ignored many documents in the Actes and other sources that answered many of their questions. Space allows me to answer 11 of the questions. Th e second question asks if the “archives reveal internal discussions among Vatican offi cials” regarding an appropriate response to Kristallnacht in November 1938. Th e Vatican’s response is well known. Over a twoweek period, the Vatican newspaper published many articles about Kristallnacht, noting the moral outrage around the world and quoting the critical dispatches of the Jewish-owned Havas News Agency. Pope Pius XI instructed three prominent cardinals, Idelfonso Schuster of Milan, Pierre Verdier of Paris, and Joseph- Ernest Van Roey of Belgium, to publicly condemn Nazi racism. “Very close to us, in the name of racial rights, thousands and thousands of people were tracked down like wild beasts, stripped of their possessions, veritable pariahs who are seeking in vain in the heart of civilization for shelter and a piece of bread,” Cardinal Verdier said. “Th ere you have the result of the racial theory.” In November 1938 the Vatican newspaper published all three statements and a strong attack on totalitarianism delivered by Michael Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich. Th e New York Times (Nov. 12, 1938) quoted Pius XI during the beatifi cation ceremony of Mother Cabrini as saying, “It is necessary to pray as our Divine Redeemer has taught, recommended and ordered you because you know there are forces which are seeking to ruin souls. It is necessary, very beloved children, to do what we can and what is in our power to react against these powers of evil.” Was the Pope talking about events in Germany? Th e New York Times believed he was and placed his statements below an article about Kristallnacht. Th e Commission’s seventh question alleges that Giovanni Montini, the Substitute Secretary of State and future Pope Paul VI, and Msgr. Tardini told Leon Berard, Vichy France’s Ambassador to the Vatican, that the Vatican had no objections to France’s anti-Semitic laws just as long as they “were administered with justice and charity and did not restrict the prerogatives of the Church.” During a diplomatic reception, Msgr. Valerio Valeri, the papal Nuncio in France, personally objected to the anti-Semitic laws with Marshall Henri Philippe Petain, the French head of state. Petain replied that he consulted with Vatican offi cials, who had no objections to the laws. Valeri immediately informed Cardinal Maglione about what Petain had claimed (Actes, vol. VIII, pp. 295–297). Th e Cardinal looked into the matter and discovered that Berard had, in fact, met with both Montini and Tardini. However, neither of them told Berard anything that could be interpreted as approval of France’s anti-Semitic laws. On October 31, 1941, Cardinal Maglione replied to Valeri (vol. VIII, pp. 333–334). After clarifying the matter, the Cardinal backed up the protest that Valeri had made to the anti-Semitic laws and encouraged him and Pierre Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon to intervene with the Vichy regime in order to soften the application of the laws. Th e ninth question asks if the Vatican approved of the interventions on behalf of Jews by Msgr. Andrea Cassulo, the papal Nuncio in Romania. In his January 14, 1943, letter to Cassulo, Cardinal Maglione wrote that he “read with particular attention . . . all the steps that you made, behind the instructions of the Holy See, on behalf of Jews in general and the Jews converted to Catholicism especially . . .” (vol. IX, p. 81). Th e Cardinal asked Cassulo to inform him if reports about the mistreatment of Romanian Jews were accurate, and if so, to act with prudence and a charitable spirit to “modify certain measures that are in contrast with the directives of Christian morality.” On February 15, 1943, Cardinal Maglione sent Cassulo a sum of money to help alleviate the miserable conditions of Jews who were imprisoned in Romania’s concentration camps (vol. IX, p. 129). In question 11 the Commission asks if then Archbishop Adam Sapieha of Krakow, Poland, ever informed the 291 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Vatican about the extermination of Jews since the notorious Auschwitz death camp was located in his diocese. In his book Th e Pope and Poland in World War! (1968), Fr. Graham already answered this very question, writing, “Sapieha and the Polish bishops, guarded as they were in writing about the concentration camps where their own Catholic faithful were languishing and dying, refrained even from mentioning the systematic murder of the Jews which had been going on throughout the length and breadth of Poland.” Additionally, the Gestapo kept Sapieha under constant surveillance, and communication between the Holy See and the Polish bishops who weren’t exiled or sent to concentration camps was limited. In question 13 the Commission acknowledges that then Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac of Zagreb, Croatia, “condemned atrocities against Serbs and Jews and established an organization to rescue Jews.” However, in order to answer a few unspecifi ed questions, the Commission requests more documents from the Vatican archives and Stepinac’s beatifi cation. Th e 11 volumes provide ample documentation of his actions. For example, an appendix to document 130 in volume IX of the Actes lists 34 separate interventions by Stepinac against the persecution of Jews and Serbs in Croatia from 1941- 1943. Th e scholars could have consulted two excellent books, Th e Case of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac (1954) by Richard Pattee and Il Processo dell’archivesco di Zagrabia (1947) by the Rev. Fiorello Cavalli, SJ. Both books reproduce many documents and address the allegations against Stepinac. In an interview with the Croatian newspaper Glas Concila (Apr. 21, 1996), Amiel Shomrony, the personal secretary of Zagreb’s Chief Rabbi Miroslav Freiberger of Zagreb, who died at Auschwitz in 1943, recalled that Stepinac “personally saved a lot of people and children by hiding them. He gave the community fl our every month and fi nancially supported Jews who had been left without any means of support by the persecution,” as quoted in the book Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (1997) by Marcus Tanner. During his meeting with the Commission, Gumpel noted that the French-Jewish scholar Alain Finkielkraut defended Stepinac in an article written for Le Monde (Oct. 7, 1998). According to Antonio Gasparri’s book Gli Ebrei Salvati da Pio XII (2000), Wistrich dismissed Finkielkraut’s testimony by observing that he had a Croatian wife. Question 21 notes that Casmir Papee, Poland’s Ambassador to the Vatican, on April 23, 1943, sent Cardinal Maglione an article from a Swiss newspaper that describes “the martyrdom of many Polish priests interned at Dachau.” Th e scholars ask if there are any documents in the archives that detail how the Vatican responded to Nazi atrocities against the Church in Poland. Th is question overlooks an important document. On March 2, 1943, Cardinal Maglione sent a long letter protesting the Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (Actes, vol. III, part 2, pp. 742–752). Th e letter cited atrocity after atrocity against the Church. “No less painful was the fate reserved for the regular clergy,” the Cardinal wrote. “Many religious were shot or otherwise killed; the great majority of the others were imprisoned, deported or expelled.” When asked about this Vatican protest by Allied interrogators after the war, Ribbentrop replied, “I don’t recollect it at the moment . . . but we had a whole deskful (sic) of protests from the Vatican” (Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement B, p. 1,235). Question 26 asks if the Vatican ever gave any encouragement before November 1944 to Msgr. Angelo Rotta, the papal Nuncio in Hungary, who aggressively opposed the deportations of Jews. It seems the Commission failed to read volume X carefully. Th e Nazis invaded Hungary on March 23, 1944. Jewish groups around the world were alarmed, rightly thinking that Hungary’s one million Jews were in danger. Th e American War Refugee Board appealed to the Vatican two days later to bring the threat against the Hungarian Jews to Rotta’s attention. On March 28, 1944, the Vatican telegraphed the Nuncio, instructing him to see to what could be done to protect Hungary’s Jews. Cardinal Maglione repeated these instructions to Rotta on April 5. Two days later, Rotta replied that he intervened in the name of the Holy See with the Hungarian government to mitigate the anti-Jewish measures, but his eff orts were unsuccessful. Th e deportations of Jews began in May 1944. On June 25, 1944, Pius XII addressed an open telegram to Hungarian Regent Nicholas Horthy, urging him to stop the deportations. Th e combined protests of Pius XII, King Gustav of Sweden, President 292 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Franklin Roosevelt, and the International Red Cross brought a temporary halt to the deportations. When the deportations resumed in the fall, Rotta, acting on instructions from Rome, made more protests. In question 34 the Commission asks how the Vatican replied to a memorandum dated March 17, 1942, by Gerhart Riegner, a representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva and Richard Lichtheim, a representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Riegner and Lichtheim submitted a memorandum that detailed the persecution of Jews in several countries to Archbishop Filippo Bernardini, the papal Nuncio in Switzerland, who immediately forwarded it to the Vatican (Actes, vol. VIII, p. 466). Contrary to what is frequently alleged, the memorandum made no mention of Jews being exterminated in gas chambers in concentration camps. In volume VIII of Archives of the Holocaust (1990), there is a letter dated April 2, 1942, from Bernardini to Riegner and Lichtheim that states, “I have just received the information from His Eminence, the Cardinal Maglione, according to which the Holy See has already undertaken steps to attempt to infl uence the Slovak authorities to revoke the recent measures set under way in that country against the ‘non-Aryans.’” In their reply to Bernadini on April 8, 1942, Riegner and Lichtheim wrote, “We also note with great satisfaction the steps undertaken by His Excellency, the Cardinal Maglione, with the authorities of Slovakia on behalf of the Jews . . . and we ask you kindly to transmit to the Secretariat of State of the Holy See the expression of our profound gratitude,” as quoted in the book Hitler, the War, and the Pope (2000) by Ronald Rychlak. Question 42 admits that there is little evidence that Pius XII favored the Nazis as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, citing “the Vatican promotion of the American bishops’ support for the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union in order to oppose Nazism.” Th e Commission, however, asks if there is “further evidence on this question.” In response to diplomatic appeals made by President Franklin Roosevelt in the fall of 1941, Pius XII agreed that American Catholics could support the extension of military aid, through the Lend-Lease program, to the Soviet Union after it was invaded by the Nazis (Actes, vol. V, pp. 170–300). As for “further evidence,” the scholars could have consulted the book Th e Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (1953) by William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason. Th e two authors discuss Pius XII’s surprising concession to Roosevelt by citing documents in the American archives. In question 44 the Commission wants to see a report prepared by the Jesuits at the Vatican’s request that defends the Pope’s reserved policy toward Poland. I found the report myself several years ago in the Library of Congress. Th e report is actually a pamphlet, Pope Pius and Poland, which was anonymously written (by Zygmunt Jakubowski) and published by America Press in 1942. Th e pamphlet summarizes the Vatican’s relief eff orts on behalf of the Polish people and quotes Pius XII’s speeches, Vatican Radio broadcasts, and articles from L’Osservatore Romano that concern Poland. Question 45 tries to discredit the many tributes that Pius XII received from Jews during the war by asserting that such statements were actually desperate appeals for help “couched in language of eff usive praise.” Th e scholars ask for specifi c cases where expressions of thanks from Jews follow a specifi c action on their behalf by the Vatican. Many examples from the Actes and other sources can be cited. On April 14, 1942, the leaders of the Jewish inmates at the Ferramonti concentration camp in southern Italy wrote to the Vatican, thanking the Pope who sent an “abundant supply of clothing and linen” to the children at the camp (vol. VIII, pp. 505507). On February 23, 1943, Msgr. Joseph Marcone, the Vatican’s “apostolic visitor” in Croatia, reported that Chief Rabbi Freiberger expressed his gratitude to the Vatican for helping a group of Croatian Jewish children, including Freiberger’s son, fi nd refuge in Turkey (vol. IX, p. 139). In his February 14, 1944, letter to Cassulo, Chief Rabbi Alexander Shafran of Bucharest, Romania acknowledged the concern of the “Supreme Pontiff , who off ered a large sum to relieve the suff erings of Romanian Jews” (vol. X, pp. 291–292). On July 21, 1944, several weeks after the liberation of Rome, the National Jewish Welfare Board cabled the Vatican, lauding Pius XII for saving most of Rome’s Jews (vol. X, pp. 358–359). 