Responding to Gary Krupp - from June 2012

In late June Gary Krupp emailed me.  He emailed me privately because of the restrictions placed on the blog, an necessary evil because of some of the rather inappropriate material that gets sent to me.  I have assumed that the email was, therefore, intended for publication.  I have delayed responding until I had read the email carefully and ensured that I had answered the points Mr Krupp raised.  The email and my responses have been posted under "pages".

Mr Krupp's email was in response to the posting of my article written on the Campgana Files and a number of posts where I set out my reasons for disputing some of the claims made by a number of people who assert that Eugenio Pacelli / Pius XII committed himself to a series of positive actions for Jews before, during and after the Holocaust.  I acknowledge, again, my gratitude to Mr Krupp and Pave The Way for allowing me access to the material.  That we disagree on the interpretation of the documents is now a matter of public record.

My primary concern as a student of history is allowing the record to speak as clearly and unambiguously as possible.  I have never claimed or suggested that there is only way to look at material, nor have I ever claimed that there cannot be more than one interpretation of an event.  I have claimed consistently that context is essential for any serious study of documents and provenance.

To set this latest email from Mr Krupp into its necessary context a few reminders are necessary.

The available primary documentary material on Pope Pius XII consists, in part, of:

a) files and material in the Secret Archives of the Vatican (ASV) – all files up to 1939 are available for public inspection, including all material related to Eugenio Pacelli from the time of his entry into Vatican service in the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1901, his service as nuncio to Bavaria and Germany 1917-1929, and his service as Cardinal Secretary of State 1930-1939;

b) published records of the ASV – including Volume I of Pacelli’s minutes of his audiences with Pius XI (2010), the selected war year documents in Actes et Documents (ADSS 1965-1981), the formal record of the Holy See (i.e. Acta) containing many of the speeches and addresses of Pius XI and Pius XII;

c) The published war-time records of many of the governments of Europe and the United States; the published records of the German bishops;

d) Published and unpublished sources from numerous diocesan and religious order archives (e.g. Campagna, Italy);

e) Newspaper and journals from around the world, e.g. The New York Times reported on many papal speeches throughout the war, including the complete text of the 1942 Christmas Address.

f) Memoirs, diaries, monographs, recordings and interviews of many eye-witnesses, journalists, military personnel, papal collaborators etc.

And for the record I have never claimed that Pope Pius XII was

i)   “silent”

ii)  ”inactive and did nothing”

iii) “Hitler’s Pope”

iv) “Antisemitic”

v)  “indifferent to the fate of the Jews”

I have also expressed my concern at some of the methodologies employed by Pave The Way especially by some of their researchers.  I am not alone in this.

My comments are given in RED in the pages section.

Zenit interview with Gary Krupp - more claims

Zenit news agency, a well known conservative Catholic Rome-based media organisation published an interview with Gary Krupp, director of Pave The Way, in its 21 June 2012 edition.  The article only serves to demonstrate the ongoing reluctance of the conservative Catholic right to accept that there is more than one voice on the study of Pope Pius XII.  Krupp's latest claims are consistent with all the others he has made to date.  He has collected 76,000 pages of documentation and made it available on Pave The Way's website.  All good.  However, the other ongoing problem lies in the sleights of hand.  Much of the material has been available in the public domain for decades.  "Exciting" discoveries made by Pave The Way are usually shown to be something less than "exciting".  I have written entries on this blog over the last couple of years de-bunking many of the claims made by Mr Krupp, Pave The Way and their fellow travellers.  I do not intend to go into an in-depth analysis of the latest claims, except to ask a few questions:


1.  Where is the corroborative evidence for the claims?
2.  Where are the peer-reviewed articles in recognised journals?
3.  Where is the support from universities and institutions of higher learning?
4.  Where are the historians, academics and scholars from the mainstream universities?
5.  Why have no recognised scholars in the field of Pius XII study been part of Pave The Way projects?


I have said many times that Gary Krupp has done historians a great service in making this material available to us via his website.  I appeal, yet again, for Mr Krupp to allow us to do our job and record the history of Pope Pius XII as the material becomes available within all its manifold contexts.

The Campagna Files revisited

A few weeks ago a colleague sent me a copy of an email that had been sent by a director of a New York organisation.  I will refrain from naming my colleague or the director and the organisation because I am still waiting for a reply to my request to discuss the issue that follows.


