Pius XII and the Jews
Once again the Vatican archives confirm the role played by Pope Pius XII on behalf of the persecuted Jews during World War II
Newsroom (12/02/2022 17:00, Gaudium Press) Historians have had access to the archives of Pius XII’s pontificate and have been able to confirm that Pope Pius XII was indeed responsible for saving thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution.
The fact that is now confirmed had long been a conjuncture regarding the beneficent actions of the aforementioned Pontiff.
A fictitious screenplay made to forget the Pope’s attitudes
However, the real, positive view of the Pope’s attitudes towards the Jews came under attack after the play “The Vicar” (Der Stellvertreter).
The author of the fiction, Rolf Hochhuth, a former member of the Hitler Youth, released a play five years after the Pope’s death in which he attempted to impute to Pius XII and the Catholic Church a role of inaction and even complicity with the Nazi regime.
Vatican documents confirm the fight against Nazism
Access to documents from the period (before and after the war) confirmed many measures taken by the Pope to, on the one hand, criticize and combat Nazism and, on the other hand, defend, protect, and save Jews from extermination.
Among the historians who had access to the documents, both before and after the war, is the celebrated historian Father Pierre Blet.
Speeches and Encyclicals against Nazism
The first records we have of Pius XII’s combat against the totalitarian regime date back to his time as a Cardinal.
As early as 1928, the then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, did not cease to criticize Nazism. The Cardinal delivered 40 speeches against the totalitarian regime and participated in the creation of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Mit brennender Sorg (1937), which warned and criticized Nazi theories.
In his first encyclical, Summi pontificatus (1939), Pius XII denounced the race-obsessed ideologies. The text was circulated clandestinely in Germany.
With the dissemination of the encyclical, the Nazis had a high rate of rejection in Catholic regions, which triggered the persecution of National Socialism against Catholicism, “the Jewish offspring.”
Voice against the regime and for the victims
Heydrich, a member of the SS, will later say that the Pope became the “spokesman for the Jewish war criminals.” Albert Einstein will claim that the “Catholic Church was the only one to raise its voice against Hitler’s attack on freedom.”
As a diplomat, the Pope realized that a misinterpreted word could aggravate the situation even further, given the declaration of the Dutch bishops that resulted in more intense persecution against Jews in the Netherlands and led to the death of more people including Edith Stein, for example.
Meanwhile, the Pope viewed with concern the worsening persecution of European Jews. His Christmas address of 1942 is well known, in which the Holy Father referred to the thousands of people who “through no fault of their own, solely for reasons of nationality or race, find themselves destined to death or progressive extermination.”
Jews welcomed into the convents of Rome
In parallel and discreetly, the Pope articulated a plan to save the Jews and created an association intended for this purpose. Johan Ickx revealed the “Pacelli list” which contained the names of 2800 Jews who were taken in at convents in Rome.
Among the Jews saved was the great rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, who changed his name to Eugene Pius Zolli in honor of “the splendid charity of the Pope.” The Pope also pressed neutral countries to take in the refugees.
Other recognitions
Golda Meir, former foreign minister of the State of Israel, recalled on the occasion of Pius XII’s death in 1958 that during the terrible Nazi persecution “the voice of the Pope was raised to condemn the persecutors and to invoke mercy on the victims”.
Cardinal Pietro Palazzini, one of the 88 Cardinals honored at the Israeli memorial of Yad Vashem (also known by the epithet “Righteous”), attributed the merit of this honorable mention to the Holy Father Pius XII.
Golda Meir, Israeli Foreign Minister
“Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world”
One cannot doubt the Pope’s disapproval of the Nazi regime. But still, many criticize Pius XII for not having made a large enough protest.
However, Pius XII was action-oriented and decided to take for his own the Talmudic quote: “whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.” (FM)
Text adapted from the original “Pie XII et les juifs, la parole et les actes” by Jean-Marc Albert, in Valeurs Actuelles.
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