293 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War How could the six scholars have overlooked so much evidence that answered their questions? In an e-mail submitted to the American bishops, Fisher revealed that each scholar read no more than two volumes each. Inside the Vatican magazine (Jan. 2000) reported that none of the Jewish scholars read Italian, the language of most of the documents. It seems that a group of fi rst-graders studying Italian could have done a better job understanding this material than the Commission, whose members were all hailed by Fisher as “top-notch people.” Speaking Italian since birth and being fl uent in Italian, I have read through the 11 volumes many times. Although I agree that the material leaves some questions unanswered, I have no doubt that the documents overwhelmingly contradict the allegations that Pius XII did “little” or “nothing” to help Jews and “collaborated” with the Nazis. Th e Actes along with documentary collections from the US, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and other sources provide a clear and balanced portrait of Pope Pius XII during World War II. In an article published in the Vatican journal La Civilta Cattolica (Mar. 21, 1998), Fr. Blet wrote, “We did not deliberately leave out any meaningful document because it seemed to us that it might harm the Pope’s image or the Holy See’s reputation.” He added that releasing the documents not published in the Actes will not alter what is already known about Pius XII. In an interview with the Associated Press (July 24, 2001), Fr. Fogarty, who appears to be the most sensible member of the Commission, said that there were no “smoking guns” in the Vatican’s archives. Unfortunately, critics have placed the Vatican in a position where it has to prove its innocence against every allegation. In February 2002 the Vatican announced that it will open its archives from 1922 to 1939 in 2003 and release more documents from the Papacy of Pius XII by 2005. No doubt legitimate scholars, whether they are Catholic or Jewish, will fi nd this material valuable in shedding light on those turbulent times. However, if evidence that establishes the Vatican’s guilt is not found, then we can expect pseudo-scholars, political activists, anti-Catholic journalists, Catholic dissidents, and bigots to accuse the Vatican of destroying any incriminating documents or still hiding them somewhere, along with the Roswell UFO. Reproduced with permission from: New Oxford Review © 2002 July/August 294 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War All the Secrets of the Vatican Secret Archives. It is the Pope’s private archive: a thousand years of documents that fi ll eighty kilometers of shelves. Th e following is an interview with the Prefect of the Archive. by Sandro Magister Reprinted with permission ROMA, January 18, 2005—A stir has been created in Italy and other countries by a document dating from 1946, from the Vatican nunciature in Paris, headed at that time by Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the future John XXIII. Th e document—anticipated in an incomplete and poorly interpreted version by historian Alberto Melloni in the December 28, 2004, edition of “Corriere della Sera,” and then discovered and published in its entirety by Andrea Tornielli and Matteo Luigi Napolitano in the January 11 edition of “Il Giornale”—carries an instruction from the Vatican approved by Pius XII and transmitted by Roncalli to the French bishops. It warns the Church against returning the Jewish children it sheltered during the war to the Jewish institutions that in 1946 were working in Paris and throughout Europe to transfer these little ones to Palestine in view of the foundation of the new state of Israel. But “it would be another matter,” the document clarifi es, “if the parents were asking for their children.” Th e document provided the impetus for the umpteenth fi restorm of accusations against Pius XII. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, a professor at Harvard, accused him of “having given the order to take the (Jewish]) children away from their parents,” and called for an international jury to try and condemn him. Other voices were raised in opposition to the beatifi cation of Pius XII, which is now underway. And others demanded of the Vatican the “courage” to make the “grand gesture” of opening its archives. Th e prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Sergio Pagano, replied to the latter of these contentions in an exclusive interview with the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, “Avvenire,” on January 14. Th e interview in its entirety follows. It was conducted by Gian Maria Vian, a Church historian and tenured professor of patristic philology at the “La Sapienza” university in Rome. “Many clamor to enter this secret fortress, and then, when it’s open, they disappear.” An interview with Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives Q: Have you heard about the latest requests for opening the Vatican archives? What do you think? A: “I have read in the papers the latest invocations in a long litany that has lasted for decades: the Vatican must open its archives, the truth about Pius XII (as if there had never been any other Popes) and his position in the last war must be known. Th e scholars; indeed, all of Europe—it has been written—have a great ‘thirst’ to understand this tragedy of the recent past, as if the pacifi cation of the burning conscience of Europe’s peoples, at least in terms of the second world war, can take place in an historiographical setting by virtue of the mere opening of the Vatican archives, while so small a place is reserved for Christianity—I do not say for the Papacy—in the European constitution. Th is is a rather strange phenomenon. And I ask 295 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War myself whether the continual request to open the archives of the Holy See is really motivated by genuine and tranquil historiographical considerations, or by other causes.” Q: But what about the openings themselves? A: “Th ere is the problem of preparing the archive material, as the most serious scholars know, which in our case is aggravated by the fact that, because of habit and the need for scientifi c consistency, in carrying out an opening this is not done, as elsewhere, according to periods determined by law, but for the whole pontifi cate. And in the case of Pius XI and Pius XII—some are already asking for the opening of the pontifi cates of John XXIII and Paul VI—we are looking at pontifi cates lasting almost twenty years. To prepare, inventory, number, and label such a great quantity of papers to make them available for consultation involves, as everyone understands, years of work and a signifi cant amount of serious and qualifi ed human eff ort. Also, the rule of checking documents before releasing them applies to the Vatican archives. Th e documents’ position and classifi cation are verifi ed, the completeness or incompleteness of an envelope or series of writings is confi rmed, and procedures are followed. As much as possible, the documentation is made available in its genuine and original nature and cohesion, partly to avoid the emergence of “whodunnits,” disappearances, or mysterious withdrawals—mysterious, of course, only for someone who doesn’t know how to do serious archive research—of which one reads occasionally.” Q: And all the pressure for openings? A: “It isn’t true that all the historians are pressing for ever more frequent openings of the archives. But some should nonetheless keep in mind what Jacques Freymond wrote in 1981: governments should evaluate the documents to be made available to historians, separating those which for various reasons will not be consultable, while pressing for rapid openings would risk undermining these delicate operations. And the reason for this was given by a great Italian archivist, Elio Lodolini: ‘We are against overhasty releases, insofar as these provoke the willful destruction of documents, or their distortion. Where the most absolute and demanding guarantee of secrecy for a reasonable period of time is lacking, the papers’ veracity and impartiality are diminished.” Q: Who determines the progressive release of the archive’s documents? A: “Th e Vatican Secret Archives are called that because they are the private archive of the pontiff . Th ey belong and answer only to him. It follows that only the Pope has command of the archives, establishing norms and regulations, and deciding also the progressive openings.” Q: In 1880, Leo XIII opened the archives to scholars. What did this accomplish? A: “What Leo XIII did during the fi rst months of 1881 (and announced in 1880) was certainly an act of political and scientifi c foresight; much has been written, and will be written, on this subject. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that this opening concerned only the records then present in the old archive of Paul V (1605–1621), that is, a limited number of ‘catchalls’ and ‘miscellanies,’ as valuable and important as these are. Th ere were no updated research tools, only the indices of the 1600s—the great card catalogues and inventories would come later—so many were disappointed. From Leo XIII to today, the Vatican Secret Archives have grown by leaps and bounds, to at least fourteen times their original size. To give an example, initially there were the archives of only four nunciatures (three in old Italian states and one in Warsaw), while today we have more than 75. From about 5 linear kilometers of documentation in 1881, we have passed to more than 80 currently. Th is is without considering that the archive is not dead, but alive, because we periodically receive documents from curial bodies and the pontifi cal representatives around the world. Leaving aside the card catalogues and indices, the archive has increased in the last 296 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War six years by more than 10,000 archive units. And each unit contains 500 pages on average: a total of 5 million sheets; that is, 10 million pages to look through and put in order.” Q: And the other Popes? A: “Th e successors of Leo XIII—who opened the Vatican archive up to 1815, the year of the congress of Vienna—followed his path. In 1924, Pius XI opened the documents up until 1846 (the year of Gregory XVI’s death); Pius XII prepared the opening of Pius IX (1846–1878), carried out in 1966 under Paul VI. And John Paul II has surpassed all in opening the archive: in 1978, he opened the pontifi cate of Leo XIII (1878–1903) and in 1985, that of Pius X (1903–1914) and Benedict XV (1914–1922). And