In mid-2009 Gary Krupp, founder of Pave The Way, invited me to read through the 2,300 pages of documentation from material from the archives of the Catholic diocese of Campagna in southern Italy related to the internment camp of the same name that existed in the town from 1940 until its dissolution after the Italian armistice in September 1943.  Krupp had come to the conclusion that the documents demonstrated that Pius XII was active in efforts to assist and rescue interned Jews.


I was asked to read and review the material and then write a report of what I found.  I did this and the report was published on the website of The Anti-Defamation League as well as on Pave The Way's website.  My conclusions were different to those publicised on Pave The Way. 


I have posted the report under the "pages" heading.


In May 2012 a colleague received an email from a New York organisation disputing claims made in my article.  There have been a number of conversations, but the original author has not contacted me.  I am not interested in escalating the disagreement, but I am concerned at a particular claim that I only made reference to fifteen documents.  How this person reached such a conclusion is beyond me.  I read every page of the Campagna files - it took nearly three months - and made notes throughout.  The article itself contains 78 specific footnote references to documents out of a total of 89.


A young graduate student from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, who has studied Italian internment camps, in particular, Fossoli, has written her own commentary on the article.  I am grateful for Alexis taking the time and effort to write.  I will leave it to the reader to make up their own minds.

Alexis Herr

Commentary on “Campagna: The Camp, the Bishop and the Archives”

Paul O’Shea’s article “Campagna: The Camp, the Bishop and the Archives” scrutinizes efforts made by Giovanni Palatucci (Franciscan bishop of Campagna in southern Italy) to assist Jews interned from 1940 – September 1943 in Campagna and asks how Palatucci’s work reflected upon Pope Pius XII. Palatucci attempted to help the Jewish interns where he could, which included communicating with foreign consuls, ambassadors, medical professionals, and police on their behalf. He kept the Vatican and other bishops appraised of his actions and requested whatever help they could provide. Palatucci’s correspondence with these various agencies and persons comprises a wealth of information of over 2,300 pages found in a monastery in Avellino.  The New York based Pave the Way Foundation announced the discovery of these documents and made them available on their website as “proof” that Pope Pius XII worked diligently to save Jews from Nazi tyranny. O’Shea’s examination of these documents wisely arrives at a different and more sound conclusion: “The letters tell us that the Pope not only knew of the suffering of Italian and foreign Jews, but that on at least two occasions, he acted to help alleviate their conditions. What they do not show is any pattern of action to help rescue Jews” (3).

Understanding the motivation behind Palatucci and other religious leaders’ decision to help Jews presents a challenge to historians. Scholars often try to use the actions of individuals such as priests or nuns as indicative of a wider Vatican plan to save Jews. Such minimal and polarized approaches fail to render any useful or historically verified conclusions without making erroneous concessions. The documents used for O’Shea’s article show one instance of a Bishop helping Jews and the Vatican providing financial assistance. The fact that this aid occurred prior to German occupation means that it was not in attempt to rescue Jews, and instead to help them.

Historical context proves a crucial tool when evaluating whether or not Bishop Palatucci’s assistance and the money the Vatican gave to the camp constitute “rescue.” O’Shea points out in his analysis that the camp functioned prior to Nazi occupation of the region and as such Jews interned in Campagna were not in immediate danger of deportation and annihilation.  Their internment signaled Fascist support of Nazi aims and compliance with the 1940 Fascist decree to intern Jews in Italy. Therefore, the assistance Palatucci provided during this period does not constitute rescue, as food, medical assistance, and the like, did not save Jews from Auschwitz. One could argue, however, that Palatucci’s efforts to secure visas for Jewish interns functioned as rescue. O’Shea’s article does not elaborate on whether or not Palatucci’s correspondence actually secured immigration opportunities. Further scrutiny of this point would benefit our understanding of Palatucci’s work with Jewish interns prior to German occupation.

