Pius XII’s Defense of Jews and Others: 1944-45
To provide a documentary basis for the scientific study of the Holy See's actions and policies during the Second World War, the late Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, authorized publication of the pertinent papers of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness Pope Pius XII. The decision to publish those confidential papers was without precedent. The papers have been edited by a group of Jesuit historians of several nationalities. The first volume, entitled "The Holy See — August, 1940," was published in 1965. Other volumes followed, and now volume 10, "The Holy See and the Victims of the War, January 1944 — July, 1945," is presented to the general and the scholarly public. It concerns the humanitarian interventions of the Holy See in behalf of a wide variety of the war's victims, both civilian and military, during the final year and a half of the Second World War. In this volume, the term "humanitarian intervention" is intended to exclude other forms of papal intervention or action, for example, on the diplomatic or pastoral planes. The distinction between such categories is of course not always clear, but the differences are sufficient in most instances to justify publication of the Actes in different volumes, which, though covering the same chronological period, deal with significantly different classifications of action.
The final year and a half of World War II was the most destructive era in the history of the West. Intransigence and ruthlessness were at their peak as the destructive hours approached. In this conflict of giants, individuals or groups counted for little. "Military necessity" was the first rule, transcending all other considerations. The victims were myriad: wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, civilians subjected to bombardments, individuals taken as hostages or threatened with death reprisals for actions deemed unlawful by a local commander, and whole populations facing starvation. Some of these evils and hardships are "classic" and are witnessed in any war. But the deportation of countless thousands to an "unknown destination" on racial grounds alone was a new atrocity of whose existence the documents published in this volume give ample evidence.
Many of those same documents also record the efforts of the Holy See to help Jewish communities in the German sphere of occupation. Many of them document the extraordinarily close cooperation and understanding existing between the Holy See and the many Jewish organizations dedicated to the welfare and safety of their co-religionists. Even before the beginning of 1944, the world Jewish organizations had recognized in the Holy See a friend who was willing — and often able — to help in the many situations heavy with tragedy developing in occupied Europe. Through the documents, the synchronization of papal and Jewish action clearly emerges. The concerns of the Jewish organizations were also those of the Holy See. Sometimes, the Holy See acted directly on the appeal of a Jewish organization, well informed as they were on the condition of their own people. At other times, the Holy See acted on the basis of reports received from its own representatives on the scene — in Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest, Berlin and elsewhere. The papal representatives were obviously on close terms of confidence with leaders of the local Jewish communities from whom they received timely indications of imminent dangers to the Jews of that particular country. In many instances, the Holy See had already acted upon information received from its own nuncios when appeals from Jewish organizations themselves informed with some delay, arrived at the Vatican.
This relationship of confidence based on earlier performances is, of course, known in its general outlines. After the war, the Jewish organizations themselves publicly acknowledged the sympathy and cooperation they received from the Holy See. Volume 10, however, provides more graphic substance to these acknowledgements in the precise narration, day-by-day, month-by-month, of the Holy See's correspondence with the most active international Jewish organizations. Among the more important of these are the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Congress, Agudas Israel World Organization, Vaad Hahatzala of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, Hijefs (Schweizerischer Hilfsverein fur Judische Fluchling im Ausland), the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the American Jewish Committee. In 1944 the War Refugee Board came into existence and represented, in fact, the united effort of the various American Jewish organizations. During and after the war, the War Refugee Board publicly acknowledged its close relationship with the Holy See, as well as the services rendered to the cause by the Holy See. The documentation also includes correspondence from eminent rabbinical leaders who made special appeals to the Holy See; among them are: the Grand Rabbi of Jerusalem Dr. Isaac Herzog, the Grand Rabbi of the British Empire Dr. Joseph Hertz, and Rabbi Abraham Kalmanowitz, leader of the rabbinical school of Mir, in Lithuania.
The military and political situations during the last year and a half of the war should be briefly recalled. This was the time of the German occupation of Rome (second phase), the slow Allied advance from Anzio, and the bombing of Montecassino. The closing months saw the war front advancing on the cities of Northern Italy, threatening these seats of earlier culture with utter destruction. Hostages were often shot in reprisal for acts of resistance to the occupation. The number of prisoners of war falling into the Allied hands multiplied, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of Italians stood without protection as "military internees." The formula of "unconditional surrender" proclaimed by the Allies was met with "total mobilization" in the Reich along with stern repression of all signs of "defeatism." As the war drew to its climax, neither side felt constrained to consider the victims. The iron law of war left little room for the work of any would-be Good Samaritans. The Holy See, however, refused to reconcile itself to this inhumane atmosphere, and it continued to insist on its humanitarian role, despite misunderstanding, failures and even opposition.
The work of the Vatican Information Office was a visible sign of the Holy Father's paternal solicitude for all victims of war, notwithstanding their nationality, political opinion, race or religion. It consisted of transmitting the names of persons taken prisoner or interned. In many cases, this was the first information received by anxious families about loved ones known to be in the theater of war. Previous volumes in this series discuss the importance attached by Pius XII to this service, one of the few ways in which he could publicly demonstrate his humanitarian concern.
The Vatican Information Office struggled for years to gain recognition and cooperation. In fact, the German government never did consent to the Office's initiatives. When combat ended in North Africa, thousands of Axis prisoners were in Allied hands, but in the spring of 1944 it was still impossible for the Vatican representatives to transmit the names by radio from Algiers to the Vatican. In the United States, similar difficulties prevented radio transmissions of lists of prisoners and internees. As late as June 14, 1944, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington explained that "security reasons" put the matter beyond discussion. On March 18, the Secretariat of State submitted a verbal note to the British legation at the Vatican regretting the delays and obstacles encountered in securing radio transmission of short messages from Algiers. The American authorities were apparently favorable, but not the British, for as that message stated, "Msgr. Carroll gives his assurance that the American authorities have kindly granted their consent to these radio communications of messages regarding civilians and prisoners according to short sentences agreed upon by common consent. The British authorities, on the other hand, have not given theirs." In the end, before the tide of the war advanced and the prisoners were moved, the lists and messages had to be forwarded by way of Spain, after long delays.
In 1944, a new aspect of the Pope's concern for prisoners of war arose in response to the plight of Italian soldiers who had been brought to Germany after the Armistice in September of 1943. Their condition received scant attention in the world press, but they constituted a new category of "war's victims." They were not regarded as prisoners of war but as "military internees"; that is, they had no recognized rights under the Geneva Red Cross Conventions. The Allies refused to permit passage of material assistance destined for them, because the distribution was not under Red Cross supervision. And in the last year of the war, when supplies were short in Germany even for civilians, what help could they expect from local resources, even supposing good intentions on the part of their captors?
On December 23, 1943, Cardinal Maglione, the Pope's secretary of state, had formally asked German Ambassador Ernst von Weizsacker if the Reich government would permit Vatican assistance to the Italian internees. No answer was ever given. In the meantime, innumerable inquiries and appeals from distraught relatives in Italy were forwarded by the Vatican to the nuncio in Berlin. The nuncio reported to his superiors that the foreign ministry told him to apply to the special office for interned military set up by the Republican Fascist embassy — whose government, of course, the Holy See had not recognized. Nuncio Orsenigo asked if he might not, despite the non-recognition and in view of the desperate situation, approach this office. In fact, Msgr. Orsenigo was able to visit camps or labor battalions where Italians were detained, especially in the vicinity of Berlin.
Even the repatriation of those seriously handicapped and unfit for any war purpose encountered agonizing difficulties. One of the charitable projects to which the Nuncio Orsenigo devoted himself was the return to Italy of those badly in need of medical attention, especially victims of tuberculosis and malaria. On February 7, 1944, Cardinal Maglione wrote the nuncio: "The Holy Father, in his charitable and ardent solicitude to relieve the sufferings of those sons of his and bring some consolation to the families, so sorely tried in their dearest affections, is firmly resolved to try every possible way to obtain that Italian soldiers interned in Germany should be treated humanely, and that those in precarious conditions of health should be repatriated promptly."