in the fi rst months of 2006, the pontifi cate of Pius XI (1922–1939) will be opened.” Q: How do you see the Vatican Secret Archives in comparison with other archives? A: “I would say they are at an excellent point, because according to various laws one proceeds by diff erent periods of opening, according to the type of document. Generally, one begins from a minimum of 50 years, moving backward, up to a maximum of 100 years for the most delicate or reserved documents. Italy opens its archives relating to external or internal politics 50 years after their date, but those reserved relative to private or personal situations, or the documents from criminal trials, after 70 years. Within a year the Vatican archives will be open up to 1939. Th e next opening, that of the pontifi cate of Pius XII, will bring us to 1958. Limited personnel and the length of the work do not permit one to think Pius XII’s documents will be opened soon. Th ere is no fear that these documents, nor any of the others already open, will bring about historiographical reversals, exonerations, or condemnations (the historians do not expect this either). I add that, in order to make possible the opening of the pontifi cate of Pius XI within one year, a group of twenty archivists and collaborators has been working for about four years, and the Holy See has for this reason added eleven positions to the archive’s staff . Once the pontifi cate of Pius XI has been opened, the next step will be to prepare that of Pius XII.” Q: Have there been partial openings for the pontifi cate of Pius XII? A: “For several months, the records of the ‘Vatican Information Offi ce for prisoners of war,’ which included documents from 1939 to 1947, has been open. So it goes well beyond the limit of 1922. Th is is in fact a bank of records that is homogeneous and in a certain way disconnected from the others. Seven persons worked for three years to put in order the more than 2,500 boxes that contain the records, and to transfer the card catalogue (about 3 million entries) onto DVD. So these records have been open since May 2004, but up until today only ten researchers in all of Europe have taken advantage of it. Sometimes there is an impression that certain scholars, whose voices are perhaps amplifi ed too much by the press, clamor for the opening of the Vatican archives almost as though to enter into a secret fortress by overcoming imaginary resistance; but when the door is open and the documents are available, those who seemed to be at the gates don’t show up, or make almost a touristic visit. Also, for more than a year the archives of the nunciatures of Monaco and Berlin have been opened up to 1939; after some initial traffi c from a modest number of researchers, just a few of the most serious and methodical have remained. Most of the curiosity seekers have dispersed. Th is is strange. It is as if, unable to provide confi rmation for preformulated but undocumentable theories, the archives could be forgotten. John Cornwell, for example, who has judged Pius XII very harshly, has never set foot in the Vatican Secret Archives (if for nothing else than to study the period of Nuncio Pacelli); I could say the same about Italian historians as well.” Q: Why does it take so much time to move forward to the opening of a Pope’s documents? A: “To organize, verify, inventory, and number the papers. Th e Vatican archive, in fact, receives documents 297 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War from the various dicasteries of the Roman curia, in the order and material organization they had originally. But in the archive, in view of the documents’ release, a comparison must be made between the documentation—contained in envelopes, folders, bundles, volumes, and other bindings—and the related card catalogues or contextually compiled indices. Th us the material must be prepared, sometimes cleaned, and divided into manageable bundles; in this phase, verifi cation is obtained that procedures are being followed and that the titles correspond with the records. Th e next phase is the collation, or organization into envelopes, of the papers, and this entails numbering them. All these operations, carried out for thousands and thousands of items, explains why the work goes on for years. To this it must be added that some archives of pontifi cal representatives, because of historical vicissitudes, arrive in complete disorder. Th is is the case, for example, of the representatives in countries occupied during wartime (Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) or of those areas of central and eastern Europe which certainly did not have an easy life during the cold war: the Pope’s representatives were harried by the communist governments from one day to the next and forced to fl ee, carrying the papers from their archives heaped together as well as possible in their luggage (as in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and other countries). All this material must be patiently reviewed, ordered, and inventoried. No scholar, in fact, could carry out studies on these documents without this preliminary work.” Q: But how big are the Vatican Secret Archives? A: “We have more than 80 linear kilometers of documentation—just recently provisions were made for measuring the individual shelves—which goes from the 11th century (documents before this are rare) until the extremely brief pontifi cate of John Paul I in 1978. In all, there are about 40,000 parchments, noteworthy documentation from the 12th to 14th century, more consistent records from the 15th to 18th century, and then the immense heap of documentation from the 19th and 20th centuries. Th e total is over two million items.” Q: Which documents are studied most today? A: “With no off ense to contemporary historians, the majority of the scholars who visit the archive are concerned with medieval and modern history. And this is verifi ed by important series of publications from various European countries (Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Holland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and others). Th ese scholars also have the right to enjoy instruments adapted to their research, which makes it necessary that a certain number of offi cials work for years on medieval and modern documents. Consider that some diplomatic records from the 14th to 16th centuries still do not have an inventory.” Q: How many scholars frequent the archive? A: “From the 27 scholars admitted in 1882, immediately after the opening Leo XIII had wanted, the number grew to 400–500 scholars yearly in the period 1958–1967; in the last three decades of the 1900s this reached an average of 1300 scholars per year, with 40–50 daily visits and peaks of 60–80 during some months. Th e highest point came in 1999, when the number of researchers reached 1444.” Q: Is there privileged access? A: “We must clarify this point again. I can attest in good conscience that since I have been prefect, that is, since 1997—but this naturally held true even before—no privilege, regard, or favoritism has been reserved to any scholar, whether ecclesiastic or lay: all are subject to the same rules. No one can ever say he had any special permission from me (besides, this would have to come from the Secretariat of State). 298 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Only the postulators for the causes of saints, as is obvious, have permission to consult documents from the sealed period, having obtained permission from the Secretariat of State, and must maintain secrecy on the documents granted to them, both during the canonical process and after.” Q: What news will the opening of the pontifi cate of Pius XI bring? A: “Th e entire pontifi cate of Pius XI (1922–1939) will be opened during the fi rst months of 2006, and with it a vast fi eld of historical inquiry. Among the ruins of the fi rst world war and the threat of the second, Pope Ratti had to witness the coming to power of four dictators (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Franco), the great crisis of 1929, the colonial wars, the wars of Mexico and Spain, the promulgation of terrible racial laws in Germany and Italy, and the harbingers of the second world war. Pius XI resolved the Roman question with the Lateran Pacts (1929), protected and expanded Catholic Action, celebrated the jubilee of 1925 and the extraordinary one of 1933–1934, designed a vast missionary project that reached all the way to China, turned his attention to the East (with special regard for Russia), looked at science from a new perspective, and established diplomatic relations between the Holy See and various countries of the world. All this, and much more, is refl ected in the documents of his pontifi cate, which will be submitted openly to the scrutiny of scholars.” Q: And Pius XII? A: “Already in 2002 it was offi cially communicated that after the opening of the pontifi cate of Pius XI work will begin to make available, as the fi rst priority, the Vatican-German documentation sources relative to the pontifi cate of Pius XII (1939–1958), which were published in part at the behest of Pius VI in the 12 volumes (1965–1981) of the ‘Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale.’ But as I said before, all of the records of the ‘Vatican Information Offi ce for prisoners of war,’ which has documents from 1939 to 1947, are already open.” 299 Th e Vatican Responds and Clarifi es Actions Taken During the Second World War Articles in Defense of Pope Pius XII. 301 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) 302 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Eugenio Pacelli—Pope Pius XII By Ronald J. Rychlak Pope Pius XII, the Church’s 262nd Pope, was born in Rome on March 2, 1876, as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli. Young Eugenio was accepted into a prestigious seminary in Rome, the Capranica. He excelled in all of his studies, particularly languages; he became fl uent in Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He also took classes at another great seminary, the Gregoriana. His demanding schedule caused him to develop a hacking cough, and the family doctor warned that he was on the brink of tuberculosis. Th at nearly ended Eugenio’s study, but he had been noticed by Pope Leo XIII who permitted young Pacelli to live at home while completing his courses. He was ordained on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1899. Pope Leo XIII had a program for training exceptional young clerics to serve in the Vatican diplomatic service, and two years after Pacelli was ordained, Cardinal Gasparri invited him into this program. Leo died in 1903, but the next year, the new Pope Pius X named Pacelli a monsignor and assigned him to a team that was charged with codifying Church canon law. For the next decade and a half, Pacelli served as a research aide in the offi ce of the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Aff airs. He also served as the Pope’s Minutante, editing and correcting the Pope’s speeches and minutes, and as a personal envoy from the Pope to the Austrian Emperor. In 1914, Pius X named Cardinal Gasparri the new Vatican Secretary of State, and Pacelli was promoted to the post Gasparri vacated, Secretary of the Congregation of Ecclesiastical Aff airs. Pope Pius X died later this same year and was replaced by Pope Benedict XV. When World War I broke out, Pacelli and Gasparri were charged with maintaining liaison with the hierarchies on both sides of the confl ict, answering appeals for aid from all over Europe, and organizing a war relief program. In the summer of 1917, Benedict consecrated Pacelli as bishop in a special ceremony in the Sistine Chapel and at the same time elevated him to the rank of Archbishop. Pacelli was then sent off to Munich as the papal representative to Bavaria. He presented the Pope’s peace plan to German leaders and worked to alleviate suff ering by distributing food and clothing the impoverished. He has been credited with helping 65,000 prisoners of war return home. In 1920 he was appointed an Apostolic Nuncio, and he eventually established two nunciatures, one in Munich and one in Berlin. In 1929, Pacelli was recalled to Rome and elevated to the cardinalate. Early the next year he was made Cardinal Secretary of State. Working with Pope Pius XI, Pacelli opposed the expansion of nationalistic politics, particularly in Italy and Germany. In 1933 he negotiated on behalf of the Vatican for an agreement that was instrumental in protecting Catholics and the Catholic Church from the Nazis. He also made trips on behalf of the Pope to France, the United States, and Buenos Aires. On March 2, 1939, Pacelli became fi rst Secretary of State to be elected Pope since Clement IX in 1667. He crusaded for peace before and throughout WWII, and he forcefully denounced the extermination of peoples on account of race. Th rough the Pontifi cal Aid Commission, he operated a vast program of relief for all victims of the war. When Hitler occupied Rome in September 1943, Pius opened Vatican City to Jewish and non-Jewish refugees. It is commonly estimated that the Church under Pius saved more than half a million Jewish refugees during the war. With his encouragement, a vast underground of priests, religious, and laity throughout Italy and the rest of Europe served as a covert organization dedicated to protecting Jewish and non-Jewish refugees from the Nazis. 