Some scholars argue that religious leaders helped Jews out of a desire to convert them to Catholicism and therefore they view Catholic assistance as anti-Jewish. O’Shea’s examination of the vast fund of documents, however, did not alight any plan conspired between the Pope and the Bishop to convert the Campagna Jews.  O’Shea found a few references in the Campagna documents that mentioned Jews considering conversion, which may speak to Catholic proselytizing from Palatucci, but the documents themselves do not reveal an intentional plan to lure Jews in with aid and then manipulate their conversion. O’Shea posits during this period (prior to the September 1943 German occupation) that the “assistance for the Jews came primarily from the local bishop who needed no reminder from Rome to ‘do good and avoid evil’” (20). He arrives at the conclusion that the Vatican gave money to assist Jews at the camp and Palatucci worked to assist them as well out of a desire to “do good.”

A lesser historian might manipulate and misread these actions by the Vatican and Palatucci as grounds for evidence of a long-term plan by the Vatican to save Jews. Using the same evidence, Palatucci and the Vatican’s operations could also be interpreted as a Church stance against Fascism and/or Nazism. To do so, however, would be to ignore the numerous other instances of priests and the Vatican acting counter intuitive to such a claim. History is full of examples of priests and bishops behaving good and bad. To simplify the Vatican’s policy towards Jews during World War II to Palatucci’s and the Vatican’s assistance to Jews in Campagna would not only be simplistic, it would be ignorant. O’Shea and I clearly agree on this point. Using sound and fair judgment, O’Shea does not ignore the assistance Palatucci and the Vatican provided the Jews in Campagna. And, he does not claim that this assistance should be deemed rescue.

Italian religious leaders who attempted to rescue or assist Jews during the German occupation faced many dangers and at times lost their lives in the pursuit of helping others. Stories of nuns and priests hiding Jews and escorting them to safety through the Alps dominate the scholarship of Italian wartime history. Don Giovanni Tavasci, for example, helped shuttle those targeted for internment through the Italian-Swiss Alps prior to his arrest and subsequent internment at the deportation camp Fossoli di Carpi in northern Italy. Along with Tavasci, nine other priests’ decision to uphold Christian values in the face of adversity landed them in Fossoli di Carpi. Palatucci and the Vatican’s choice to provide aid to Jews in Campagna prior to occupation did not incur the same threat as the actions of those who assisted Jews post-September 1943. Palatucci’s actions focused on helping, not saving Jews.

The Campagna documents intersect with two explosive themes of Italian Holocaust history: the so-called “brava gente”, or benevolent Italians, and the debate surrounding Pope Pius XII.  For the past ten years, scholars have endeavored to correct the misinterpretation that all Italians tried to rescue and save Jews during the Holocaust. Stories of priests and nuns helping Jews weigh heavily in the “brava gente” dialogue and often contribute to the boisterous debate over historical interpretations of Pope Pius XII. Overall, there is a tendency amongst scholars and the general public to congratulate individual actions of resistance and rescue as representative of Italians and the Church as a whole. The impulse to point to the actions of one individual as reflective of the Vatican is irresponsible and does little to advance Holocaust scholarship. O’Shea conclusion is therefore important because it provides a clear reading of the available source material. In this instance, the facts show that Vatican and Palatucci did something and that something was not rescue. 

Alexis Herr

The Apologists' Pius Wars – the rest of us do history.

This post was prompted in part by the article written by William Doino in First Things which is a thinly veiled attack on the scholarship of Kevin Madigan, Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard.  Somehow, I doubt Madigan has remained in his position for want of historical ability and skill.  Doino's article is a clever mix of slightly twisted fact with a heavy handed bashing of historians with whom he disagrees.  Doino engages in just enough smokescreening of historical fact to leave a lay audience seriously wondering if Madigan's take on the post-war trials and the Vatican's responses is a poor attempt at smearing the good name of the Catholic Church.  For the reader who wishes to make up their own mind, I suggest bypassing First Things and go straight to the books Madigan mentions - David Cymet History vs Apologetics and Gerald Steinacher Nazis on the Run. I have read Steinacher's excellent work and do not understand how Doino cannot accept the fundamental thesis, namely that elements within the Catholic Church were active in helping Nazi war criminals escape justice.  But that is part of what I believe is simply another form of denialism.

The phenomenon of denialism is predicated upon the need to denigrate as fiction an historical reality.  It stems from a world-view that is fundamentally uncomfortable with empirical history, proven fact and the discipline of scientific rigour, which includes as part of its process, flexibility, reason, loyalty to the historical record and honesty.  In short, the denialist is at pains to prove by whatever means, that the received record is not only wrong, it is deliberately false and those who propose it are liars.