Orsenigo said he then appealed on general humanitarian grounds, without getting any answer except that the internees had the Italian Republican Fascists to help them and that they received letters and packages from home. In the meantime, repatriation encountered further difficulties. On April 13, 1944, Orsenigo said he heard that some repatriated "volunteers" had simply deserted and gone into hiding once they found themselves in Italy. On May 19, the nuncio happily informed the Vatican that the first transport of disabled men had left for Italy. But on September 7, the nuncio reported to his regret that the German government had "completely suspended" the repatriations — to avoid the hostile comments, he was told, caused by the distressing condition of those unfortunates. No more sick or wounded would be allowed to leave Germany.
"The consequences of these measures," reported Orsenigo, "are disastrous and cruel; in the camp infirmaries languish numerous seriously ill persons who call out for their families."
In the meantime, as a result of an agreement between Mussolini and Hitler, the internees were transformed, in theory at least, into "free workers." But this was to be a slow process, which remained true only for those in good health. Orsenigo reported on September 15 that he had protested to the Foreign Ministry against the suspension of the repatriation of the sick.
In these months the Holy See used not only the channels of Berlin, Berne and Rome but also the Nunciature of Vichy and Father Biasio Marbotto, who was located in Poland, where Italian internees were also detained. The French Relief Agency, under Abbe Jean Rodhain, was able to print prayer books in Italian and to distribute them to the relatively few Italians in the so-called "mixed camps," but the French had no access to the main camps. On November 14, 1944, as the second winter approached for the Italian internees, the Secretariat of State renewed his urgent appeal to the German government. The note, addressed to Ambassador von Weizsacker, referred to the still-unanswered note of December 22, 1943. It acknowledged that, despite the lack of response, it had been able "in certain cases" to provide religious assistance in camps where Italian internees were held, and also to contribute some medicines and concentrated foods. The letter also cited the condition of French internees and the dangers that were said to menace prisoners and internees of certain races or nationalities (a reference to the treatment of Jews). Could not the German government, asked the Holy See, gratify world opinion by releasing the sick, the aged, women and children and arranging for their repatriation, while at the same time issuing a statement guaranteeing humane treatment for prisoners and internees of whatever race or nationality?
There followed, in this note, the Holy See's statement of its own hopes and ambitions:
The Holy See which, carrying out its universal mission of charity, has left no stone unturned in order to relieve in some way the unspeakable sufferings of so many human beings in the course of this international conflict, once more addresses the German Embassy, begging it to be so kind as to submit to its government the considerations set forth above, in the hope that measures dictated by human and Christian piety, which in any case, would be to the advantage of the German people itself, will be taken and carried out, in favor of prisoners and internees.
In the beginning of 1944 Rome had been under German control for nearly four months. More than six months were yet to pass before German troops withdrew from the city in retreat to the north. By January the city had become the hiding place of thousands of persons who were eluding either the occupation power or the Fascist Republicans. Swollen by refugees drawn by what they thought was the protection of the "Open City," Rome experienced great problems of food supply. So while the Holy See was trying (always in vain) to get some assurance that Rome would be demilitarized and spared from bombing, it was also concerned with averting starvation.
On the night of February 3, the Republican (neo-Fascist) police broke into the extra-territorial Basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls and brought to light that the entire monastery was a shelter for the very people the neo-Fascists were seeking: military officers, Jews, ex-members of the dissolved Carabinieri (military police) and various young persons avoiding military service with the Fascist Republicans. Some were dressed in clerical garb. It was no great secret that the many ecclesiastical homes in Rome — and not just those enjoying extraterritorial status — hid people of various categories whose safety was threatened. In the Roman Seminary at St. John Lateran there was hidden nearly the entire National Committee of Liberation — only a few paces from the headquarters of the Gestapo Police Chief Kappler on the Via Tasso. They were never molested. An invisible protecting hand seemed poised over them.
The thoughts of the Holy See on the subject of asylum were revealed in a notation by Cardinal Maglione following a conversation with the German ambassador. On January 6, 1944, His Eminence recorded that Weizsacker had complained about the existence of fugitives in religious houses, whose presence had been revealed by nighttime raids. This situation, said the ambassador, diminishes his authority with his superiors, and he complained to the cardinal about such infractions of the German occupation laws. What did the Cardinal Secretary of State reply to the charge of such "irregularities?" He told the ambassador that he had himself urged the religious houses to be "correct" and "prudent," but he added that he hoped they would not be judged too severely. Later, he wrote down this summary of his sentiments expressed to the German envoy:
It is difficult to accuse a priest or a member of the faithful of having been unfaithful to his duty because, out of pity, he has given food to an escaped prisoner or even a German deserter. If, on our side, we recommend prudence and correct behavior, comprehension should be shown also on the German side for acts of human pity such as the ones mentioned above. And since mention was made of laws, I pointed out that the latter are applied excessively and with too great severity: at the front and behind the front populations of several thousands of persons (women, children and old people) are forced to abandon their homes in a few hours, in some cases in a few minutes...and then everything is destroyed (household goods, houses, fields...). Sufferings are increasing to an unspeakable extent.
The Cardinal, hinting at the change of fortune that comes to those who take up the sword, wrote that he hoped the Holy See would not be put in a position of being unable to say a good word for Germany in the future.
Following the September Armistice, the doors of convents in Rome had been opened to all categories of refugees, regardless of their politics, religion or race. This unusual situation was already under study when the raid on St. Paul's provoked a new examination. Some of the reports then submitted to the Secretariat of State of His Holiness help illuminate the situation. For example, Msgr. Robert Ronca, rector of the Roman Seminary, reported on February 6 that he had 56 "guests." He said they had all signed a statement not to compromise the neutrality of the Holy See and the State of Vatican City and also not to perform any political activities (at least not on the premises; the National Committee met elsewhere). DeGasperi, he added, did not sign the document, as he was about to leave the Lateran anyway. (He moved to comparable shelter as the guest of Cardinal Celso Costantini at the Propaganda Fide.) None of the guests wore clerical garb, and all used their real names, said Msgr. Ronca.
A similar situation was reported for the Vatican City itself. In a February 13 report, Msgr. Anichini, the rector of the Canonica of St. Peter's, said his guests were living in crowded quarters and that they comprised military men, students, foreigners, Jews, displaced families and others. "All together," he said, "there are about 50 individuals in serious danger of being arrested and shot or deported. Those less exposed to risks have already departed of their own free will; the others prefer to face all dangers in the Canonica in the shadow of the house of the Father to whom they address the anguished invocation: 'Salva nos perimus.' "
A third report came from a pontifical institute which was not in Vatican City but which was also not extra-territorial. There, according to the rector, Msgr. Erminio Vigano, in early March were to be found 52 persons including many Jews. Such had been the situation, he said, since the previous October. After the October 16 raid on the ghetto of Rome, Jews had sought and found shelter in many religious houses. The largest group had gathered in the convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Sion on the Gianicolo. There, for months on end, lived about 200 Jewish men and women. Despite the conspicuous crowding and the inevitable complaints, the convent was not molested.
The problem of feeding the Roman population as military operations came closer to the Eternal City occupied the Pope's thoughts in the latter days of the German occupation. On February 26, the Holy Father's close personal friend, Enrico Galeazzi, and Father Pancrazio Pfeiffer were invited to Marshall Kesselring's headquarters on Monte Soracte, where they discussed the question of supplies for Rome with General Westphal, the German chief of staff. As far as supplies were concerned, they told the German official, the situation of Vatican City could not be separated from the situation of Rome itself. The two visitors were assured that the German military commander was cognizant of the Romans' need for food. But General Westphal complained of the indifference and passivity of the local population. "The general," the papal aides reported, "announced somewhat emphatically that if the citizens of Rome continued to fail to collaborate with the German authorities to ease these difficulties, the marshall intends to withdraw his protection from the city, as regards food." In fact, however, Vatican trucks were allowed to proceed to the North to collect food supplies.
In further concern for feeding Rome, the Vatican proposed the creation of a "Vatican flotilla," which would have consisted of about 20 small coastal vessels which would have plied between Ostia or Civita Vecchia and northern ports, bringing supplies. The plan never materialized, however, because the Germans delayed their approval and later, when the Allies were in Rome, they, too, rejected the proposal.