303 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Th e end of the war saw Pius XII hailed as the inspired moral prophet of victory, and he enjoyed near-universal acclaim for aiding European Jews through diplomatic initiatives, thinly veiled public pronouncements, and the unprecedented continent-wide network of sanctuary. With the end of hostilities, the Pope concentrated on trying to help people recover from the ravages of war. Papal money was sent to every war-torn nation and distributed without regard to race, creed, or nationality. Th roughout the war, Pius had feared that a Soviet victory would mean that eastern Europe would fall to Communism, and after the Allies victory much of it did. Th e Soviets established several satellite state governments that were beholden to (if not dominated by) Moscow. Pius actively worked to limit the Communist infl uence in Western Europe, especially in Italy. Until failing health forced him to restrict his activities, Pius XII was extraordinarily accessible. He celebrated more public masses and held more private audiences than any of his recent predecessors had, and each week he held a special audience just for newlyweds. He also used television and radio to reach out directly to the people. In December 1954, Pius fell seriously ill, and his physicians feared for his life, but he recovered his strength and returned to work. During this illness, Pius reported an apparition of the Lord. After this, the crowds drawn to him grew even larger. During his pontifi cate, Pius expanded and internationalized the Church by creating 57 new bishoprics, 45 of them in America and Asia. He also caused the percentage of non-Italians in the College of Cardinals to rise above 50 percent, paving the way for the eventual election of a non-Italian Pope. He replaced colonial bishops with native hierarchies, approved the Dialogue Mass, and relaxed communion fasting rules. An ardent devotee of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pius consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart in 1942 and established a Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1945. In 1950, he issued an ex cathedra proclamation defi ning the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. Pius saw more positive elements in the ecumenical movement than did his recent predecessors. In December 1949, shortly after the formation of the World Council of Churches, Pius formally recognized the ecumenical movement and permitted Catholic scholars to dialogue with non-Catholics on matters of faith. Th at same year the Holy Offi ce issued a decree, with papal approval, stating that actual incorporation into the Catholic Church was not necessary for salvation. He also encouraged Catholic nuns to study theology, scripture, and psychology. His work encouraged his successor, Pope John XXIII, to convene Vatican II. As others have concluded: without Pacelli, Vatican II would have been unthinkable. During his lifetime, Pius XII’s opposition to Hitler was well known. Nazis condemned him, Jews thanked him, and rescuers cited him as their inspiration. At the time of his death, Israeli representative to the United Nations and future Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, said: “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and to commiserate with their victims.” Nahum Goldmann, President of the World Jewish Congress, said: “With special gratitude we remember all he has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods of their entire history.” Rabbi Elio Toaff , who would later become Chief Rabbi of Rome, said: “More than anyone else, we have had the opportunity to appreciate the great kindness, fi lled with compassion and magnanimity, that the Pope displayed during the terrible years of persecution and terror, when it seemed that there was no hope left for us.” More recently, however, some writers have raised questions about how actively he opposed the Nazis. One even went so far as to brand him “Hitler’s Pope.” Th e controversy surrounding Pius XII’s wartime leadership actually began in 1963, with the publication and 304 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) production of a play written by German playwright Rolf Hochhuth. Th e play, entitled Th e Deputy, presented Pius as an unprincipled politician, possessed of an aristocratic coolness and eyes that had an “icy glow.” According to some accounts, the play was produced as part of a KGB plot to discredit the Catholic Church. Whatever the origin, the play so shaped the perception of Pius that it has become an axiom of popular culture that he was, at the very least, guilty of criminal cowardice and insensitivity in the face of the Holocaust. Th e Deputy is a seven-hour play, with Pius XII as the central, stationary fi gure. Th e Pope is not developed as a tragic fi gure, since he is neither tragically indecisive nor torn by his alternatives. Not only does this Pius lack Christian charity, but also simple human decency. Even other critics of Pius have called the characterization of Pacelli “so wide of the mark as to be ludicrous.” According to Hochhuth, the “main thesis” of Th e Deputy was “that Hitler drew back from the extermination program as soon as high German clerics . . . or the Vatican . . . forcibly intervened.” He went on to argue that he was not sure that Pius could have stopped Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, but as “Vicar of Christ,” he had a moral obligation to try. He suggested that Pius XII’s statements led to the end of the deportation of Jews from Hungary, “proving again how high the Pope’s credit stood.” Hochhuth said that after the United States entered the war, the Church was the only authority that Hitler continued to respect. Hochhuth defended the historical accuracy of his play, but he also argued that it had a moral truth of its own, separated from historical truth. Immediately after Th e Deputy premiered Church offi cials responded, as did Protestant and Jewish leaders (some of whom found strong currents of anti-Semitism in his work). Jenö Levai the leading scholar of the Jewish extermination in Hungary observed that it was a “particularly regrettable irony that the one person in all of occupied Europe who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others.” Pius did not use the bully pulpit to repeatedly condemn the evils of Nazism, but he did make several statements that pleased the Allies and angered Hitler. Like the International Red Cross and other rescue operations, the Vatican fed, sheltered, and clothed refugees during the war. It also helped Jewish people escape from occupied areas and avoid deportation. Th ese eff orts were jeopardized when open statements prompted Nazi retaliation. Anyone who looks at the Pope’s actual statements, tributes from Jewish victims, news accounts from the time, testimony of those who knew him, and Nazi anger directed at him knows where the Pope stood. In his fi rst encyclical, Summi Pontifi catus (Darkness over the Earth), released just weeks after the outbreak of war, Pius condemned the “Godless State” and deplored “the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong.” His reference to an “ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” was a clear swipe at both Germany and the Soviet Union. He went on to condemn racists, dictators, and treaty violators (all terms which applied directly to Adolf Hitler). Heinrich Mueller, head of the Gestapo, wrote: “Th is Encyclical is directed exclusively against Germany, both in ideology and in regard to the German-Polish dispute; How dangerous it is for our foreign relations as well as our domestic aff airs is beyond dispute.” Allies dropped tens of thousands of copies behind enemy lines as propaganda. In his 1942 Christmas statement, Pius spoke of the need for mankind to make “a solemn vow never to rest until valiant souls of every people and every nation of the earth arise in their legions, resolved to bring society and to devote themselves to the services of the human person and of a divinely ennobled human society.” Mankind owed this vow to all victims of the war, including “the hundreds of thousands who, through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death 305 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) or progressive extinction.” One Nazi report stated: “Th e Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order . . . His speech is one long attack on everything we stand for . . . (He) makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.” After the liberation of Rome, Pius declared: “For centuries, (Jews) have been most unjustly treated and despised. It is time they were treated with justice and humanity. God wills it and the Church wills it. St. Paul tells us that the Jews are our brothers. Instead of being treated as strangers they should be welcomed as friends.” In an allocution to the sacred College on June 2, 1945, which was also broadcast on Vatican Radio, Pius noted the death of about 2,000 Catholic priests at Dachau and described National Socialism as “the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overfl ow of human liberty and dignity.” Father Leiber, Pius XII’s private secretary and personal confi dant during the war put this issue to rest with one brief statement: “Th e Pope sided very unequivocally with the Jews at the time. He spent his entire private fortune on their behalf . . . Pius spent what he inherited himself, as a Pacelli, from his family.” Rescuer John Patrick Carroll-Abbing wrote: “Never, in those tragic days, could I have foreseen, even in my wildest imaginings, that the man who, more than any other, had tried to alleviate human suff ering, had spent himself day by day in his unceasing eff orts for peace, would twenty-years-later-be made the scapegoat for men trying to free themselves from their own responsibilities and from the collective guilt that obviously weighs so heavily upon them.” German Foreign Secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop testifi ed at Nuremberg that he had a “whole desk full of protests” from Rome. Th e Vatican, in fact, worked with the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials, as the defendants faced charges stemming from their persecution of the Catholic Church. Beyond mere words, Pius also undertook actions on behalf of the victims of Nazi terror. Th e survival rates for Jews in Catholic countries were almost invariably higher than for Jews who found themselves under Nazi occupation elsewhere. Much of that credit is due to the eff ort and inspiration of Pope Pius XII. During the war, in virtually every occupied nation, Catholic buildings were put into use as shelters for refugees. Church offi cials freely distributed false Baptismal certifi cates that could be used to avoid deportation. Numerous protests and objections were fi led with the Axis governments. Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer home, was used to shelter thousands of refugees during the war. A wartime US intelligence document reported that the “bombardment of Castel Gandolfo resulted in the injury of about 1,000 people and the death of about 300 more. Th e highness of the fi gures is due to the fact that the area was crammed with refugees.” No one but Pope Pius XII had authority to open these buildings to outsiders. In fact, his personal bedroom was converted to a nursery and birthing area, and about 40 babies were born there during the war. Th e 1943–1944 American Jewish Yearbook reported that Pius XII “took an unequivocal stand against the oppression of Jews throughout Europe.” Th e head of the Italian Jewish Assistance Committee, Dr. Raff ael Cantoni, who subsequently became the President of the Union of all Italian Jewish communities reported: “Th e Church and the Papacy have saved Jews as much and in as far as they could save Christians . . . Six millions of my co-religionists have been murdered by the Nazis, but there could have been many more victims, had it not been for the effi cacious intervention of Pius XII.” 1945, the Chief Rabbi of Romania, Dr. Alexander Safran, expressed the gratitude of the Jewish community for the Vatican’s help and support for prisoners in the concentration camps. Grand Rabbi Isaac Herzog of Jerusalem wrote: 306 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) I well know that His Holiness the Pope is opposed from the depths of his noble soul to all persecution and especially to the persecution . . . which the Nazis infl ict unremittingly on the Jewish people . . . I take this opportunity to express . . . my sincere thanks as well as my deep appreciation . . . of the invaluable help given by the Catholic Church to the Jewish people in its affl iction. After the war, Rabbi Herzog visited the Vatican to thank Pius and the Holy See for “manifold acts of charity” on behalf of the Jews. Critics of Pope Pius XII often resort to shallow caricatures depicting Pius as cold, aloof, and sometimes evil. Th is caricature, of course, is ridiculously off of the mark. Monsignor Hugh Montgomery, an English priest who knew Pope Pius XII well, wrote of him: “It must seem absurd to anyone who knew ‘Papa Pacelli’ at all to hear him described as ‘cold.’ He had a boyish eagerness of manner which was most attractive and a radiant smile.” Th at personality served him well for the 22 years prior to becoming Pope that he spent as an international diplomat in service to the Holy See. Until failing health forced him to restrict his activities, he was extraordinarily accessible. He celebrated more public masses and held more private audiences than any of his recent predecessors had, and each week he held a special audience just for newlyweds. He shifted the time of certain services, to permit more people to attend. He also used television and radio to reach out directly to the people. As the New York Times reported, he “exchanged views with more laymen of diff erent creeds and nationalities than any pontiff of modern time.” Because of all this, he was known as the “least stuff y” of Popes. In 1963, Pope John XXIII passed away and was succeeded by Pope Paul VI (Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini). In 1965, Paul proposed that “his great model,” Pius XII, be considered for sainthood. He has been declared “Servant of God,” and the cause of his beatifi cation is well underway. 307 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Article written in 1963 by Joseph Lichten International Director the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef2.html Google: A Question of Judgment: Pius XII & the Jews Copyright American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Reprinted with permission. Dr. Joseph L. Lichten, serving as director of the International Aff airs Department for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, he wrote this monograph, which is a glowing defense of Pope Pius XII, which we urge you to access online. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/piusdef2.html A Question of Judgment: Pius XII and the Jews By Dr. Joseph L. Lichten Dr. Joseph L. Lichten, who died in Rome, in December 1987, was a longtime proponent of mutual understanding and cooperation between the Catholic and Jewish communities in both the United States and Europe. He was born in Poland, received his doctor of law degree from the University of Warsaw, and engaged in international diplomacy with the Polish government. In 1963, shortly after the initial production of Rolf Hochhuth’s play, Th e Deputy, and while serving as director of the International Aff airs Department for the Anti- Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, he wrote this monograph. It was published by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, forerunner of the United States Catholic Conference. It is reproduced here in its entirety. 308 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Article written in 1963 by Joseph Lichten International Director the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith Th e detained priests trembled every time news reached us of some protest by a religious authority, but particularly by the Vatican. We all had the impression that our wardens made us atone heavily for the fury these protests evoked . . . whenever the way we were treated became more brutal, the Protestant pastors among the prisoners used to vent their indignation on the Catholic priests: “Again your big naive Pope and those simpletons, your bishops, are shooting their mouths off . . . why don’t they get the idea once and for all, and shut up. Th ey play the heroes and we have to pay the bill.” Albrecht von Kessel, an offi cial at the German Embassy to the Holy See during the war, wrote in 1963: We were convinced that a fi ery protest by Pius XII against the persecution of the Jews . . . would certainly not have saved the life of a single Jew. Hitler, like a trapped beast, would react to any menace that he felt directed at him, with cruel violence. Th e real question is, therefore, not what did the Pope say, but what did the Pope do? Actions speak louder than words. Papal policy in Nazi Europe was directed with an eye to local conditions. It was coordinated with local hierarchies. Nazi policy toward the Jews varied from country to country. Th us, although anti-Jewish measures were met in France by public protest from Archbishop Saliege of Toulouse, together with Archbishop 860,000 Lives Saved— Th e Truth about Pius XII and the Jews See also Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust for the case against the Pope’s behavior during the war. People often ask: why did Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli, not speak out more forcefully against Hitler? Historian Fr. Dermot Fenlon of the Birmingham Oratory looks at the facts and sets the record straight. Th e answer is recounted by a former inmate of Dachau, Msgr. Jean Bernard, later Bishop of Luxembourg: 309 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Gerlier of Lyons and Bishop Th ias of Mantauban, their protest was backed by a highly eff ective rescue and shelter campaign. 200,000 lives were saved. In Holland, as Fr. Michael O’Carroll writes, the outcome was “tragically diff erent.” Th e Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide sums it up: Th e saddest and most thought provoking conclusion is that whilst the Catholic clergy of Holland protested more loudly, expressly and frequently against Jewish persecutions than the religious hierarchy of any other Nazi-occupied country, more Jews—some 11,000 or 79% of the total—were deported from Holland; more than anywhere else in the West. Van Kessel’s view is therefore borne out by the experience of Nazi Holland: protest merely made for more reprisals. What of Rome itself? In 1943 the German ambassador to the Holy See, Von Weizsäcker, sent a telegram to Berlin. Th e telegram has been cited as damning “evidence” against Pius XII. Although under pressure from all sides, the Pope has not let himself be drawn into any demonstrative censure of the deportation of Jews from Rome . . . As there is probably no reason to expect other German actions against the Jews of Rome we can consider that a question so disturbing to German-Vatican relations has been liquidated. Von Weizsäcker’s telegram was in fact a warning not to proceed with the proposed deportation of the Roman Jews: “there is probably no reason to expect other German actions against the Jews of Rome.” Von Weizsäcker’s action was backed by a warning to Hitler from Pius XII: if the pursuit and arrest of Roman Jews was not halted, the Holy Father would have to make a public protest. Together the joint action of Von Weizsäcker and Pius XII ended the Nazi manhunt against the Jews of Rome. 7,000 lives were saved. In Hungary, an estimated 80,000 baptismal certifi cates were issued by Church authorities to Jews. In other areas of Eastern Europe the Vatican escape network (organized via Bulgaria by the Nuncio Roncalli—later John XXIII) has impressed those writers who have studied the subject, with the eff ectiveness of the Church’s rescue operation. David Herstig concludes his book on the subject thus: “Th ose rescued by Pius are today living all over the world. Th ere went to Israel alone from Romania 360,000 to the year 1965.” Th e vindication of Pius XII has been established principally by Jewish writers and from Israeli archives. It is now established that the Pope supervised a rescue network which saved 860,000 Jewish lives—more than all the international agencies put together. After the war the Chief Rabbi of Israel thanked Pius XII for what he had done. Th e Chief Rabbi of Rome went one step further. He became a Catholic. He took the name Eugenio. Copyright 2008 Th e American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise 310 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) Robert Ventresca: Rescuing a Pope’s Spiritual Legacy Posted: December 26, 2009, 9:00 a.m. by NP Editor Robert Ventresca Pius XII—popularly vilifi ed as “Hitler’s Pope”—is inching closer to becoming a 21st century saint. Th ere are still some imposing tests to be met, and his canonization is far from certain, but under Pope Benedict XVI, an important step on that long journey has been taken. Having spent some time studying the contentious issue of Pius XII’s role in the Holocaust, Pope Benedict has clearly seen nothing, even in the Vatican’s private records, that would prevent Pius’s canonization. Pope Benedict believes that Pius, born Eugenio Pacelli, worked constantly but prudently behind the scenes during the war, directing papal representatives and Catholic institutions throughout Europe to shelter and rescue thousands of Jews. Th is announcement suggests that Benedict intends to use the full weight of the papal offi ce to challenge the public image of the wartime Pope. What makes Benedict’s decision so potentially provocative is that it will challenge the prevailing tendency to reduce Eugenio Pacelli’s long life of service to merely that period during the Second World War. Pius XII’s role during the Holocaust, important as it is, has obscured our view of this man’s broader legacy. After all, Pius XII continued to reign as Roman pontiff for some 13 years after the end of the war. In some respects, it was the Cold War that defi ned his pontifi cate. He was an infl uential scholar, diplomat and theologian, and left a lasting mark on the Church. Little of this is remembered today. Th e judgment of history and historians has tended to obscure Pius XII’s spiritual legacy, which Pope Benedict wants to acknowledge. Th e Church teaches that the “goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.” To say that he exhibited “heroic virtues” in his lifetime is to say that Pius XII gave extraordinary witness in word and deed to the Christian virtues, among them prudence, fortitude and temperance. Above all, it is to say that he made the three theological virtues—faith, hope and charity—the