In recent years there has arisen a disturbing movement that seeks to apply the above criteria to the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.  Beginning from the premise that Pius is innocent of all charges levelled against him by those who hold that his war-time record is problematic, the apologists for the pope have conducted a campaign of misinformation, selective documentation, uncritical acceptance of all positive statements, regardless of the historical provenance of the statements, and uncritical rejection of all contrary positions.  And while some apologists may well act from honourable motives, chiefly a belief they are defending the integrity of the Catholic Church, it remains that their methods fail to meet even the most basic tests of historical reliability. 

It is also a matter of record that the centre of this movement lies in the English-speaking world, and in the United States in particular.  The group that has pushed the campaign into “top gear” has been Gary Krupp’s New York based Pave The Way (PTW).  What began as a genuine philanthropic effort to work for the resolution of differences between particular groups, has, in this instance, become the fundamentalist vanguard of a group of Jews and Christians determined to see Pius XII declared one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem.  The parallel movement is to indirectly support the Catholic process of beatification that would see Pius declared “Blessed”, the penultimate stage before canonisation.

Indeed, much of the success of the Pius XII apologist movement has derived from sources close to and inside the Vatican.  Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI had given vocal support to PTW, which is consistent with their public statements praising Pius XII as a great saviour of the Jews during World War Two.  Senior curial officials, such as Cardinal Bertrone, have also lent considerable support to PTW, praised their work and written statements expressing the hope that their work would help promote the cause of Pius XII. 

Surrounding PTW, and not necessarily with PTW’s endorsement, is a gathering of extreme right-wing Catholic groups and individuals who have a very vocal agenda that does not hesitate to criticise anyone with whom they disagree, including bishops and theologians.  The CatholicLeague and EWTN are two groups who have regularly pilloried or down-played efforts by historians to research Pius XII and whose conclusions do not match their own, that is, that Pius is a saint.  Associated individuals such as William Doino, Ronald Rychlak, Margherita Marchione and David Dalin, are ideological allies of the larger groups and enjoy considerable media coverage of their platforms. Their understanding of history is reductionist – it is either white/true or black/false.  The nuances that form the greater part of the work of historians are not important. 

Despite their protestations of loyalty to the Magisterium and what they believe are the orthodox traditions of the Catholic Church, both organisations represent a small section of world Catholicism. And though the comments that follow are mostly directed at PTW they are applicable to the other groups mentioned above, and a considerable number that are not.

Groups such as these praise the work of PTW because it is an example of Jews speaking in favour of Pius XII.  This creates a very dangerous perception.  Who better to speak the “truth” about Pius than Jews?  If Jews are saying Pius rescued Jews, how can Catholics suggest otherwise?  Quite apart from the simple fact that the number of Jews actively involved in the study of Pius XII is tiny, it allows the perception to develop that there are Jews who are actively in favour of the canonisation of Pius.  This is not the stated position of PTW, but perceptions crafted by others often have an insidious power of their own to shape opinion.

The next crucial issue related to PTW lies in its presentation of the “facts” about Pius.

PTW has assembled an impressive collection about Pius XII from many different sources and invested considerable time, energy and funds in making this material readily available to anyone wishing to use it.  This is a generous act that should be acknowledged. 

However, it is the way the material is used that causes concern.  Gathering material is one part of the historical process; interpreting it is quite another.  PTW’s considerable archive on Pius XII lacks serious analysis.  Much of the material is already available in the public domain and has been analysed by historians.  And while there is always room for new analysis and interpretation, that work needs to be done according to the general accepted norms of historical research.  A lot of the material is “stand alone”, that is, it does not have corroborative evidence or contextual data to support the claims made.  An interview with an elderly Italian bishop who makes a series of claims to the effect that the pope ordered or attempted to get visas for Jews to enter a Caribbean country has to be supported with evidence from other sources.  There is no suggestion that the bishop is doing anything other than speaking what he believes to be the truth, but historians do not accord objective reliability to one source alone.