The Vatican's efforts to assure a stable food supply for the citizens of Rome were further hampered by an unreliable communications system. For example, between June 4, 1944, when the Allies entered Rome, and the following October, no courier bags were permitted to leave or enter the Vatican, so, for more than four months, the Vatican was effectively cut off from the rest of the world. The only regular contact possible during this interval was through Vatican Radio. In the meantime, diplomatic reports and other messages essential to the conduct of Church affairs piled up in Madrid, Lisbon or Berne, awaiting clearance from Allied authorities. The only exceptions to the embargo occurred when military personnel with authorization to leave or enter Rome unofficially brought letters with them. The Holy See did not protest the communications blockade, hoping no doubt that the problems would soon be alleviated. Instead they continued for months.
The ideal of "Rome, the open city," was dear to the heart of Pius XII, and he devoted most of his energy during 1944 to making that ideal a reality. The Holy Father's sentiments were shared by most Romans and even by the leaders of the Resistance. Accordingly, most members of the Resistance avoided provocative acts that might evoke drastic reactions, thus jeopardizing the existing uneasy equilibrium. Nevertheless, a few members of the Resistance thought it dishonorable that in Rome alone, of all Italian cities, there should be no "rising," no open sign of anti-Fascist resistance. The most active of such groups was the communist-directed GAP (Gruppi Azione Patriotica), which, after a series of minor attacks, decided that the time had come for a major gesture. On March 23, 1944, in the Via Rasella, a bomb exploded as a German unit was marching by. It killed 33 soldiers.
Regarding the action as a direct challenge to its authority, the German High Command in Berlin ordered the immediate execution of 10 Italians for every soldier who had been killed. According to the order, issued in Hitler's name, the reprisal must be completed within 24 hours. What followed, of course, is well known. By noon the next day, a convoy bearing the victims of the reprisal, who were yet unaware of their impending fate, was directed to the Ardeatine caves on the outskirts of Rome. Under the direction of SS Lt. Col. Herbert Kappler, 355 Italians who had no connection with the Rasella affair were taken from various prisons and shot to death in groups of five and buried in the caves. The executions were carried out in secrecy, but on the next day German authorities briefly announced that 10 Italians had been executed for every soldier who had been killed in the Via Rasella. Months passed, however, before the identities of all the victims became known.
The only record of the incident to be found in the archives of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness was a memo written by a Vatican secretary reporting a telephone call received at 10:15 a.m. on March 24. The caller, who described the bombing, added: "Counter-measures are still not known; it is thought, however, that for every German killed 10 Italians will be executed."
Beyond a doubt, the bloody massacre of German soldiers in a Roman street, with its obvious provocative intentions, prompted considerable concern and alarm in the Vatican. The prospect of a German reaction threatened to disrupt whatever tranquility remained in the city. It is impossible to suppose that Pius XII could fail to react with some effort to avert the worst, and the record of the Pontiff's concern for the lives of the unfortunates who fell into German and neo-Fascist hands during those months shows eloquently his sensitivity to such situations.
In the absence of documentation, therefore, one is left to surmise that the Pontiff intervened personally, as he had on so many earlier occasions, through his nephew Prince Carlo Pacelli or through the General Superior of the Salvatorian Fathers, Father Pancrazio Pfeiffer. Nor should one be surprised that such a supposed intervention had little chance of success; the order had come from Berlin and, moreover, what argument could a papal emissary use in favor of restraint? For the past several months, the Pope had argued that German restraint would ease the tension in Rome. Suddenly, the entire papal strategy had been under-mined by the spectacular and tragic liquidation of 33 German soldiers.
Ironically, about 35 of the Ardeatine victims had already been the objects of papal intervention. The Pope had intervened in behalf of many captured resistance leaders, including Bruno Buozzi, Giacomo Matei, Leon Ginzburg, Giuseppe LoPresti, Enzo Malatesta, Gianfranco Mastei, General Angelo Oddone, Mario Sbardella, Carlo Scalara, Stefano Siglienti and Antonello Trombadori.
Trombadori, who was chief of the GAP in Rome, managed to convince his interrogators that he had "never got involved in politics," thanks no doubt at least in part to the favorable testimony given by the Secretariat of State. Such manifest readiness by the Holy See to intervene for the lives of members of the Resistance strongly indicates that on March 23 and 24 the Holy Father also used all his influence in the direction of restraint, after calculated "resistance" on the Via Rasella.
The German embassy to the Vatican withdrew into discreet silence, and on March 29, von Weizsacker's office said that inquiries about persons jailed by the Germans should be addressed to the German police command, Via Tasso, 155, the notorious headquarters of SS Lt. Col. Herbert Kappler, the Nazi chief of police in Rome.
After June 1944, threats to Rome were alleviated by the shift of the war front to North Italy. But the shift created a new concern: the safety of cities famous for their art treasures, cities such as Florence, Ravenna, Bologna and a hundred smaller towns in the line of battle. At this time, too, Allied artillery was trained on the industrialized cities and the ports of the North: Turin and Milan, Venice and Genoa. From these heavily populated areas, appeals came to the Pope, imploring his intervention to avert disaster.
It is true that the Allies had given assurances that artistic monuments would be respected. Experts on Italian art and architectural treasures had conducted serious studies, identifying targets to be treated with deference. But the experience of Montecassino showed that military commanders on the spot could easily disregard the recommendations of their own art-specialists-in-uniform. Therefore, such assurances as that made by the British minister on May 13, 1944, were not greeted with much elation or confidence. Minister Sir d'Arcy Osborne, in a note to the Vatican, said: "The Holy See may therefore rest assured that, in so far as the use of Allied air and ground forces are concerned, every possible precaution is being taken to preserve Italian historic and artistic monuments from the effects of military operations."
From the German side, the mood to spare such cities as Florence appeared more positive. On June 1, the German embassy told the Vatican that Florence had been declared an "open city." Siena was to be treated in the same manner, with German troops to be routed around the center of the city. The Secretariat of State was pleased to communicate the German declaration to the American charge, Harold H. Tittmann, Jr., and to the British minister, Sir d'Arcy Osborne. And on June 20, it sent a more formal note to the two Allied diplomatic missions, as well as to the German embassy and to the nuncio in Berlin, in which it expressed the earnest prayer, that the "incomparable" towns of Tuscany, such as Florence, Pisa, Siena, Lucca and Arezzo, not become theaters of war. On June 29, Msgr. Tardini noted that Nuncio Orsenigo's reply from Berlin, citing the Foreign Ministry, caused him to suspect that German plans for safeguarding Florence and other towns only concealed a strategy for disengaging the Germans militarily. In fact, Orsenigo informed his superiors that the Germans wanted the Allies to wait from six to 18 hours before entering the cities abandoned by the German forces. "Who knows, on the contrary," recorded the worried and suspicious Tardini, "that they don't have the diabolical plan to bring about (or at least to provoke) their destruction?"
In the meantime, reports on the sufferings of the civilian population in the path of war came to the Vatican in increasing numbers. On July 15 — via the nuncio in Switzerland, by wireless — the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna, Giovanni Battista Nasalli Rocca di Corneliano, supported an appeal from the mayor of that city. Noting that Bologna had been bombarded 15 times, with 1,600 victims and 3,000 factories destroyed, he asked that Bologna be declared an open city; he affirmed that Marshall Kesselring was favorable.
Bologna, of course, was an industrialized city, which made it an ideal target for Allied bombing. Assisi, however, was not, so the Holy See could write with more confidence on behalf of the city of St. Francis. It was gratified to receive the Allied diplomats' assurance that "no permanent headquarters or other installation which can justify bombing by our enemies will be established there."
On August 2, the Secretariat of State sent to the German embassy an appeal from the Archbishop of Siena, Msgr. Mario Taccabelli, urging that the Germans declare Siena a "city of hospitality." On August 9, a similar note went to the British legation on behalf of Bologna as an "open city." The official military reply was that the Commander in Chief "cannot enter into any undertakings, such as declaring cities to be 'open,' which might prejudice the success of his operations and so lead to unnecessary loss of life among the troops for whom he is responsible." On October 21, the Secretariat of State informed the Allied diplomats that, according to information from the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna, all preparations had been made to make Bologna a "city of hospitality."
Milan, also heavily bombarded, appealed through the Vatican to the Allies for special consideration. On October 24, the Secretariat of State transmitted to the British legation an appeal that at least the center of the city, in which the Duomo and a large hospital were located, be spared. "The Secretariat of State of His Holiness," said the note, "cannot but make its own the request of the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, and trusts that the Allied commanders will not fail to adopt in good time all possible preventive measures in order that such a famous monument and the lives of so many innocent people may be spared." The Allied reply was, of course, noncommittal. "Every precaution" would be taken, consistent with military operations.