cornerstone of his conscience and activity. Whether in his renowned asceticism and spirituality; his Eucharistic devotion; his concrete initiatives as a diplomat during the First World War and later as Pope on behalf of POWs and refugees; his prophetic warnings about the evils of pagan nationalism and atheistic materialism; even his cautious response to the many demonstrable crimes of Nazism—in all this, his promoters say, Pius XII practiced the Christian virtues in an extraordinary way. Caution and prudence often have the feel of indiff erence or timidity. Pius never explicitly criticized the Th ird Reich, not even when the Nazis occupied Rome and began to round up the city’s small but ancient Jewish community in October 1943. One thousand Roman Jews were sent to Auschwitz; most were gassed within a week of arriving. All this, it was said, happened “under the Pope’s very window,” without public protest. In fact, the Pope was not oblivious to the complaints coming from various corners of Nazi-occupied Europe that the Holy See was not responding to the Nazis’ brutality. As he wrote to the German bishops in February 1941, “Where the Pope wants to cry out loud and strong, it is expectation and silence that are unhappily often imposed upon him; where he would act and give assistance, it is patience and waiting [that are imposed].” Pius’s approach—silence, patience and waiting—was to avoid greater evil. Th is principle of avoiding greater evil was consistent with all of Pius XII’s diplomatic training and careful character. It may even have saved lives. Pius XII’s oratorical restraint did not equal inaction. Some estimates suggest that Catholic institutions, 311 Important Articles Detailing the History of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) including Vatican properties, off ered shelter or off ered assistance to more than 4,000 Roman Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome. In Budapest, 25,000 Jews were sheltered and survived thanks to the eff orts of papal representatives acting with Pius XII’s blessing and material assistance. Th rough his representatives, Pius XII protested directly and forcefully when the Slovak government began to deport approximately 80,000 Jews to Auschwitz. Was this enough? More to the point: Did this prudence befi t the Vicar of Christ? What if Pius XII had issued a forceful, unequivocal condemnation of Nazism and especially its persecution of Jews? What if the Pope had directed his representatives and all European Catholics to resist actively Nazi policies? How many more lives might have been saved? It is impossible to provide properly historical answers to such imponderables. It is entirely understandable that for many people, especially Jews, such is not satisfactory. To many, Benedict’s decision to advance the process of Pius’ canonization will appear premature and insensitive, given the many fresh wounds and pronounced scars in Jewish-Catholic relations. However, Benedict’s actions do not render a fi nal verdict on the open questions about Pius’s wartime activities. Benedict simply suggests that Pius lived as a virtuous man striving in extraordinary ways to be like God. Th e extent to which he succeeded awaits fi nal judgment. National Post Robert Ventresca is a historian at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario. He is working on a biography of Pius XII titled Soldier of Christ: Th e Political Life of Pope Pius XII. 313 Acknowledgments Acknowledgments 314 Acknowledgments Th is book is dedicated to the love of my life. Since 1969, my wife, Meredith, has partnered with me to help make a diff erence in the world, through her encouragement, her enthusiasm, and her blind faith. Th e Board of Directors and the Board of Advisors—Pave the Way Foundation Th ank you for supporting the eff orts to research this controversial subject from the beginning. Board of Directors Elliot M. Hershberg, Chairman of the Board of Directors Gary L. Krupp, KC*SG OStJ, Founder/President Meredith S. Krupp, Founder/Director Harry M. Epstein, Treasurer Howard Appel Rabbi Benjamin Blech Stanley Browne Daniel Buttafouco, Esq. Br. Austin David Carroll, FSC, PhD William Cox, Esq. John Dibari, John R. Drexel IV Robert Fonti Robert Gaynor David S. Hauser, PDE Richard I. Kandel Peter Klein Gary Melius Doyle Mills Frank MacKay Jacob Parker Norman Weisfeld Linda Simpson, Administrative Director Karen Hershberg, Researcher Lauren Feldman, Youth Services Board of Advisors Howard Appel Rabbi Jack Bemporad Justice Stephen A. Bucaria Bishop Ignatius Catanello Mamdouh I. Farid, PhD Mgrs. Anthony Frontiero Karen Hadley Linda Harkavy, MD Rabbi Bennett Hermann Sheikh Syed Agha Jafri Pastor Roger Johns Rabbi Abraham Kiss Pastor Harald Kuehne Fr. Hector LaChapelle Msgr. James Lisante Joseph Nocella Jr., Esq. Lewis Okin Barbara Kane O’Neill Hon. C. Raymond Radian Rabbi Eric Silver Darlene Slamen Rabbi Dr. Barry Dov Schwartz Bennett Solberg, OStJ, PhD Pastor Lawrence Swensen Pandit Ramnarine Tiwari Fr. Joakim Valasiadis 315 Acknowledgments Pave the Way Foundation International Directors PTWF Asia Sunil Th omas PTWF Australia Fr. Michael Kulka PTWF Canada Fr. Murray Watson Fr. Bernard O’Connor PTWF France Dott Costantino Fiore Michel Ives Bolloré PTWF Germany Michael Hesemann, CSC PTWF Greece Gloria Clementoni PTWF Israel Sam Philipe Fr. Angelo Ison, OFM PTWF Italy Stefano Cerniato Daniele Costi Rolando Clementoni, KCSG Dott. Alessandro Frontoni Jerzy Kluger (1921–2011) Dott. Giancarlo Lombardi de Calice Fr. Hugh Ryan H.E. Archbishop Alberto Tricarico PTWF Mexico Cecelia Levine PTWF Poland Beata Czekaj PTWF Serbia Rabbi Yitshak Asiel HRH Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia H.E. Archbishop Eugenio Sbarbaro Aleksandar Simic PTWF South America Count Sebastian Zoltowski PTWF Switzerland Pablo-Manuel Villarreal PTWF United Kingdom Jonathan Boulter C. Elizabeth Lackey 316 Acknowledgments Th ose acknowledged below have played integral and diverse roles in the advancement of Pave the Way Foundation. Olivier Bonnassies; Dimitri Cavalli; Jean François Caeymaex; Msgr. Giancarlo Centioni; Vida Christian; Jesús Colina; John Paul Cox; Rabbi David Dalin; Maria Dibari; William Doino Jr.; Fr. Richard Donahoe; H.Em. Raff aele Cardinal Farina; H.Em. Bishop Brian Farrell; Lauren Feldman; Father Guiseppe Ferarro; H.Em. Archbishop Giovanni Ferrofi no; H.Em. Archbishop Antonio Franco; Th e Fritz and Adelaide Kauff mann Foundation; Jill Gaynor; Yossi Gevir; Anthony Gallo; Sir Martin Gilbert; Mary Hart; Gordon Herlands; Randolph & Cox, LLP; Grafi ca Veneta; Fr. Peter Gumpel JS; H2O News Organization; Diane Hauser; Frank Hanna III; Th e Sally and Frank Hanna Charitable Fund; Karen Hershberg; Fr. Norbert Hofmann; Inside Vatican Magazine; Dr Robert Moynihan; Debbie Tomlinson; Th e Ivy League of Artists/Ivy Mindlin- Epstein; Fr. David Jaeger, OFM; Fr. Michael Kalka; H.Em William Cardinal Keeler; Laura King; Peter Klein; Jarrett and Brett Krupp; Dan and Florence Kurzman; Fr. Vincent Lapomarda, SJ; Joseph Lawler-Spectator Magazine; Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ; Sandro Magister; Liana Marabini; Antonio Marchese; Sister Margherita Marchione; Vincent Marmorale; Professor Michael Marrus; H.Em. Renato Cardinal Martino; Th e Harry and Anita Mayer Foundation; Fr. Dennis McManus, SJ; Rabbi Yona Metzger; H.Em. Archbishop Celestino Migliore; David Mills-First Th ings Magazine; Fr. Paulo Molinari, SJ; H.Em. Bishop William Murphy; Professor Matteo Luigi Napolitano; Elizabeth Bettina Nicolosi; Paul O’Shea; Deacon Dominiek Oversteyns, FSO; Ion Mihai Pacepa; H.Em. Bishop Sergio Pagano; Fr. Livio Poloniato, OFM; Rabbi Joseph Potasnik; Robert Riebling; Mark Riebling; Rabbi Shlomo Riskin; Rome Reports News Service; Fr. Hugh Ryan; Professor Ronald Rychlak; H.Em. Archbishop Pietro Sambi; Msgr. Robert Sarno; Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan; Ursula Selig; Linda Simpson; Bennett Solberg; Horst Stein; Dr. Edward Steinberg; Irena Steinfeldt; Michael Tagliacozzo; Msgr. Nicolas Th évenin; Raymond Clayton Th omas; Andrea Tornielli; Admiral Marcantonio Trevisani; Francesca Valoriani; Fr. Peter Vasko; Prof. Robert Ventresca; Pieter Vree-New Oxford Review; Th eodore and Renee Weiler Foundation; Oded Weiner; Zenit News Service 317 Contributing Scholars and Historians Contributing Scholars and Historians 318 Contributing Scholars and Historians Our Contributing Scholars and Historians (in alphabetical order) Pave the Way Foundation is not an historical or research organization. However, in the furtherance of our mission to identify and eliminate nontheological obstacles between religions, we have relied on the hard work of many who have dedicated decades of their lives to their passion for the truth. In an attempt to present a more-balanced presentation, we have asked the critics of this era to contribute documented proof of their allegations and statements. To date, we have never received one document supporting their allegations. In 2008, Pave the Way Foundation sponsored an international symposium, wherein we hoped to bring all of the critics together with the defenders, to publically discuss and debate each allegation. Unfortunately, we were boycotted. We were then accused of having sponsored a one-sided symposium. We are therefore grateful for the ongoing support of the following dedicated historical researchers and scholars, who have contributed their talent, time, and research to the contents of this book. Dimitri Cavalli is a freelance writer and editor from New York City. Th e son of Italian immigrants, he graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx, New York, with a double major in political science and history. He received his master’s degree in politics from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. William Doino Jr. is a Catholic researcher and writer and contributor to Inside the Vatican magazine. Mr. Doino has published an eighty-thousand-word annotated bibliography in the anthology, Th e Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII. In addition to his many contributions to Inside the Vatican, Mr. Doino has been published in leading periodicals such as National Review, the Weekly Standard, First Th ings, the Times of London online, and America magazine. Mr. Doino’s groundbreaking article, “Pope Pius XII: Friend and Rescuer of Jews” (Inside the Vatican, January 2012), revealing how the Pope had intervened to rescue fi ve hundred Jewish refugees from starvation and persecution—based upon the testimony of two fi rsthand witnesses—was cited by the L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s offi cial newspaper, as a major piece of historical research. Other notable publications by Doino include an evaluation of the Vatican archives from Pope Pius XI’s pontifi cate, and how they bear upon his successor, Pius XII (“Th e Judgment of History,” America magazine, September 27, 2010); an extensive critique of James Carrol’s documentary, Constantine’s Sword (First Th ings online, June 3, 2008); and an essay-review of Saul Friedlander’s history of the Holocaust (First Th ings online, July 24, 2007). h d dJ h f 319 Contributing Scholars and Historians Sir Martin Gilbert is Winston Churchill’s offi cial biographer and a leading historian of the modern world. Martin Gilbert is the author of eighty-four books, among them the singlevolume Churchill: A Life, his twin histories First World War and Second World War, a comprehensive history of Israel; and his three-volume work, A History of the Twentieth Century (also published in a single, condensed volume). He is an honorary fellow of Merton College, Oxford (having been a fellow from 1962 to 1996). His book Th e Holocaust: Th e Jewish Tragedy (published in the United States as Th e Holocaust: a History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War) is a classic work on the subject. Michael Hesemann, as PTWF representative in Germany, is a historian, journalist, and internationally published author specialized on church history. His thirty-fi ve books were published in fourteen languages (German, English, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Greek, Polish, Russian, Dutch, French, Spanish, Chinese) with a world print-run of nearly two million copies. Hesemann lectured on international conferences and at over thirty universities of all fi ve continents, including the Vatican Lateran University. Being accredited to the Holy See Press Offi ce, he followed Pope Benedict XVI on his trips to Germany (2005, 2006), Spain (2006), and the Holy Land (2009). With his book Die Dunkelmaenner (Contro la Chiesa), he countered the most popular “myths, lies and legends about the Church history” as a countermeasure against the “Dan Brown-hype” and other mass media attacks against the church. In October 2008, he published his book Th e Pope who Defi ed Hitler: Th e Truth about Pius XII for which he did research in the Vatican Secret Archives and consulted with the P. Peter Gumpel, SJ, relator of the ongoing beatifi cation process of this great wartime Pope, who saved the lives of over 850,000 Jews during the Holocaust. His latest discoveries, proving that Pacelli was not only far away from being “Hitler’s Pope” but indeed an early supporter of Zionism, made international headlines in early 2009. Since November 2008, Hesemann advises and represents the “Pave the Way Foundation” with the aim to remove obstacles between the world religions and especially to improve the relationship between Judaism and Catholicism (www.ptwf.org). 