This problem of establishing context, is consistent throughout much of the work of PTW with regard to Pius XII.  The New York Times is a valuable source, but it cannot stand without support from other sources.  There is a wealth of published and unpublished material from many archives that have helped the historian establish credible paradigms with which to examine Pius XII.  Establishing the conclusion before examining all the available material is a dangerous way to proceed, but this is what PTW has done on more than one occasion.

Historians are craftsfolk trained to study, interpret, analyse and record the human story.  They are a diverse group and see the world using multiple matrices.  The common thread that unites them is a process of scientific and disciplined treatment of evidence working towards a sustainable and honest conclusion.  Studying Pius XII and the history of the Catholic church during World War Two requires a familiarity in several disciplines that include, church history, diplomatic history, ecclesiastical diplomatic history, theology, the history of theology, Italian history, fascism, national socialism, German and European history, communism, military history, languages and so on.  The point is laboured to emphasise the complex layers that lie within any serious attempt to come to grips with any moment in human history.  Unfortunately, PTW has a history of relying on people whose historical credentials appear to be less than adequate.  This has been seen on several occasions over the last few years.

PTW’s reliance on historians of dubious academic qualification is a serious problem the organisation either does not appear to understand or is not willing to address.  In July 2011, Michael Hesemann PTW’s German representative, published the story that Pius XII was responsible for saving for 200,000 Jews after the November 1938 pogrom.  Quite aside from the fact that the number was simply impossible, there is not one shred of evidence to support it.  Hesemann used “newly discovered documents” from the Vatican archives to back his claims.  The problem lay in the simple fact that the “newly discovered documents” had been available in published form since 1972 in Actes et Documents Volume 6.

Another example were the claims made by the Israeli diplomat, Pinchas Lapide.  Lapide claimed that Pius XII was responsible for saving the lives of 860,000 Jews.  He provided no evidence to support this “fact”, yet it has entered into the mythology of Pius XII and is accepted uncritically.  PTW is by no means the only group that endorses Lapide’s story.

It is poor historical effort such as this that weakens PTW as a reliable agent in the study of Pius XII.  It opens PTW to criticism that it has an agenda more concerned with finding material that agree with its core aim, namely to see Pius XII named one of the Righteous.

Finally, it is important to recognise that organisations such as PTW enjoy no endorsement from mainstream historians in the fields of study mentioned above.  They have not published any academic histories, peer-reviewed journal articles or worked with any recognised tertiary institutions.  They have a large number of Pius apologists, fellow-travellers who see Gary Krupp’s organisation as a vehicle they can use to suit their own neo-conservative agendas, but no recognised historians from any creditable university or institute of higher learning.  That more than a few of these fellow-travellers appear to delight in publicly denigrating and sneering at qualified and trained historians further erodes their credibility.  PTW does not help in this regard because it does not appear to be willing to even entertain the possibility that Pius XII could have made mistakes or been quite simply wrong in some of the decisions he made or did not make during the war.  Such refusal to allow the possibility of error on the part of the pope does no service and prevents PTW from being taken seriously as a participant in the historical debate. 

Gary Krupp is an unfailingly polite and courteous man, unlike some of the more strident apologists who think a McCarthy approach to their version of history is appropriate, but his unwillingness to accept that there are points of view contrary to his own, that the record on Pius XII is far from complete, that historians are wrestling with the issues surrounding his papacy and conduct through the war, that his archive while impressive is lacking in serious analysis and historiography, that he is quite possibly being used by neo-conservative factions within the Catholic church to push their own world-view, will prevent him from ever being a serious contender in the work to establish the record on Pope Pius XII.

Pacelli supported Jewish homeland 1917 ... but what of 1944?

Earlier this month another cache of “recently uncovered” documents was “discovered.”  Zenit published an article describing the latest Pave The Way “discovery.”  Regular readers may be tiring of what is a regular pattern of behaviour on the part of PTW.  Announcements trumpeting new material from archives are part of PTW’s modus operandi and receive uncritical attention from conservative Catholic organisations, such as Zenit, which has close ties to the Legionaries of Christ, and sometimes from the mainstream media who see an opportunity for a “scoop”.  So what is it with this latest “scoop”?  It is really very simple.  Take a document out of context and you can make it say more or less whatever you like.  Put a context around a document and the result may not be what one would like, but it is more likely to be accurate history.  