In the closing months of 1944, the Secretariat of State sought special consideration for Venice, Imola and Verona, with a similar lack of results. The Germans said Venice could not be declared a "city of hospitality" because it was in the war zone. Finally, in response to a request that the Vatican intercede on behalf of the city of Vercelli, Msgr. Tardini explained how useless such appeals were — "that requests of the Holy See that certain places not become battlefields have received only vague and unreassuring replies."
By 1944, as the end of the war approached, the Vatican was thoroughly aware of the Nazis' ruthlessness and intransigence, especially toward the Jews. The evaluation of Msgr. Domenico Tardini, secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, is typical. On August 7, the papal official transmitted to the German ambassador an Allied appeal on behalf of foreigners or stateless persons, mostly Jews, located in camps in Northern Italy. At the request of the American and British governments, the Holy See asked the German government to permit them to be gathered and sent to a port on the Adriatic coast, from which Allied ships would transport them to Southern Italy or Africa. The proposal, which emanated particularly from Myron C. Taylor, was issued just a few weeks after the July 20 attack on Hitler's life. According to Tardini, the Allied refugee specialists believed that, under the existing circumstances, the Nazis might be disposed to a concession, an act of clemency. Tardini himself did not think so. After handing the proposal to von Weizsacker, he recorded: "I told him I thought otherwise. The Nazis will get worse, the worse things are going for them." Nevertheless, telegrams in support of the project — as unrealistic as it may have been — went to the papal representatives in Berlin and Berne.
Still, there was a chance to provide some help to the threatened Jewish communities in the Balkans. This, then, was the scene of an intensive "war of telegrams" during 1944 in Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. The Apostolic Nuncio in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, was Msgr. Andreas Cassulo, who had previously secured relief for the Jews deported to Transnistria, a new Romanian province annexed from the Soviet Union in 1941 which had become a veritable penal colony. The nuncio's relations with the Jewish community, and especially with the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Alexander Safran, were close and confident. On January 22, 1944, Cassulo reported to his superiors the latest preoccupations of the Romanian Jews and the role that the Holy See might play. The time seemed opportune to secure the withdrawal of all Jews in Transnistria back to the center of the country, which was known as "the Kingdom." If they remained where they were, they would be in danger of falling into the hands of the retreating Germans. It was also proposed that the many orphans in this group might be sent to Palestine.
Not waiting for instructions, the nuncio immediately began diplomatic maneuvers, asking the government to raise the age limit of the orphans from 12 to 16, thereby increasing the number eligible for the exodus to Palestine. Soon after, the Grand Rabbi of Jerusalem asked the Holy See to intervene in a similar manner, but having already acted, the nuncio pointed out that further Vatican action would be superfluous. In a March 16 report to the Vatican, he said the government seemed ready for conciliation and that it would do even more were it not afraid of the reaction of the country's anti-Semites. The nuncio informed the Vatican that the civilian administration of Transnistria had been dismantled and that the population, including the Jews, "will be evacuated this side of the Nistra," that is, to safety beyond the reach of the Germans.
As for the orphans, on July 11, the nuncio informed Rome that the first Romanian refugee ship had arrived in Istanbul carrying 250 children from Costanza. Other ships would bring more refugees, he said, "and in this way the difficult question, which gave us so much work in the past, is reaching a successful solution." Naturally, he said, the gratitude of the Jewish community in Romania is felt deeply. Rabbi Herzog of Palestine also sent his thanks to the nuncio.
Obviously, one should not suppose that whatever positive results were gained through these initiatives were due solely, or even largely, to any reputed Vatican "influence." To do so would be to underestimate the vast and intensive activity of the Jewish organizations themselves. Yet the gratitude of the Jewish leaders, such as Rabbi Safran, was no less sincere and justified.
The Holy See's support was also sought in another, less efficacious attempt to evacuate Jews from Romania to Palestine. The Jewish organizations had secured the services of a Turkish vessel, the Tari, to shuttle refugees between Costanza and Istanbul-Haifa. The International Red Cross, however, insisted that the ship first obtain a guarantee of safe passage from the Germans. The Vatican instructed Nuncio Orsenigo to solicit the Foreign Ministry for such a guarantee. Unfortunately, though, at that same time, the Germans learned that the Turks, responding to Allied pressure, had refused to deliver chromium to the Reich, so the Tari was not allowed to sail. Notwithstanding Turkish policy, it is doubtful in any case that Berlin would have conceded safe passage to the Tari.
Among the first people to be deported to Auschwitz in May and June of 1944 was a group of Romanians whose fate is often identified with the tragedy of the Jews of Hungary. In the Arbitration of Vienna (August, 1940) the northern part of Transylvania (known as Siebenburgen, Ardeal or Erdely) had been transferred to Hungary, with dire consequences for the 150,000 Jews there. Following their deportation, Rabbi Safran, in a June 30 letter, informed the nuncio of the anguish of their relatives. Other Jews in Bucharest expressed similar feelings to the nuncio and to the Vatican itself. Months later, on December 11, they reported that little information was yet available about the fate of the deportees. Some, it was said, had been exterminated at Auschwitz; others had been sent to labor camps. No one had been able to penetrate the cloud of mystery hovering over their destiny. Jewish leaders asked the Holy See to seek Berlin's permission to distribute packages of medicine and clothing, and as late as January 31, 1945, the president of the International Red Cross declared his organization's willingness to cooperate with the Holy See in aiding the Jews of Transylvania, who had been missing since mid-1944. As a result the nuncio in Germany was instructed to explore ways of providing assistance.
The relationship of trust and confidence between Nuncio Cassulo and Chief Rabbi Safran is amply demonstrated by several communications. On May 25, 1945, the nuncio transmitted to his superiors two unqualified tributes. Rabbi Safran, he informed the Vatican, "has expressed to me several times...his gratitude for what has been done for him and for the Jewish community. Now he has begged me to convey to the Holy Father his feelings of thankfulness for the generous aid granted to prisoners in concentration camps on the occasion of the Christmas festivities. At the same time he told me he had written to Jerusalem, to the Chief Rabbi (Herzog), and also elsewhere, in America, to point out what the Nunciature has done for them in the lime of the present difficulties."
Rabbi Herzog's February 28 letter to the nuncio contained these expressions: "The 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 us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of divine Providence in this world."
After the armistice of August 23, 1944, Rabbi Safran publicly reiterated the same sentiments, which the intervening months had given no cause for him to revise. To the entire international Jewish community, on December 3, 1944, he declared: "My permanent contact with, and spiritual closeness to, His Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio, the Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps of Bucharest, were decisive for the fate of my poor community. In the house of this high prelate, before his good heart, I shed my burning tears as the distressed father of my community, which was hovering feverishly between life and death."
In the spring of 1944, after long months of apparent standstill, a new alarm was sounded for the surviving Jewish population in Slovakia. But the storm did not really break until September, when an ill-fated and perhaps premature "rising" prompted the Germans to assume control of the country, with the Jews as the major scapegoat. The initial alarm of a renewed deportation of Jews came from the World Jewish Congress in the United States. On January 29, 1944, it warned the apostolic delegate in Washington D.C., Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, that a census of Jews was being taken, with a view toward deportation. The Nuncio Rotta in neighboring Hungary issued a similar warning at that same time. As alarming as those reports were, they did not, in fact, signal an immediate deportation. The charge Burzio reported that there was no immediate danger to the Jews, and subsequent events proved him right. On February 25, the Secretariat of State passed on to Burzio a warning by the United States that it would take into account the treatment accorded the Jews in Slovakia, and that it would hold President Tiso and his collaborators responsible for any mistreatment. That same spring, two young Slovaks escaped from Auschwitz, bringing to their people the facts of the deportees' destiny. On May 22, the papal charge Burzio sent to the Vatican the famous Auschwitz Protocol written by the two young escapees. However, that report did not reach the Vatican until October, due to the blockade of Vatican communications after the liberation of Rome in June 1944.