320 Contributing Scholars and Historians Margherita Marchione, Professor Emerita of Italian Language and Literature at Farleigh Dickinson University, is a member of the Religious Teachers Filippini. She received an MA in 1949 and a PhD in 1960 from Columbia University, New York City. Margherita Marchione is the principal advocate of Pope Pius XII (1876–1958), whose reputation she tirelessly defends against those who would marginalize and malign his role in saving Jewish lives during World War II. Her Zolaesque protests against those whom she sees as steeped in inaccuracy, denying Pope Pius XII his rightful role of “rescuer of the persecuted,” have produced an oeuvre of ten books, written over twelve years, in English, followed by Italian translations. Marchione seeks to reverse the calumnies she believes are unfairly levied against the Pope, beginning with Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy, 1997. Especially noteworthy of her extensive research eff orts is the trilogy of three volumes, Pope Pius XII: Architect for Peace, 2000; Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII, 2001; Crusade of Charity: Pius XII and POWs, 2006, indispensable for all those interested in the volatile events of the second half of the twentieth century. Two fi nal books on this topic are Did Pope Pius XII Help Save the Jews?, 2007; and Th e Truth Will Set You Free, 2008. Matteo Luigi Napolitano, PhD is an Associate Professor of History and International Relations on the faculty of political science at University “G. Marconi.” Among his areas of expertise are research projects of international interest. He has served as a consultant of research and documentation for the historical service of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Aff airs. He was appointed International Delegate of the Pontifi cal Committee of Historical Sciences Vatican City in 2006 and a member of the faculty panel of the PhD in history at the University of Molise in 2007. 321 Contributing Scholars and Historians Mark Riebling is a US historian, essayist, and policy analyst who has written on national security, the history of ideas, and Vatican foreign policy during Cold War and Second World War. He is the author of Wedge: How the Secret War between the CIA and FBI Has Endangered National Security (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994; Simon and Schuster, 2002). From 2000 to 2010, he served as Editorial Director at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Mr. Riebling also cofounded and served as Research Director for the Center for Policing Terrorism, training US state and local law-enforcement agencies to operate against transnational threats, and helping to create a curriculum for the US National Counterterrorism Academy. Analyzing the eff ects of World War II on postmodern consciousness, Mr. Riebling has argued that the conservative intellectual movement began with the insight that “totalitarianism is evil because it denies man’s spiritual nature.” He has written for the Guardian (London), the International Herald Tribune, National Review, City Journal, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and National Public Radio, and studied at Dartmouth, Berkeley, and Columbia. Mr. Riebling is a member of the Authors Guild, the New York Society Library, and the Association of for Intelligence Offi cers (AFIO). Professor Ronald J. Rychlak is Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi, School of Law, where he has been on the faculty since 1987. He is a graduate of Wabash College (BA, 1980, cum laude) and Vanderbilt University (JD, 1983, Order of the Coif). Prior to joining the faculty, Ron practiced law with Jenner and Block in Chicago, and he served as a clerk to Hon. Harry W. Wellford of the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ron is an advisor to the Holy See’s Delegation to the United Nations. He is also a member of the committee appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court to revise that state’s criminal code, on the editorial board of the Gaming Law Review, and a member of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the US Civil Rights Commission. He also serves as the university’s faculty athletic representative to the NCAA/SEC. Ron is the author or coauthor of seven books, including Hitler, the War, and the Pope: Revised and Expanded (2010), which the Catholic League called “Th e defi ning work on Pius XII.” Ron has also been published in Notre Dame Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Boston College Law Review, the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and several other periodicals and journals. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, Claire, and their six children. 322 Contributing Scholars and Historians Andrea Tornielli was born in Chioggia (Venice) on March 19, 1964, and has a degree in Ancient Greek in December 1987 from Padua University. He is married and has three children. He’s been the Vatican reporter for the newspaper Il Giornale and currently is the editorialist of the newspaper La Stampa. Andrea lives between Milan and Rome and covers the Pope’s and Holy See’s activities. He has his own blog, which is internationally followed and discussed. Andrea has written many books, which have been translated into many languages: among those are the biographies of the Pope Pius IX, John Paul I, and Benedict XVI. He has dedicated four books to Pope Pius XII: a complete biography based on previously unreleased papers and letters (Pio XII. Un uomo sul trono di Pietro, Mondadori editore, 2007), and three essays about the Pope’s involvement in the Second World War events and the rescue of persecuted Jews. He has worked with the Pontifi cal Committee of Historic Sciences to create the exhibition about Pius XII, which will be opened in November in the Vatican City. A Special Recognition in Gratitude to Fr. Peter Gumpel, SJ During our multiyear investigation, one of the most knowledgeable personalities we had the privilege to meet and work with is the Relator (high judge) to the cause of Pope Pius XII, Fr. Peter Gumpel, SJ. Th e Relator’s position must not be confused with the postulator who, for the cause of Eugenio Pacelli, is Fr. Paulo Molinari, SJ. Th e high judge must be impartial and is responsible to verify the facts and documents submitted by the postulator. Once absolutely convinced, the Relator will certify and sign the decree, which then goes to the Pope, for his authorization in order to begin the process of canonization. Father Gumpel is a brilliant and sensitive priest who was born in Germany and grew up as a victim of the Nazi regime. Coming from a prominent anti-Nazi German family, Fr. Peter Gumpel suff ered personally under the wrath of Hitler’s henchmen. Th e Nazis broke into his home and tried to murder him. His grandfather was assassinated by the Nazis, and his mother was arrested and scheduled to be executed. It was due solely to the brave actions of Peter, a mere boy of fourteen, who was able to intercede, through highly placed family friends, to stay his mother’s execution. Peter Gumpel was exiled from Germany twice, once to France and then to Holland for his protection. He was a witness to many of the events that we report in this book, including Kristallnacht and the famous Nazi condemnation speech of Archbishop deJong in Holland. As the high judge (Relator) of the cause of Pius XII, Father Gumpel has read hundreds of thousands of pages of original documentation gathered over the past forty years for the cause of Pius XII and has full access to all of the Vatican Secret Archives, including the currently closed section. His main task as Relator is to verify and certify the accuracy and relevance of the documented case for canonization, submitted by the postulator, Fr. Paulo Molinari, SJ. h l b ll 323 Index Index 324 Index A Aarons, Mark, 275 Abdullah (king of Jordan), 62 Abraham (Patriarch), 5, 21 Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 139, 285 Actes Et Documents Du Saint-Siege Relatifs A La Second Guerre Mondiale (Acts of the Holy See during World War II), xii, 164 Adam, Jurek, 89–90 Adenauer, Konrad, 61, 68 ADL. See Anti Defamation League (ADL) Adler, Naftali, 170 Adler, Robert, 90, 170 ADSS. See Actes Et Documents Du Saint-Siege Relatifs A La Second Guerre Mondiale (Acts of the Holy See during World War II) Agayants, General Ivan, 191–92 AJC. See American Jewish Committee (AJC) al-Husayni, Mohammad Amin. See Husayni, Mohammad Amin alal- Husseini, Hajj Amin. See Husseini, Hajj Amin al- Allen, John, 227 Allenby, General Edmund, 68 Almagia, Roberto, 170, 205 American Jewish Committee (AJC), 37, 57, 80, 162, 173–75 Andreotti, Giulio, 44 Andropov, Yury, 192–93 Angelini, Silvia, 93 Anti Defamation League (ADL), 275 Aragon Cortes, Princess Pignatelli, 98 Assisi, 72, 100, 116, 120, 184–85, 212, 242 Auschwitz, 83, 100–101, 130, 155, 172, 192, 201, 203, 226, 229–30, 291, 310–11 B Badoglio, Pietro, 43–44, 109–10 Balfour Declaration, 68 Baranski, Tibor, 128 Bartali, Gino, 93 Beelitz, General Dietrich, 97–98 Benedict XV (pope), ix–x, 37, 52, 58, 60, 65–66, 130, 204, 263, 280–81, 283, 296, 302, 310–11 Benedict XVI (pope), ix–x, 58, 263, 280–81, 283, 310 Benoit, Pierre-Marie, 48, 203 Berard, Leon, 290 Bergen, Diego von, 241 Berlin, Irving, 173 Bernardini, Archbishop Filippo, 49, 213, 292 Bertone, Tarcisio Cardinal, 125, 284 Besier, Gerhard, 256 Beth Lohame Haghettaot, 160 Biscator, Ervin, 195 Blet, Pierre, 143, 262, 288, 293 Blumenfeld, Kurt, 68–69 Borgognini-Duca, Francesco, 170 Breitman, Richard, 158–59, 262 Brennender, xii, 15–16, 169, 235, 282 Brunacci, Aldo, 116, 120, 143, 185, 212 Bustros, Cyril Salim, 278 325 Index C Calixtus II (pope), 219 Campagna, 72, 74, 104, 113–14, 144, 164 Canali, Nicola Cardinal, 273 Canaris, Admiral Wilhelm, 23, 43–44 Cantoni, Raphiel, 157, 184, 305 Carroll, James, 87, 133, 180, 219, 262, 289, 305, 309 Carroll-Abbing, Msgr. John, 133, 180, 305 Casaroli, Agostino, 191 Cassidy, Edward Cardinal, 160, 287–88 Cassulo, Andrea Cardinal, 118, 290, 292 Castejon, Teresa Gonzales De, 124 Castel Gandolfo, xii, 44, 106, 127, 202, 305 Ceausescu, General Nicolae, 192 Cellar, Emmanuel, 173 Centioni, Giancarlo, 81 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 24, 116, 190 Chadwick, Owen, 243, 289 Chick, Jack, 225 Churchill, Winston, 81, 155, 179, 206 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Ciampoli, Max, 81 Cicognani, Msgr. Amleto, 86–87, 163, 172 Cohn, Oskar, 66 concordat, iv, 17, 73, 81, 211, 224, 226–27, 234–38, 245–46, 249 Cornwell, John, 65, 67, 198–200, 206, 208–11, 232–33, 237, 248–50, 256, 262, 282, 296 Corte Di Cassazione, 216 Cortesi, Filippo, 55 Cosmatos, George, 216 Coughlin, Charles, 131, 148, 175, 205, 277 