ADSS 1.280 Maglione notes: situation with L'Osservatore Romano

\ADSS 1.280 Luigi Maglione, Sec State, notes

Reference: AES 3215/40

Location and date: Vatican, 10.04.1940

Summary statement: Dino Alfieri, Italian ambassador, complains about the attitude of L’Osservatore Romano which is promoting peace.  Maglione defended the Holy See’s position and its freedom of expression.

Language: Italian

Text:

The Italian Ambassador, on behalf of Count Ciano, and therefor of Mussolini, tells me that in many parts of Italy demonstrations and speeches in favour of peace are held in the churches, probably on the Vatican’s instructions.

Such demonstrations, in these days in which political events develop with a tremendous speed and while the Government tries to prepare peoples’ minds to be ready for possible developments, appear to be a peace at any price attitude in contrast with Government policy, which follows the vents with vigilant concern.

L’Osservatore Romano, a much read Italian paper, follows a different policy from that of the Italian Press in general; it should be more moderate in its statements and less long-winded and more impartial in reporting war news.

To these statements, the substance of which I have just reported, I replied as follows:

Please inform Count Ciano:

1. that the Holy See has not given instructions to intensify the alleged demonstrations in favour of peace, either directly or through the Bishops;

2. that there is no need to suppose that instructions have been given to explain the prayers and the desire for peace and tranquillity for which the yearning of the people increases every day.  The desire for peace is very deep and widespread in Italy.  It is very natural, and it should have been foreseen, that this eager desire for peace should not be expressed in more frequent appeals and prayers for peace – now that everybody – none excepted – see the rapidly growing danger of war;

3. L’Osservatore Romano, although printed in Italian is an organ of the Holy See, and cannot be confused with the Italian newspapers.  If, at the present time, it expresses different opinions from those of the Italian papers as the Ambassador confirms it is not because the paper has changed its policy, but only because lately the Italian newspapers are trying to inflame public opinion.  I do not discuss this phenomenon: I leave the responsibility for this to the people who have decided on this policy.  But I must draw attention to the fact the L’Osservatore Romano cannot follow the other newspapers on the line of thought which has been imposed on them.

I have always advised L’Osservatore to be prudent, objective and moderate in its articles and in reporting the news.  I have no difficulty repeating this advice, as I do from time to time.

But it would be well to reflect for a moment on the fact that if it is a duty for L’Osservatore to follow its own policy this also is in in the interest of Italy:  L’Osservatore Romano will be recognised everywhere, and especially abroad, as the true, impartial, serene, independent organ of the Holy See: only under these conditions could it say, if necessary, a word of truth and justice in favour of Italy.

 

As he took his leave, the Ambassador wanted to assure me that Count Ciano will continue his action.

ADSS 1.200 Pius XII notes on prevention of war

ADSS 1.200 Pope Pius XII, notes

Reference: AES 6114/39; Edited version in L’Osservatore Romano, 15.09.1939

Location and date: Vatican, 13.09.1939

Summary statement: The Pope has done everything possible to prevent the war.

Language: Italian

Text:

An English newspaper (Manchester Guardian) has printed an article stating that during the last days preceding the war a number of telegrams were sent to the Holy Father asking him to call immediately and in person on the Chancellor of the Reich, Herr Hitler, and to visit the German and Polish nations in order to avoid cruel and wanton international slaughter. (1)

We are in a position to state that His Holiness up to the last moment has unceasingly tried to precent hostilities, not only through the initiatives already known to the public, but also through confidential and practical steps.  He has exhausted all possibilities which still gave some ope of maintaining peace or, at least, to exclude an immediate danger of war.

Notes: 

(1) George Glasgow, “Pope and Peace: Heroism and the Ordeal”, Manchester Guardian, 10.09.1939.

ADSS 1.30 Notes from Sec State: German complaints against L'Osservatore

 ADSS 1.30. Notes of the Secretariat of State

Reference: AES 2368/39

Location and date: Vatican, 06.05.1939

Summary statement: German Embassy complaint against L’Osservatore Romano

Language: Italian

Text:

M. Menshausen (1), Counsellor of the German Embassy at the Holy See, has complained to the Secretariat of Ste (05.05.1939) “the Osservatore Romano (page 6 – 29 April 1939, at the end of the article) had incorrectly reported Chancellor’s Hitler’s speech and had wrongly stated that the Treat with Poland had been denounced on account of the refusal of the offer made to Poland. It is not right.  See speech.  It was denounced because Poland had made other agreements. A correction would be appreciated”. (2)

On this subject we note:

It is true that, according to the German text of the speech, Hitler said that the treaty with Poland had been denounced on account of the new pact of mutual assistance signed by Poland with Great Britain.