After the abortive rising of September, the Jews were brought back to the camp at Sered, from which they were deported. Their destination, however, was not Auschwitz, which was being dismantled in the face of the Red Army advance, but camps in Germany itself, notably Bergen-Belsen. Alerted by Burzio, Roncalli and others, the Holy See sent instructions on September 19 to the charge in Bratislava, directing him to intervene for the Jews in the name of the Holy See, first to the Slovak foreign ministry and then to President Tiso. According to his instructions, the charge was to point out "that the Holy See expects from the Slovak authority an attitude in conformity with the Catholic principles and sentiments of the people of Slovakia." It added that a collective action by the bishops might also prove useful. On the following day, the Holy See dispatched a verbal note to Karol Sidor, the Slovak minister to the Vatican. "The Holy See," declared the note, "moved by those sentiments of humanity and Christian charity that always inspire its work in favor of the suffering, without distinction of parties, nationalities or races, cannot remain indifferent to such appeals...."
Two weeks later, the Slovak minister told the Vatican that the Germans had indeed intended to deport the Jews, but that, through the personal protest of President Tiso, on the grounds of the Slovak constitution, the Jews would not be deported but only assembled in labor camps. It was a German promise, as Dr. Tiso later recognized, that was not kept.
As had happened so many times before, the action of the Holy See, informed by its own envoys, anticipated the urgent appeals that soon flooded into the Vatican from Jewish spokesmen around the world. On September 23, Myron C. Taylor of the War Refugee Board in Washington apprised the Secretariat of State of the situation in Slovakia, and Rabbi Herzog in Palestine sent a similar message two days later. On September 28, Msgr. Tardini informed the U.S. representative that the Holy See "has already hastened to intervene with the aforesaid government, in order that the feared measures may not be applied." He added that the assistance of the Slovak episcopate had also been solicited. In an October 6 telegram, the charge Burzio reported that the arrests in Bratislava, which he had anticipated had begun on September 29. On that same day, he said, he went to President Tiso to urge his intervention at least for the baptized Jews, who were very numerous. Burzio confirmed that the government had declared the Jews had the protection of the laws and that the government "would not consent to their deportation."
By October 26, however, Burzio reported that the deportations had already begun and the search for Jews in hiding was continuing without foreseeable relief. His report had a profound impact in the Vatican, which had been following simultaneous events in Hungary. Msgr. Tardini — who was now, de facto, secretary of State, following the death of Cardinal Maglione — recorded his reflections: "The acts of injustice and violence committed under his presidency weigh upon his priestly soul, dishonor his country, discredit the clergy and damage the Church also abroad...." The resulting telegram, drafted under Tardini's direction, bears corrections in the hand of Pius XII, indicating of course that it was seen by the Pontiff before it was dispatched. The October 29 telegram informed Burzio that his message had caused great pain to the Holy Father. It directed him to proceed immediately to President Tiso to inform him of the Pope's anguish: "Go at once to President Tiso and, informing him of His Holiness's deep sorrow on account of sufferings 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."
The Vatican soon received, via the British minister, a communication from the Czech government in London expressing its confidence in the efficacy of a Vatican intervention for Czechs and Jews. The Vatican's November 2 reply included a review of the Holy See's past and present actions. After recalling its "energetic protests" to the Slovak government, particularly in 1941-42, the Vatican note to the British minister concluded: "The Holy See, moved by those sentiments of humanity and Christian charity that always inspire its work in favor of those who are suffering, without distinction of religion, nationality or race, will continue also in the future, in spite of the growing difficulties 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."
On November 4, Burzio went as ordered to President Tiso on a mission that surely few apostolic nuncios have ever performed in modern times. The priest-president said he would give his own answer in writing to the Pope. Five days later Dr. Tiso summoned the papal charge and gave him a letter, handwritten in Latin, which clarified his attitude and the position of his government toward the Jewish question. It arrived in Rome on December 19.
Among the Jews facing deportation in October was a group of about 400 persons in possession of passports from the United States and various Latin American countries. On October 7, following an appeal from the United States, the Secretariat of State had sent a note on their behalf to Karol Sidor, the Slovak minister. On November 21, an additional telegram was sent to the charge in Bratislava, with the instruction: "The Holy See relies greatly on your deep interest and that of the episcopate in order that, in conformity with the universal mission of charity of the Church, all possible influence may be exerted on that government so that any Jews who are still in Slovak territory may be treated in a humane and Christian way."
What happened in fact was that the 400 had been taken under the special protection of the Slovak foreign ministry and brought to a separate shelter at Marianka, under the vigilance not of the German SS but of the Slovak gendarmerie. Nevertheless, they were again, seized by the Germans and their passports declared forgeries. Only four were recognized as having authentic U.S. papers and returned to Marianka, where they were joined by the pitiful remnants of another raid, making a total of 13. They too were soon removed to Germany.
On November 21, having learned of the deportations, the Holy See notified Sidor of its indignation at the failure of the Slovak government to maintain its pledge. The Vatican note concluded:
This news, in contradiction with the assurances referred to above, has been learned with deep sorrow by the Holy See which, once more, finds itself in the painful necessity of expressing its regret. The Holy See hopes that the Slovak government, in accordance with the principles of the Catholic religion, to which the vast majority of the people belongs, will leave no stone unturned in order that the Jews who are still in the territory of the Republic may not be subjected to even more severe sufferings.
Confined in the German concentration camp at Vittel, France, were more Jews who claimed citizenship of either the United States or Latin American nations. They, too, were the objects of protracted and intensive diplomatic negotiations, with the Holy See as a willing participant. According to a report filed December 31, 1943, by the Nuncio Bernardini, they had been transferred from Germany to France, where they were kept together in the ostensible hope that they could be exchanged for Germans interned in the Western hemisphere. However, because in many cases their documents appeared to have been illegally obtained, one Latin American government after another withdrew its recognition of the passports, causing the prisoners' fragile situation to grow increasingly grave.
On December 27, 1943, the apostolic delegate in Washington wired his superiors that the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada had pleaded for lenience toward the thousands of Polish Jews interned at Vittel. The Vatican, under Maglione's signature, immediately appealed to the Spanish government, the protecting power, urging it to maintain its support. And instructions were sent to Paraguay, one of the most involved states, to urge that rejection of the documents be suspended. On January 24, following contacts with the International Red Cross, the Vatican sent circular instructions to the other nunciatures in Latin America, instructing them to solicit from the respective governments continued recognition of the passports, "no matter how illegally obtained."
The controversy over the Latin American passports seemed to subside for a short time. But on March 20, 1944, a German order set the stage for the transfer of the affected prisoners to the infamous camp at Drancy. From Madrid, alerted by Rome, the Nuncio Gaetano Cicognani on April 12 telegraphed that the German government did not welcome Spanish intervention for Jews (other than for Sephardic Jews, whose Spanish citizenship the Madrid government recognized.) "However," stated the nuncio, "with regard to the Jews at Vittel this government will take opportune steps in view of an exchange between German civilians interned in America and Jews."
A few days later, the United States government finally moved to intervene. On April 18, the apostolic delegate in Washington reported that "government personalities and representatives of Jewish organizations" had assured him that the U.S. government was ready to assist those Jews at Vittel, once released; that is, if they were allowed to leave France, presumably to Spain. But on April 26, Nuncio Bernardini said the Spanish intervention was insufficient and inefficacious. Worse yet, those Jews had been transferred to Drancy.
The desperate race against the clock continued. On May 16 the War Refugee Board came to the Delegate Cicognani with a new and belated proposal. They urged that the Jews, estimated to total 238, be returned to Vittel from Drancy on Spanish initiative. Maglione, despite his grounds for serious misgivings, issued the instructions. On May 20, he informed the Madrid nuncio of the appeal, adding: "I am aware of the difficulty of obtaining what is requested; however, I beg Your Excellency to consider if it is possible to take any further step in this direction."
With the landing of the Allies in France on June 6, no further correspondence on this subject was possible.