Curia Gen. Compagnia di Gesu, 97 D Dachau, 31, 203, 260, 262, 291, 305, 308 Dalin, David G., 193, 200–201, 204–6, 253, 262, 282 Dandl, Otto Ritter von, 66–68 Das Schwarze Korps, 29, 237 Dawidowicz, Lucy, 219 deJong (archbishop of Utrecht), 15, 20 Der Spiegel, 289 Der Stellvertreter, 192, 195 Der Stürmer, 29–30 Desbuquois, Gustave, 239 Dezza, Palo Cardinal, 127, 133, 180 Discorsi e Panegirici, 233 Doino, William, Jr., ix, 2, 24, 45, 54, 75, 107, 116–17, 121, 143, 232, 255, 262 Domino, Margarita, 134 Draganovic, Krunoslav, 273, 275–76 Dulles, Allen, 107 EE asterman, Alex, 88–89, 149, 172 Eden, Anthony, 117 Eichmann, Adolf, 45, 107, 157, 229, 275 Einstein, Albert, 61, 68, 153 Elders, Jocelyn, 176 326 Index F Falconi, Carlo, 175, 262 Falkenhayn, Erich von, 68 Faller, Otto, 112 Faulhaber, Michael Cardinal, 16, 22, 25, 290 Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB), 247 Feldkamp, Michael L, 262, 289 Feldman, Leon, 288–89 Fendel, Hillel, 253 Fenlon, Dermot, 308 Ferramonti, 104, 170, 243, 292 Ferrofi no, Archbishop Guiseppe, 94–95 Filippini Sisters, 135, 282 Fisher, Eugene, ix, 227, 288 Foa, Ugo, 161 Fogarty, Gerald, 288–89, 293 Foxman, Abraham, 227, 275 Freedman, Jacob, 170 Freiberger, Miroslav, 171, 291–92 Freymond, Jacques, 295 Friedlander, Saul, 175, 241 FSB. See Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB) G Gabrilowitsch, Ossip, 241 Gasparri, Antonio, 44, 262, 291 Gasparri, Pietro Cardinal, 3, 37, 44, 51, 57–58, 65, 67, 262, 291, 302 Gerlier, Pierre Cardinal, 130, 171–72, 252, 290, 309 gestapo, 155, 193, 205, 229, 243, 291, 304 Gilbert, Sir Martin, 52–53, 89–90, 155, 176, 195, 200, 206, 229, 246, 262, 289 Gilner, Elias, 173 Goebbels, Joseph, 5, 11, 22, 37 Goering, Herman, 6, 37 Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, 65, 85, 200, 206, 217–20, 225, 234, 244–46, 254, 262, 294 Goldmann, Nahum, 150, 303 Graham, Robert, 87, 176, 262, 273, 288, 291 Greco, Ida, 134 Gumpel, Peter, ix, 97, 122, 233, 287, 289, 291 Gundlach, Gustav, 239, 245 H Heiferich, Colonel, 43 Herczl, Moshe Y., 232 Herskovic, Herman, 75–76 Herstig, David, 309 Hertz, Joseph, 173 Herzog, Issac, 62, 151, 171, 173, 177, 251, 253, 305–6 Hesemann, Michael, 3–4, 6, 8–11, 13, 15, 22, 25–26, 30–31, 35–36, 52–54, 58–60, 65, 69, 77–79, 100 Heydrich, Reinhard, 236, 239 Himmler, Heinrich, viii, 38, 97–98, 100, 110–11, 161, 207, 229, 245 Hindenburg, Paul von, 197, 234, 248 Hinsley, Arthur Cardinal, 79 Hitler, Adolf, 7–9, 23–25, 43–44, 83–87, 190–93, 197–200, 204–6, 208–11, 213–15, 227–29, 234–39, 244–45, 247–49, 265, 302–4 327 Index plan to murder Pope Pius XII, 43 Hitler Youth, 32–34, 269 Hlond, August Cardinal, 170, 263 Hochhuth, Rolf, viii, 44, 111, 175–76, 192, 195, 200, 213, 259, 262, 282, 288, 304, 307 Holocaust, viii–ix, 75, 87, 96, 158–60, 174, 176, 200, 213, 217–19, 244, 253, 261–63, 282, 287–89 Holocaust Memorial, viii, 75. See also Yad Vashem Horthy, Admiral Miklos, 89–90, 291 Hudal, Bishop Alois, 45, 99–100, 110–11, 160, 172, 271, 274–76 Husayni, Mohammad Amin al-, 222 Husseini, Hajj Amin al-, 206 J John Paul II (pope), ix, 65, 129, 189, 193, 200, 281, 283, 289, 296 K Kaas, Ludwig, 68 Kaczynski, Lech, 278 Kaltenbrunner, Ernst, 23, 124, 229 Kaltenbrunner Report, 23 Kappler, Herbert, 101, 109–10, 124, 161 Katz, Robert, 199, 216 Kempner, Robert M. W., 150, 229, 260 Kessel, Albrecht von, 109, 308–9 Kesselring, Field Marshal Albert, 43, 97, 111–12, 260 KGB. See Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) Khrushchev, Nikita, viii, 189, 217 King, Laura, 90 Kirichenko, Aleksey, 189 Kirkpatrick, Ivone, 235 Klarsfeld, Serge, 147, 253 Klecki, Paul, 147, 174, 179 Knuppel, Franz, 142 Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB), viii, 189–92, 194–95, 247, 262, 283, 304 Kristallnacht, xii, 35, 77, 79, 206, 290 Krupp, Gary, 76, 79, 233, 246, 263 Kubowitzky, Leon, 149, 253 Kunkel, Nikolaus, 98, 109–12 Kurzman, Dan, viii–ix L LaFarge, John, 228, 239–40 Lahousen, Erwin, 43 Langer, William, 175, 246, 292 Lapide, Pinchas, 44, 61, 66–68, 86–87, 132, 156, 170, 174, 262, 309 Lapomarda, Vincent, 262, 289 La Sapienza University, 294 Lateran Pacts, 298 Laval Government (Pierre), 117, 171 Lawler, George, 262 Lazaron, Morris, 152, 182 Lefebvre, Marcel, 277–78 Lehnert, Pascalina, 5, 20, 105, 262 Leiber, Georg, 20, 23–24, 242, 271, 305 Lemmi, Paola, 93 Levai, Jeno, 89, 153, 304 328 Index Le Vatican et Israel, 48 Lewy, Guenther, 175 Lichten, Joseph, 157, 307–8 Lichtheim, Richard, 292 Loebe, Paul, 68 Loftus, John, 275 Loparco, Grazia, 242, 262 Loringhoven, Freytag von, 43 M Maccoby, Hyam, 218 Machàcek, Paval, 84 Madigan, Kevin, 271 Maglione, Luigi Cardinal, 49, 82, 86–87, 98–99, 114, 133, 151, 160, 169–72, 177, 180, 201–2, 228–29, 288, 290–92 Mann, Th omas, 61, 68 Marchione, Margherita, ix, 92, 105–6, 135, 164, 166, 201, 262, 282, 286, 289 Marcone, Joseph, 171, 292 Marella, Archbishop Paolo, 80 Maritain, Jacques, 86 Marrus, Michael, 256, 262, 288–89 Martini, Reverend Angelo, 288 Mauthausen, 101, 229 McCarthy, Joe, 287 McInerny, Ralph, 262 Mein Kampf, 5 Meir, Golda, 151, 174, 181, 201, 262, 303 Melchior, Marcus, 150, 262 Melloni, Alberto, 251, 253–54, 256, 294 Mendes, Guido, 48–49, 62, 64, 87, 140, 154, 204, 241, 249 Mendes, Meir, 48 Miccoli, Giovanni, 262 Mindszenty, József Cardinal, 190, 193 Minerbi, Sergio, 247 Mit Brennender Sorge, xii, 15–16, 169, 235, 282 Moellhausen, Eitel Frederick, 161 Molinari, Paulo, ix Montgomery, Msgr. Hugh, 306 Montini, Giovanni Cardinal Battista, 115, 124, 133, 165, 179–80, 193, 203, 271–72, 276, 290, 306 Morgenpost, 37 Morley, John, 242, 262, 288–89 Moynihan, Robert, 143, 146, 212, 214 Mueller, Heinrich, 23, 205, 239, 304 Mundelein, George Cardinal, 5 Mussolini, Benito, xii, 43, 56, 109–10, 172, 193, 205, 209–10, 241, 243, 298 N Napolitano, Matteo Luigi, 254, 262, 294 National Socialism (see also Nazi), xii–4, 7, 9–10, 14, 18, 21, 25, 32, 67, 87, 142, 169, 247, 265, 271 Nazi, 7, 15–18, 20–22, 44–45, 84–86, 130–31, 168–72, 197–202, 204–6, 224–29, 237–39, 246–48, 271–76, 303–5, 308–11 attitude toward Pacelli, Catholic Church, and Pope Pius XII, 27 propaganda against Pius XII, 28 See also National Socialism Neuhaeusler, Monsignore, 23 Nicola, Bishop Giuseppe, 273 Nicolini, Bishop Giuseppe Placido Maria, 116, 143, 184, 212, 214, 242 Nissim, Giorgio, 93 329 Index Nix, Willi, 275 Nobécourt, Jacques, 19 Nostra Aetate, viii, 278 Nuremberg, 15, 17, 32, 43, 84, 150, 229, 234, 237, 246, 260, 272, 305 O O’Flaherty, Hugh, 127 Orsenigo, Cesare, 9, 13, 53, 143 Osborne, Sir Francis D’Arcy, 117, 181, 215, 244, 249, 257 O’Shea, Paul, 79, 246–47 P Pacelli, Eugenio, viii–ix, xii, 3, 5–6, 16–17, 36, 47–48, 52, 57–58, 65–66, 234, 241–42, 280–81, 301, 310 historical relations with the Jewish people, 47 See also Pius XII (pope) Pacepa, Ion Mihai, 189, 194 Pacha, Augustin, 190–91 Pagano, Sergio, ix, 67, 281, 294 Palatucci, Bishop Giuseppe, 104, 203 Palatucci, Giovanni, 104, 203 Palazzini, Pietro Cardinal, 96, 119, 158 Papee, Casmir, 291 Papen, Franz von, 235 Pasha, Cemal, 66, 68 Pasha, Enver, 66, 68 Paul VI (pope), 38, 119, 179, 193, 203, 284, 287–88, 290, 306 Pawlikowski, John T, 175, 262 Pereles, Max, 170 Perlzweig, Maurice, 163, 172 Pfeiff er, Pancratius, 99–100, 109–12, 133, 180, 229 Phayer, Michael, 233, 247, 262, 289 Piccioto, Liliana, 93 Piscator, Erwin, viii, 191 Pius X (pope), 302 Pius XI (pope), ix, 5, 15, 21, 132, 144, 148, 156, 205, 211, 224, 234, 236, 239, 245 Pius XII (pope), viii–x, 37–41, 60–65, 72–76, 81–85, 92–95, 111–12, 116–20, 127–33, 168–76, 188–91, 193, 258–64, 280– 88, 305–8 1946 statement about the alleged silence of, 264 accused of not using the word “Jews,” 258 actions to save the Jews in Slovakia, 82–83 alleged silence of, 262 cause of the changes in international sentiment toward, 187 comments following the statements displayed beside the Yad Vashem photo of, 227 commonly held beliefs about, 224 current calumnies and statements about, 223 directive that saved eight hundred Jews, 93 documentation proving help to the Jews, 133, 137 eff orts to save Jewish lives, 71 Hitler’s plan to murder of, 43 Jewish historian praises wartime conduct of, 160 Jewish praise for, 168 Nazi Propaganda against, 28 refugees hidden at the summer residence of, 106 rehabilitated by Jewish historian, 159 stopped the arrest of the Roman Jews, 100 tributes to, 177, 181 330 Index See also Pacelli, Eugenio Poliakov, Leon, 174 Ponti, Carlo, 216 Proskauer, Joseph, 57, 173 Provenzal, Leone, 184 Putin, Vladimir, 194 R Rabat-Fohn, 39 Rathenau, Walter, 52, 204 Reich, Seymour, 287 Religious Teachers Filippini. See Filippini Sisters Religious Teachers Filippini, 135, 282 Repetto, Giuseppe, 93 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 101, 206, 231, 237, 241, 291, 305 Riebling, Robert, 217 Riegner, Gerhart, 292 Roncalli, Angelo Cardinal, 64, 84, 86, 151, 204, 251–54, 294, 309 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 88, 175, 191, 205, 215, 242, 246, 257, 292 Rosenberg, Alfred, 22 Rosenwald, William, 174 Rossignani, Elena Pacelli, 216 Rothkirchen, Livia, 85, 87, 262 Rotta, Angelo Cardinal, 89–90, 128, 202, 291–92 Ruffi ni, Ernesto, 26 Rychlak, Ronald, ix, 15, 19, 28, 57, 81, 84, 88–89, 102, 106, 127–29, 198–200, 213–14, 243–44, 249–50 Rydzyk, Tadeusz, 278 S Safran, Rabbi Alexander, 118, 152, 305 Sakharovsky, Aleksandr, 190–92 Saliege, Jules Gerard, 308 Salvatorians, 99, 109, 207 Saperstein, Harold J., 163, 196 Sapieha, Stefan Cardinal, 15, 263, 290–91 Scavizzi, Pirro, 259 Schirach, Baldur von, 33 Schneider, Burkhart, 288 Schulte, Carl Joseph Cardinal, 14–15, 21 Schuster, Idelfonso Cardinal, 144, 290 Shafran, Alexander, 173, 292 Sharett, Moshe, 157, 178 Shelepin, Aleksandr, 189 Sodano, Angelo Cardinal, 289 Sokolow, Nahum, 58–60, 65, 67–69, 241 Sorbibor, 274 Stahel, Rainer, 45, 97–101, 109–11, 160–61, 207, 229, 271 Stalin, Joseph, 191–92, 298 Stangl, Franz, 274, 276 Stauff enberg, Count von, 44 Stepinac, Archbishop Aloysius, 129, 171, 291 Suchecky, Bernard Sukkoth, 245, 288–89 Sulner, Hanna, 190, 193 331 Index T Tagliacozzo, Michael, 96, 158, 160–61, 184, 229, 262, 289 Tagliacozzo, Vittorio, 184 Tanner, Marcus, 291 Tardini, Domenico, 62, 64, 85–89, 133, 180, 251–54, 288, 290 Taylor, Myron, 23, 88–89, 104, 215, 256–57 Th on, Jacob, 68 Tiso, Jozef, 82–87, 200, 203–4 Tisserant, Eugene Cardinal, 49, 55 Tittmann, Harold, 199, 211, 215, 241–42, 244, 256, 260 Toaff , Elio, 165, 179, 303 Tornielli, Andrea, ix, 44, 241, 252, 254, 262, 294 Transnistria, 118, 151, 204 Treblinka, 274 Trujillo, Rafael, 94–95 U Under His Very Windows, 120, 212–13 Ustashe, Croatian Movement, 273 V Valeri, Valerio, 171, 290 Valkyrie, 23, 242 Verdier, Pierre, 132, 144, 290 Vian, Gian Maria, 294 Vicente, Manuela, 124 Vichy, 49, 117, 131, 171, 290 Vieslander, Marion, 184 Villa Lante, Casa Di, 124–25 W Waechter, Baron von, 272 Wagner, Gustav, 274, 276 Wallenberg, Raoul, 64, 128, 202 Weimar Republic, 61, 68, 211, 234 Weizmann, Chaim, 149 Weizsäcker, Ernst von, 98–99, 102, 109–10, 160, 201–2, 207, 271, 309 Wessel, Horst, 34 Wielgus, Stanislaw, 189 Wiesenthal, Simon, 275–76 Wise, Stephen, 173 Wisla, Howard Heinz, 75–76 Wistrich, Robert, 175, 262, 288–89, 291 Wojtyla, Karol, 189 Wolff , General Karl Freidrich Otto, viii, 38–39, 44, 159, 193 Wollenweber, 98 World Jewish Congress, 87–89, 149–50, 163, 172–75, 177, 253, 292, 303 world war II, xii, 22, 31, 44, 65, 75–76, 90, 127–28, 155–56, 168–69, 176, 193, 238–39, 245–46, 288–89 World Zionist Organization, 58, 60 Y Yad Vashem, viii, 75–76, 87, 90, 96, 116, 119, 128, 158, 212, 226–28, 230, 247, 263 Yagil, Limore, 49 332 Index Z Zaoui, Rabbi Andre, 92 Zevi, Luciana, 165 Zimmermann, Arthur, 66 Zoller, Israele Anton, 161 Zolli, Eugenio Maria, 161, 166, 173, 182, 193, 247, 282 Zolli, Israel, 173, 193, 247, 282 Zuccotti, Susan, 106, 120, 212–14, 242, 262 Zukerman, William, 131, 175 A special thanks to Th e Ivy League of Artists Inc. for all their hard work in the design, layout, and production of this book. 7 Coventry Road Livingston, NJ 07039 tel: 973.992.4048 􀁹 cell: 917.817.9303 ilartists@comcast.net Published by Pave the Way Publishing, LLC To order additional copies, go to: www.pavethewaypublishing.com or please call +212.629.0046 or e-mail: pavetheway@optonline.net