But it is not true to affirm that L’Osservatore Romano in the above-mentioned article said that “the treaty with Poland had been denounced on account of the refusal of the offers made to Poland (under Nos. 1,2,3,4,5, that is “to acknowledge all economical rights of Poland in Danzig …”)

To convince oneself of this, one must read the passage of the Osservatore Romano (underlined in red).  It says that the denunciation of the Treaty with Poland is the consequence of the conclusion of the new pact of mutual assistance between Poland and Great Britain.  This is the obvious meaning of the article, and only by stretching the text would it be possible to make the Osservatore Romano say (which would not conform with the Chancellor’s statement on the subject) that the Treaty was denounced also because” the Polish Government not only rejected the proposal, but, under pressure of a deceitful campaign of world excitement, they had felt compelled to call men to arms, which Germany has not recalled one soldier.

We may point out that the Osservatore Romano uses quotation marks when reporting the Führer’s words regarding the causes of the denunciation of the Treaty with Poland.

M. Menhausen’s complaint against Osservatore Romano is therefore unjustified and the paper does not have to publish a correction.

This should be mentioned to M. Menhausen at the first opportunity.

Notes: 

(1) Fritz Menhausen (1885-1958), Counsellor of the German Embassy to the Holy See 1936-45.

(2) L’Osservatore Romano (29.04.1939) reported in the late news under the heading “Hitler’s speech at the Reichstag today” a summary of Hitler’s speech on 28.04.1939.

19 July 1943 / 2013 Anniversary of the bombing of Rome

Last weekend marked the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Rome and the first time Pius XII left the Vatican since May 1940.  The pope's response to the tragedy of bombed Rome was an example of spontaneous action in the face of great need.  It raises the terrible question as to why a similar action was not employed when the Jews of Rome were rounded up and faced even greater danger three months later.

This clip is from YouTube.

The relevant ADSS references are found in Volume 7, documents 301-303, 305-307, 309-311. 

This report was posted on the Vatican news website.

On 19 July 1943, the United States Air Force bombed Rome: 9,125 bombs fell from 690 airplanes with 930.30 metric tons of explosives, resulting in 1800 deaths. Egidio Picucci recalled that Monday, 70 years ago. “The scene facing the people when the explosions stopped, when the rumble of the airplanes, which in the waves that followed disrupted everything, began to muffle, aroused general disbelief. The city walls seemed like ragged backdrops of a stage carried away by the wind. The morale of the people was at rock bottom. No one expected an attack of that kind and everyone roamed, lost and silent, around the dusty streets filled with rubble. Rome, the Eternal City, was no more. In order to provide relief to the people’s distress, the providential news came in that the Pope was to visit San Lorenzo in the afternoon around 5:30 p.m. At that time people ran to the basilica, in front of which the people encircled him, speaking more with their eyes and tears than with their words. Pius XII was visibly moved and opened his arms as if to pull everyone closer to him and not let them go”.

L’Osservatore Romano recalled this tragic event and the two visits the Pope made to the wounded city following the two bombings. The second bombing took place on 13 August. “In a strictly private setting, without any escort (…) accompanied only by Mons. Giovanni Battista Montini, Substitute of the Secretariat of State, the Pontiff at 5:20 pm, after having received the first news on the extent of the disaster, left the Vatican to go as soon as possible bringing relief in person to the victims. Faced with many sad sights of destruction the Holy Father stopped the car for a long time and asked for news of the victims and the scope of the damage. His extremely pale face showed his inner pain. (…) With difficulty, in front of the ruined pronaos of the Temple, His Holiness was able to climb down while a wave of excitement erupted from everyone’s heart. Defying the impassable terrain, (…) he kneeled (…) inviting everyone to the Christian prayer for the victims”.

The bombs also caused incalculable damage to the historical-religious patrimony of the city, especially damaging the cemetary of Verano (even striking the tomb of Pope Pacelli’s family) and the Basilica of San Lorenzo. The basilica was subsequently rebuilt, beginning in 1946. The work was made possible thanks to the work in those difficult years of Giovanni Battista Montini, Richard Krautheimer and Fr Antonio Ferrua.

Anna Foa's article on Giovanni Palatucci from Osservatore Romano

For the sake of presenting both sides to the argument I have posted Anna Foa's article from L'Osservatore Romano.  Foa is an Italian historian who has specialised in Italian and European Jewish history.  Her position is worthy of consideration.  I look forward to reading more on the historical process undertaken by Primo Levi Center.  Without in any way wishing to trivialise the issue at stake here, the academic debate over Palatucci is a model for other historical debates and arguments.  People are not attacked or belittled; issues are addressed.  This is how we learn.

Testimonies silenced and documents gone missing

Meant to mar the Church of Pius XII

Giovanni Palatucci, police superintendent of Fiume in 1944, was arrested by the Germans and died in Dachau in February 1945. Declared Righteous Among the Nations In 1990 for helping Jews during his work at the police headquarters in Fiume, and recognized as a Servant of God by the Church, all of a sudden he was turned into a persecutor of Jews who zealously carried out the orders of the Salò [Italian Social Republic] and of the Nazis. At the origin of this shift was research sponsored by the Centro Primo Levi, New York, undertaken by an international committee of historians who analysed the existing documentation in both the Italian and Croatian archives.