In 1944 the epicenter of the Jewish tragedy passed to Hungary. In this country, despite the enactment of severe anti-Semitic laws earlier, the Jews enjoyed relative safety beyond Nazi control. The Hungarian government of the Regent, Admiral Nicholas Horthy, did not hand over to the Germans any of its Jews, not even the many refugees from Poland and Slovakia. Hence, the consternation of the world Jewish community when on March 23, 1944, German troops marched into Hungary on the pretext of safeguarding communications. Budapest and its environs remained under the Regent's control until October, but wholesale deportations to Auschwitz from outlying parts of the country began in mid-May. The deportations were interrupted in early June when Admiral Horthy temporarily regained control. However, the Germans arrested Horthy in October, putting control of all Hungary in the hands of the fanatical anti-Semites of the Arrow Cross movement, and the massacre of the Jews was resumed. A third stage in the German reign of horror was the deportation of the remaining Jews not to Auschwitz but for labor in Austria — a useless and heartless death march. Not until December 23, 1944, did the Eichmann Kommando leave Budapest.
The Holy See's participation in the efforts to save the Hungarian Jews relative to the tragic months of 1944 is massively documented in the pages of Volume 10, here reviewed, of the Acts and Documents of the Holy See Relative to the Second World War. The general outline of the Holy See's actions on behalf of the Jews of Hungary is already known from other sources, but the newly edited documentation chronicles with precision the day-by-day, week-by-week interventions of the Holy See and its nuncio, His Excellency Angelo Rotta, in behalf of the imperiled Jews. Those actions are notable for their coordination with the hopes and plans of the many Jewish organizations, which followed with passion the unfolding of the tragedy.
As 1944 began, concern for Hungary was largely limited to the Polish Jews who had taken refuge in the country. On January 29, the Apostolic Delegate Cicognani in Washington transmitted an appeal from the World Jewish Congress, asking the Holy See to use its influence with the Hungarians to permit the Polish refugees to be aided with money sent from the United States. But the March 23 German takeover drastically altered that situation. On March 25, the Delegate Cicognani informed the Vatican that the War Refugee Board — a newly created governmental organization linking all the Jewish organizations in a common program of aid to Jews — urged the Holy See to take urgent measures to aid the nearly two million Jews of Hungary (and Romania) living under terror and persecution and now threatened with extinction. The Board, said Cicognani, urged the full cooperation of the nuncio in Budapest, Msgr. Rotta, and the Hungarian bishops. The War Refugee Board's message was immediately transmitted to Budapest. In his March 28 reply, the Cardinal Secretary of State reminded the Washington Delegate that the Holy See had been constantly alert to the problem. The nuncios in Budapest and Bucharest, he said, would be instructed to take yet further appropriate action on behalf of the Jews in those countries. He warned, however, that the chances of significant accomplishment were slim.
The spontaneous turning to Rome was not limited to Jewish organizations in the United States. On March 31, a message arrived in the Vatican from the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Rabbi Herzog, who addressed himself to the Holy See through Msgr. Roncalli, the apostolic delegate in Istanbul. On March 30, the nuncio transmitted an appeal from the Swiss Jewish Committee, and on that same day, the Delegate Godfrey transmitted an appeal from the Chief Rabbi of London, Dr. Hertz. On April 1, the British minister, Sir d'Arcy Osborne, submitted his government's request that the Holy See use its influence to prevent Jewish "refugees" in Hungary from being turned over to the Germans. Actually, it was not just the refugees who were in danger but the entire indigenous Jewish population.
From Budapest itself, the first information returned by Archbishop Rotta was fairly reassuring. For the moment, he telegraphed on March 31, there seemed to be no immediate danger of a persecution of the Jews. But he foresaw a bitter struggle and reported that many Jews had already been arrested. In the first days after the takeover, the nuncio was particularly concerned about the effect of the new anti-Semitic regulations on the status of the many baptized Jews in Hungary. But in keeping with his instructions from the Holy See, his position was amply clear: for the baptized Jews he insisted (not very successfully) that they have all the rights of non-Jewish Catholics, and for the others of Jewish origin, he demanded that they be treated according to the norms of fundamental human rights. In the coming months, with the emergence of a truly disastrous situation and under the impact of numerous queries and instructions from Rome, the nuncio was to engage increasingly in activities on behalf of the second category of victims of Hungarian anti-Semitism.
The first deportations to Auschwitz began on May 14. On the following day, the nuncio wrote two letters of protest, one to Dome Sztojay, the prime minister who was also foreign minister, the other to the Foreign Ministry itself. "The very fact of persecuting men merely on account of their racial origin," Rotta wrote to Sztojay, "is a violation of the natural law. If God has given them life, no one in the world has the right to take it from them or refuse them the means of preserving it, unless they have committed crimes. But to take anti-Semite measures, not taking into account at all the fact that many Jews have become Christians through reception of baptism, is a serious offense against the Church and in contradiction with the character of the Christian state, such as Hungary is proud to profess itself, even today."
In the note to the Foreign Ministry, Rotta complained: "Up to now all steps (for the baptized Jews) have been to no avail; on the contrary — as far as the nunciature knows — it is planned to arrive at the deportation (even if the reality is disguised) of hundreds of thousands of persons. Everyone knows what a deportation means in practice."
At this stage, of course, neither the nuncio nor the Jewish community in Budapest knew the real destination or fate of the deportees. But word of the new measure quickly spread beyond the country, and on May 17 the Vatican heard from the apostolic delegate in Washington that, according to a War Refugee Board report, deportations had begun to "an unknown destination." Cicognani reported that the Board was counting on intervention by the Holy See. To the ensuing Vatican query, Msgr. Rotta reported on May 24 that he had protested strongly in defense of the Jews, especially for those baptized, and against the camouflaged deportation. In the meantime, he stated, the deportations were continuing as "forced labor" and carried out with systematic police brutality.
As expected, the Foreign Ministry's reply to Rotta's May 15 note was sharply negative. It scoffed at the religious sincerity of the converts from Judaism, and besides, it said, the problem was one of race, which is not changed by baptism. The question of the deportations was avoided by a patent falsehood — the Jews were being sent for labor. "It is not at all a question of deportation," the Foreign Minister said, "and the necessary measures will be taken in order that their transportation will be carried out if possible in the company of their families, under humane conditions."
Fortified with strong backing from the Cardinal Secretary of State, received on May 29, the nuncio wrote a letter, dated June 5, which was strong by any diplomatic standards:
In the meantime and to its deepest regret, the Apostolic Nunciature has been informed, and by a reliable source, about the conclusions of a recent conference, at which it was decided to deport all Hungarian Jews, without distinction of religion.... According to other information, also absolutely reliable, deportation is already being carried out and with such methods that a number of persons succumb even before reaching the place of deportation....
On the theme of deportation, Rotta continued:
It is said that it is not a question of deportation, but of compulsory labor. It is possible to discuss about the words; but the reality is the same. When old men of over 70 and even over 80, old women, children and sick persons, are taken away, one wonders for what work these human beings can be used? The reply given is that Jews have been given the possibility of taking their families with them; but then the departure of the latter should be a matter of free choice. And what is to be said of cases in which these old people, sick people, etc., are the only ones deported, or when there is no relative whom they should follow? And when we think that Hungarian workers, who go to Germany for reasons of work, are forbidden to take their families, we are really surprised to see that this great favor is granted only to Jews.
Archbishop Rotta vigorously pressed his right and duty to protest particularly for those Jews who had become Catholics by baptism, and he rejected the allegation that their conversions were of dubious good faith. Reiterating his original position, he demanded "that Christian Jews should be exempted from the anti-Semite provisions...that all Jews should be treated in a humane way; and that even in the measures it will be necessary to take for the defense of the legitimate interests of the state, justice should always be safeguarded, as well as the fundamental rights of the human person."
Also transpiring during May and June were the negotiations between the Nazi chief of the deportations, Adolph Eichmann, and the head of the Jewish Rescue Committee in Hungary, Reszoe Kastner. On May 19 Joel Brand arrived in Istanbul bearing Eichmann's proposal to exchange the surviving Jews for 10,000 trucks.
Rotta's records give no indication that he or the Jewish community in Budapest knew the real significance of the wholesale expulsion of the Hungarian Jews. The brutality and secrecy accompanying the departures were enough to stigmatize the deportations as atrocities in themselves.
Meanwhile, the world Jewish community was active in its appeals. On June 1, the U.S. charge, Harold H. Tittmann, Jr., on instructions from his government, asked what the Holy See had done for the Jews of Hungary. On June 9, Cicognani reported from Washington that four important rabbis of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe had addressed an anxious appeal to the Holy Father. It is known for certain, they said, that the extermination of Jews in Hungary had begun and was continuing. They asked the Pope to make a public appeal in the strongest possible terms to save these victims. The Hungarian Catholics, they said, would be impressed by an appeal from such a lofty source. On the same day, Rabbi Herzog of Palestine sent a similar message by way of the Delegate in Cairo, Arthur Hughes.
