Between 1940 and 1946 Harold Tittmann (1893-1981) was assistant to Myron Taylor, President Roosevelt's personal representative to the Holy See. While Taylor was more often than not absent from Rome, Tittmann remained in the Vatican throughout the war years. His account of that time, Inside the Vatican of Pius XII is a valuable insight into life "on the inside."
Harold Tittmann and Pius XII
Reference:
AES 3980/44
Location
and date: Vatican, 24.06.1944
Summary
statement: The War Refugee Board reports on the imminent massacre of the Jews
of Hungary and requests papal intervention.
Language:
English
Text:
I have
been instructed by my Government in a telegram dated June 13,1944 to deliver
the following message to Your Eminence form the War Refugee Board, Washington.
“We know
His Holiness has been sorely grieved by the wave of hate which has engulfed
Europe and the consequent mass enslavement, persecution and slaughter of
helpless man [sic] women and children. His Holiness, we also know, has laboured
unceasingly to reinculcate a decent regard for the dignity of man activated by
great compassion for the sufferings of a large portion of mankind. The tireless efforts of His Holiness to
alleviate the lot of the persecuted, the hunted and the outcast are also know
to us. We are certain His Holiness is
aware of the deep feeling of abhorrence around in the American people by the
mass deportations, persecutions, enslavement and slaughter in the Balkans,
Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Norway, Poland and elsewhere. We are confident that His Holiness is also
aware of the deep concern of the Government of the United States relative to these
reversions to usages of ancient barbarism and of the constant effort to prevent
their recurrence which it has made.
We
believe it is appropriate, because of the common concern of the Holy See and
the government and people of the United States with such matters, to call to
the Holy See’s attention the apparently authentic reports that the present
authorities in Hungary have undertaken to persecute the 800,000 Jews in Hungary
and are planning their mass slaughter both in Hungary and after deportation to
Poland merely because they are Jews. The
authorities and people of Hungary have been warned by the government of the
United States of the material consequences that the perpetration of such
inhuman acts of barbarism will entail.
It is both timely and fitting we believe that the moral values involved
and the spiritual consequences that must flow from indulgence in the
persecutions and mass murder of helpless men, women and children be brought to
the attention of the Hungarian authorities and people. We earnestly hope, therefore, 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 for that purpose be
specially dispatched to Hungary”. (1)
Note of
Domenico Tardini:
25.06.1944. Seen by the Holy Father.
Notes:
(1)
See FRUS 1944, I, pp 1068-69.
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