I hope that the Washington Museum, which immediately deleted Palatucci’s name from its sites and exhibitions, has access to the documentation and not only to the lengthy analysis of it drafted by the Centro Primo Levi. On careful reading, this can at most downsize the number of Jews saved by Palatucci, reducing them from the 5,000 originally attributed to him to several dozen, and recasting the role he played in certain episodes. It can certainly not, however, transform him from a saviour of the Jews into a persecutor. I also hope it will be possible shortly to have access to the sources, just as the Centro’s action has made access available to their interpretation.

While waiting to be able to check the full reality of the events in the documents, I would like to mention certain elements of the issue as they emerge from the Primo Levi dossier. The dossier — on the basis of the numbers of Jews living in Fiume and the number of those from Fiume effectively interned by Fiume in the Camp of Campagna, where Palatucci’s uncle was bishop — essentially dismantles the thesis that the police officer was responsible for the mass rescue of the Jews of Fiume, that was pulled off in cooperation between Fiume and Campagna. Here too, in order to express a well-grounded opinion, we await further information, for example, on the actual routes of those Jews transferred from Fiume to Campagna.

Nevertheless the dossier tells us nothing about the individual rescues attested by those very Jews who were saved by Palatucci in the years subsequent to 1940 and during the years of the Nazi occupation. It is likewise silent about the witnesses who documented them. The dossier further informs us that the Bishop of Campagna did his utmost to improve the situation of those interned in the camp but emphasizes, as if thereby to detract from them, his proselytistic intentions; in other words the bishop would have liked to convert his prisoners. Yet let us not forget that we are speaking of a Church, especially the local Church – at that time still heavily marked by anti-Judaism – which was actively encouraging the conversion of Jews. To expect anything else would be utopian. I remember having spoken of this in these same terms to the late Fr Piersandro Vanzan, author of a biography of Palatucci (Giovanni Palatucci. Il questore giusto, Rome, Edizioni Pro Sanctitate, 2009) and a diligent propagator of Palatucci's story.

Furthermore, the dossier underscores the adherence to the Republic of Salò of the police officer Giovanni Palatucci, but tells us nothing about the possibility, supported by at least one source, that he may have acted as a member of the Committee for National Liberation under the false name of Danieli, which is another element to be evaluated or at least mentioned. We are told that the documents on his arrest do not mention the rescue of Jews but only his activities on behalf “of the enemy”, that is, the fact that he had contacts with the Allies concerning a plan to make the Fiume area autonomous. Yet I would like to know whether in Italy at the time the saving of Jews was explicitly mentioned or whether it was implicitly understood as being among the activities on behalf of the enemy.

We are basically facing the problem of the lack of documentation. Yet we find the same lack of documentation in the mass rescues of Jews that that were carried out in the convents of Rome. Do we wish to deny these on the basis of the lack of written documents to prove them? Like all such activities, Palatucci's too could only have been carried out in secret. Might he have pursued them on his own initiative, independently of the Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants? This is an answer we are waiting for from the documents, from the comparison with other situations, but not from interpretations.

One last issue: the so-called denunciation by Palatucci of a group of Jews from Fiume. The documentation that the dossier mentions proves nothing other than that Palatucci responded to a request for information made to him by the Police Headquarters in Ravenna (would it have been possible for him not to have replied?), providing the names of these Jews but saying that he did not know where they were to be found. In other words they were already as free as birds. It is obvious that this too should be assessed on the basis of individual events, but as we read it here it is proof of nothing. Michele Sarfatti, Director of the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation and one of the historians said to have taken part in the research organized by the Centro Primo Levi, “I am perplexed about a sentence written by a New York Times journalist who claims that Palatucci ‘helped the Germans to identify Jews to be rounded up’. This sentence is attributed to ‘researchers’ without specifying who; but no proof of this exists”. What then explains the glaring headlines in the press about the policeman who persecuted Jews?

To conclude: the Primo Levi initiative affirms that its intention was to demolish the myth of the “good Italian”, of which the Palatucci case was an expression. But why so? If anything, the Palatucci case speaks of a “good Palatucci”, and not of “good Italians”. The myth of the good Italian had already been blown up, at least at the historiographical level, by many studies and first and foremost by Sarfatti's research. All this leaves no room for doubt that with the regulations introduced in November 1943 the Republic of Salò assumed the duty of tracking down Jews in the first person. The Nazis, after October that year, were unable to take on this task since they were occupied on the military front and in the war against the Resistance.

The impression is in fact that a different issue was involved: the Church of Pius XII; and that, in targeting Palatucci, the intention was essentially to hit a Catholic involved in rescuing Jews, a champion of the idea that the Church spared no effort to help the Jews – a well-known figure whose cause of beatification was under way. But this is ideology and not history.

It is true that first-hand historical research into the Palatucci case is scarce and that facts and figures have been subjected to hagiographic interpretations. It is moreover probable that subsequent to the research under way, the figures may change and certain events be reinterpreted. Yet at the moment, in the presence of such definitive unfounded condemnation, what is fundamental is to answer through the documentation these simple questions. Did or did not Palatucci save Jews? Did or did not Palatucci denounce Jews? We are waiting for the documents alone to provide an answer to these questions. Everything else is commentary.

23 June 2013

Anna Foa