In reply to the resulting queries from Rome, Rotta could only confirm that 300,000 Jews had already been deported. It is rumored, he said in a June 18 telegram, that one-third of those had really been put to work outside of Hungary, but the fate of the remainder was still a matter of diverse speculation. Some responsible persons, he said, even speak of "annihilation camps." In any case, he said, the treatment of the deportees at departure was "truly ghastly." Direct intervention by the Holy See would be "extremely useful not to mention necessary," he said, especially since transports for new deportations were already standing ready.
On June 24 Rotta again wired the Vatican saying deportations were continuing and protests were unavailing. The faithful, said the nuncio, were surprised at the "inactivity" of the bishops. He again urged an appeal to the primate, Cardinal Seredi.
Also on June 24, the American charge brought the Cardinal Secretary a message from the War Refugee Board. After recognizing that His Holiness had been sorely grieved by the "wave of hate" engulfing Europe and had labored unceasingly to inculcate a decent regard for the dignity of man, activated by a great compassion for the sufferings of a large portion of mankind, the message turned Hungary.
Referring to the plan to deport 800,000 Jews in Hungary, the Board expressed its hope "...that His Holiness may find it appropriate to express himself on this subject to the authorities and people of Hungary, great numbers of whom profess spiritual adherence to the Holy See, personally by radio, through the nuncio and clergy in Hungary, as well as through a representative of the Holy See who might be specially dispatched to Hungary."
Editor's Note: (In his book, While Six Million Died, Arthur D. Morse puts forth a quite spurious version of this note from the War Refugee Board, and also gives it a false date, putting it some weeks earlier. "The Pope would wait a full month before sending his personal plea to Admiral Horthy," Morse writes. Actually, the Pope's note to Horthy is dated the day after receipt of the American appeal.)
The flurry of Vatican correspondence in May and June culminated in the famous open telegram of June 25 sent by Pius XII to the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy. It has been supposed that the papal message was sent because of the "Auschwitz Protocol," which was transmitted in May by the charge in Bratislava, the Nuncio Burzio. The relevant Vatican papers now demonstrate, however, that the memorandum containing the most authoritative and detailed description of the gas chambers at Auschwitz did not in fact reach the Vatican until late October, because Vatican couriers had been cut off since the Allied occupation of Rome.
The papal telegram to Horthy, according to the papers of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness, had already been drafted on June 12. Its preparation was the product of the incessant warnings and appeals from Rotta and the Jewish organizations. Most influential of all, perhaps, was Rotta's May 24 telegram suggesting a "passo diretto" by the Holy See.
Putting aside the War Refugee Board's suggestions that he make a personal radio appeal or send an envoy to Budapest, Pope Pius XII enacted his own plan, which proved successful. His June 25 "open" telegram to Admiral Horthy read as follows:
We are being beseeched in various quarters to do everything in our power in order that, in this noble and chivalrous nation, the sufferings, already so heavy, endured by a large number of unfortunate people, because of their nationality or race, may not be extended and aggravated. As our Father's heart cannot remain insensitive to these pressing supplications by virtue of our ministry of charity, which embraces all men, we address Your Highness personally, appealing to your noble sentiments in full confidence that you will do everything in your power that so many unfortunate people may be spared other afflictions and other sorrows.
The combination of factors that caused Admiral Horthy to reassert his authority and order the suspension of the deportations is, of course, beyond the scope of this review of Volume 10 of the Actes. Among those factors, though, were a press campaign launched in Switzerland, followed by an outpouring of messages from world leaders and the July 5 announcement by British Foreign Minister Sir Anthony Eden that the British radio would be employed to warn the Hungarian leaders. The Pope's open telegram, however, was the first of such protests to be sent to Horthy.
The suspension of the deportations had many causes — including the bombing of Budapest — but the vigilance of the papal nuncio, Angelo Rotta, his repeated protests and, finally, the papal telegram can be said to have been of no small importance in this denouement. The Jewish organizations and the War Refugee Board, as their messages published in the Actes demonstrate, readily acknowledged the salutary effect of the papal intervention.
The nightmare was, alas, far from over. Not only were surreptitious deportations carried out by the Eichmann Kommando but atrocities on Hungarian soil redoubled. Horthy's days were numbered, and his power diminished progressively under German pressure. Rumors of a forthcoming renewal of deportations grew. This time the nuncio adopted a new approach: As dean of the diplomatic corps in Budapest, he mobilized the heads of the four other neutral diplomatic missions for a joint protest. On August 21, Rotta and the envoys from Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland presented their remonstrances, declaring: "The undersigned representatives of the Neutral Powers accredited in Budapest have learned with a sentiment of painful surprise that the deportations of the Jews of Hungary are to begin again soon. They are also informed — and by absolutely reliable sources — what deportation means in most cases, even if it is disguised under the name of work abroad."
The five diplomats said the deportations were "unjust in their motive — for it is absolutely inadmissible that men should be persecuted and put to death just because of their racial origin — and brutal in their execution." This phraseology, already used by the nuncio, indicates that the joint message was drafted by Rotta too.
With military and political events of great portent rushing to their ultimate conclusion, conditions soon worsened for the Jews in Hungary. On October 15, Horthy, trying to reach an armistice with the Soviets, was arrested by the Germans. Hungary, then came under the control of the fanatical anti-Semites of the Arrow Cross movement with Ferenc Szalasi as Prime Minister. In the face of this new disaster, the Jewish organizations renewed their appeals to the Pope.
In an October 25 communication, the War Refugee Board reverted to the earlier proposal for a papal address by Vatican Radio in which the Holy Father would exhort the Hungarians to aid the Jews by hiding them and otherwise opposing the deportations. Again, however, Pius XII had a different way to the same end. His clue was provided by Rotta, who reported on October 22 that a collection for the "refugees" would be taken up in all the churches during the following week. On the day before the planned collections, an unusual papal message went by telegram to Cardinal Seredi. It seemed like an ordinary telegram of circumstance, but the Pope began by stating: "...urgent appeals continue to reach us from this nation imploring our intervention for the defense of persons exposed to persecution and violence because of their religious confession, or their race or their political convictions...." The Pope added his support to the call of the Hungarian bishops and concluded, "We form wishes that, in conformity with principles of humanity and justice, sufferings of this redoubtable conflict, already extremely serious, may not become even graver." The primate of Hungary may have been surprised to receive that unsolicited and unprecedented papal telegram, but he could not have missed the meaning of its opening reference to the racial question.
On November 10, the nuncio called on the new Hungarian foreign minister, Kemeny. According to the record of that meeting, discovered by the Allies after the war, Rotta wanted answers to four questions: Why have the transports to the West resumed, despite the prime minister's promise to the contrary? Why, despite the prime minister's pledges of humane treatment of the Jews, do those victims continue to be mistreated? Why has the Ministry of the Interior, again despite the promises of the prime minister, failed to recognize travel passes and protection letters? And why had there occurred the gravest of atrocities in the areas placed under the protection of the foreign diplomatic missions? Of course, no consistent answers were forthcoming.
The indefatigable nuncio appeared at the government offices again on November 17, this time with Swedish Ambassador Danielsson for an audience with Prime Minister Szalasi. Summarizing the meeting and its results in a November 27 report, Rotta said, "No practical result was hoped for, in view of the mentality made up of religious ignorance and fanatical hatred of the Jews among the mass of the Arrow Cross." In that report, the nuncio informed the Vatican that he had issued 13,000 "Letters of Protection" which have "served some purpose at least to prevent for a certain time many Jews and especially baptized Jewish women from being deported." Rotta did not explain to his chiefs in Rome how the Vatican "protection letters" operated, except that they did help. In fact, those documents, like others issued at the same time by the other neutral diplomatic missions, became a sort of habeas corpus for many.
The terrible death march to Hegyeshalom on the Austrian border occurred in the final days of Nazi control of Hungary. On December 8, Rotta sent the Vatican what he described as a "pro-memoria presented to me on this matter by a religious sent by the nunciature as far as the frontiers of Hungary to relieve the sufferings of the wretched deportees and especially the ones protected by the nunciature."
The unidentified narrator, witness and rescuer began his recital in this way: "Only Dostoevsky's pen would be capable of describing the horrors that accompany deportation from Budapest to Hegyeshalom, the frontier station. Going there by lorry, you pass group after group of deportees dragging themselves along, starving, frozen, limping, exhausted...."
By the end of December, Soviet forces encircled half of Budapest, but the anti-Jewish measures continued until the end. On December 23, 1944, the five neutral diplomatic missions joined in another, final protest. The government had decided to enclose all Jews in a ghetto, thereby of course driving them from whatever shelter they had found in various embassies, religious houses and other hospitable centers. In their general remonstrance, the diplomats urged that at least children and their mothers should be permitted to remain. This document was sent to Rome by the nuncio months later, with no account of the outcome.
During the last months of the war, as the Reich crumbled, there spread through Europe a sensational alarm concerning the Nazis' reported intention to exterminate all foreigners under their control. Though the report was taken seriously by the Allied governments, it was never confirmed after the war, so it has passed into obscurity largely ignored by historians. But, as the documents show, the Holy See was caught up in this final burst of fear of a climactic Nazi atrocity.
The Vatican learned of the warning through Polish Ambassador Casimir Papee on September 25, 1944. All the inmates of Auschwitz were to be liquidated, he said. Accordingly, on the next day, the nuncio in Berlin was asked to intervene in whatever way he judged most effective. This time the Secretariat did not ask him to first verify the report. The Holy See told him it had been informed, "that German authorities were preparing a massacre of prisoners in Auschwitz concentration camp. These prisoners, accused of political crimes,' are said to amount to 45,000, mainly Poles, but also Italians and other nationalities."
Several days later the Apostolic Delegate in Washington reported that a group of Jewish spokesmen had asked for a papal appeal to the German government and to the German people "as the only means to save the existence" of the Jews and in particular the 45,000 Jews and Christians of Polish, French and Czech nationality, interned at Auschwitz and in imminent danger of death. Later, Cicognani amended his telegram, adding the camp of Birchenau-Nauss (sic). The Red Cross of Geneva had reportedly appealed to the Germans too. In an October 18 telegram from Washington, Cicognani said, "situation deportees in Germany already distressing, if events precipitate it might become tragic and end in a bloodbath."
On October 13, Orsenigo reported from Berlin that the reports, according to the Wilhelmstrasse, were Allied propaganda. Orsenigo himself commented in his report: "though admitting sincerity (of the) Foreign Ministry, it is not excluded that the notorious SS formations have received secret instructions that are very different."
After subsiding somewhat, the alarm revived again in the last months of the war. On January 25, 1945, Tardini warned Orsenigo again, after receiving information from the Polish ambassador. On March 3, 1945, Orsenigo was instructed to take steps to assure the safety of prisoners, deportees, internees and foreign laborers, but at that late date, from his remote base at Eichstatt, there was little that Orsenigo could do. On March 18, the delegate in Washington reported that the Jews in America were "terrified" at the report that all Jews in German hands, estimated at 600,000, would be liquidated. In his March 28 reply, Tardini recounted the Vatican's efforts to forestall such a tragedy. Responding to rumors that Germans would be sent to labor in Russia, he said such a move would not be the very best way to prevent further massacres of Jews and Poles.
Failures and lack of success do not in any way detract from the merit of the good effort. Of rejections and disappointments the Holy See experienced many, as indeed did also the many and varied Jewish organizations and men of devotion who saw their struggles reduced to saving the small minority of victims lucky enough to be in a special position, while witnessing, helplessly, the daily massacre of the vast majority.
As Professor Burkhart Schneider said in his concluding remarks to Volume 9 of the Actes, "For the right understanding also of this volume of documents, it must be considered that it is impossible to reconstruct the whole picture of events from the Actes alone, even when they exist and are published in such a large number. What is preserved in writing and transmitted is often only a pale shadow of the reality. And if that is true in general, it applies all the more in the field of charitable activities, which the Church tried to develop. For charity and its initiatives pass unnoticed, to a fair extent, when it is a question of a scientific collection of data, which is necessarily dry and detached."
To that should be added one further observation on the question of the meaning of papal action. It has been said — and even recently, in a book by an American priest (Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust 1939-1943, by John F. Morley, KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1980)-that the Holy See was concerned only with the safety of Catholic Jews and not only in this, Volume 10 of the Actes, but in those that preceded. The close and constant collaboration of the leading world Jewish organizations with the Holy See in matters concerning the Jews, and the close relationships between the nuncios and the local leaders of the Jewish communities, are eloquent witness that the Holy See did in fact carry out its humanitarian mission "without distinction of nationality, religion or race." To say otherwise is to do violence to the historical record and to perpetrate a gratuitous denigration of a great humanitarian and Pope.
When armed force ruled well-nigh omnipotent, and morality was at its lowest ebb, Pius XII commanded none of the former and could only appeal to the latter, in confronting, with bare hands, the full might of evil.
A sounding protest, which might turn out to be self-thwarting — or quiet, piecemeal rescue? Loud words — or prudent deeds? The dilemma must have been sheer agony, for whichever course he chose, horrible consequences were inevitable. Unable to cure the sickness of an entire civilization, and unwilling to bear the brunt of Hitler's fury, the Pope, unlike many far mightier than he, alleviated, relieved, retrieved, appealed, petitioned, — and saved as best he could by his own lights.
Who, but a prophet or a martyr could have done much more?...
The Talmud teaches us that, "whosoever preserves one life, it is accounted to him by Scripture as if he had preserved a whole world."
If this is true — and it is as true as that most Jewish of tenets, the sanctity of human life — then Pius XII deserves that forest in the Judean hills which kindly people in Israel proposed for him in October 1958. A memorial forest, like those planted for Winston Churchill, King Peter of Yugoslavia and Count Bernadotte of Sweden-with 860,000 trees.
Pinchas Lapide
Three Popes and the Jews (pp 267-269)
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania
To The Editor Of Commentary:To Dr. Lewy's...very scholarly work...I should like to add a few points about the factors that were behind Pius XII's silence:
(1) Pius XII knew that public statements by Roosevelt, Churchill, etc. warning that the murderers of the Jews would be brought to justice, had proved completely futile. High Nazi functionaries, as we know from the Nuremburg files, reacted to such warnings with comments like: ..."I feel myself honored"; or "Put this in the files."
(2) The Pope had met with only discouraging results in his numerous efforts to intervene on behalf of persecuted Catholic priests as well as on behalf of many Jews. Despite his efforts, more than 3,000 Catholic priests in Germany, Austria, Poland, France, and other countries were put to death by the Nazis, as is shown in the forthcoming study, Chronicle of the Martyr Priests, by Mrs. B.M. Kempner.
(3) The study will show further that besides Provost Lichtenburg, there were many other German priests who helped Jews to escape, gave them assistance in other ways, and preached openly against the Nazi doctrine. They were tried by the Nazi Peoples' Court and either executed or sent to concentration camps.
(4) On learning of a possible public protest by the Vatican, Ribbentrop, who issued numerous deceptive answers to Vatican protests, sent his Ambassador Ernst von Weizsaecker a guideline on silencing the Vatican, as follows (telegram no. 181, dated January 24, 1943): "Should the Vatican plan to make a political or propagandistic statement against Germany, it should be made clear to them that any worsening in relations would by no means work one-sidedly to Germany's disadvantage. It should be made clear that the Reich government has no lack of effective propaganda material and certainly could take adequate steps to counter effectively any strike against Germany attempted by the Vatican."
(5) Among the measures scheduled to follow upon Hitler's victory were the following: "every Catholic State must select its own Pope"... [and] "the Bishop of Muenster will go before the firing squad one day." These and similar pronouncements by Hitler were noted by Alfred Rosenberg in his diary ...Similar threats are in Hitler's Table Talk.
(6) Every propaganda move of the Catholic Church against Hitler's Reich would have been not only "provoking suicide," as Rosenberg actually stated, but would have hastened the execution of still more Jews and priests.
(Dr.) Robert M.W. Kempner
Formerly U.S. Deputy Chief of Counsel at the Nuremburg War Crimes TrialsReprinted With Permission From The June 1964, Edition Of Commentary.
© Catholic League for Religious & Civil Rights
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