Does this latest "discovery" prove Pacelli to be in favour of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and thus acting contrary to Benedict XV and Pius XI's statements?  Based on my reading of the texts, I think the answer is "no".  And then there is the document found in ADSS 11 which makes for very disturbing reading.  If Pacelli was disposed to supporting a Jewish homeland in 1917 and 1925, he had changed his mind by 1944.

The article from Zenit with my comments inserted in red:

 

DOCUMENTS: PIUS XII FAVORED A JEWISH HOMELAND IN PALESTINE

Foundation Continues to Unearth Testimony That Pius Was in No Way 'Hitler's Pope' No serious historian asserts this.  To keep using the epitaph “Hitler’s Pope” is now a distraction and appears to be a tool used by apologists to mask their inability and unwillingness to recognise that the truth about Pacelli is to be found in via media, through serious critical and contextual scholarship.

NEW YORK, MARCH 8, 2012 (Zenit.org).- An organization researching the history of Pius XII's relationship with the Jews says that a series of documents recently uncovered show a pattern of direct actions by Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope) that culminated in the establishment of the modern State of Israel. This is simply historically inaccurate.  To suggest that Pius XII’s actions as nuncio to Germany (1917-1929) provides a direct link to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 is absurd and totally lacking in credibility.  I doubt very much if David Ben Gurion would agree with such a statement.

The New York-based Pave the Way Foundation explained that in 1917, Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli met with Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist organization and arranged for Sokolow to meet with Pope Benedict XV to discuss a Jewish Homeland. In a passionate report, Sokolow wrote of his audience on May 12, 1917:

“I was first of all received by Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli, Secretary for Extraordinary Affairs, and had a few days later a long conference with Cardinal Secretary of State Gasparri. Both meetings were extraordinarily friendly and positive. I don’t tend towards credulity or exaggerations and still I can’t avoid to stress that this revealed an extraordinary amount of friendship: to grant a Jew and representative of Zionism with such a promptness a private audience which took so long and was of such a warmth and took place with all assurance of sympathy, both for the Jews in general and for Zionism in special, proves that we don’t need to expect any obstacles which can’t be overcome from the side of the Vatican. The Pope asked me, ‘Pacelli told me about your mission; do you want to tell me any more details?’" (File A 18/25 in the Main Archive of Yad Vashem)

A statement from Pave the Way further noted: On November 15, 1917, Nuncio Pacelli acted on a urgent request for his intervention from the Jewish community of Switzerland from what was feared would be an Ottoman Massacre of Jews of Palestine. Pacelli asked the German government, who was allied with the Ottoman Turks, for protection for the Jews of Palestine. Pacelli was successful in gaining promised protection of the Jews from the German government “even with the use of arms.”

The citation is accurate.  However, there is need for context.  Pacelli was Secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, the Vatican equivalent of the Foreign Office and responsible for overseeing the Vatican’s relations with sovereign states, monitoring the work of papal representatives and keeping the Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri informed and “up to speed”.  His role was not one of creating, but executing policy.

In 1916 Benedict XV had made a plea for the protection of Armenian Christians undergoing appalling persecution at the hands of the Turkish government.  He had also written a letter in February 1916 that was published in the Jesuit journal, Civilta Cattolica, where he denounced any form of persecution against Jews.  What made this published letter so interesting was that it appeared in Civilta, a journal that was more used to publishing viciously anti-Jewish material. 

Nahum Sokolow, (1859-1936), secretary general of the World Zionist Congress, visited Rome to ask for papal support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  Granted an audience, Benedict’s seemingly favourable response was a significant break from papal attitudes towards the idea of Jewish home in Palestine.  However, after the announcement of the Balfour Declaration in November 1917 and then the exclusion of the Holy See from the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, Benedict’s attitude had reverted to the traditional suspicion of Jewish intentions in Palestine and a thinly veiled hostility towards the idea of creating a Jewish state.

Pacelli met with Sokolow again on Feb. 15, 1925, and arranged another meeting with Cardinal Pietro Gasparri on the subject of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1926, Pacelli urged all Catholics to join the pro-Palestine movement in Germany with such notable members as Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Konrad Adenauer, and Fr. Ludwig Kaas.

PTWF learned of the existence of one very interesting document, still unpublished, which may show Pius XII’s attitude about a Jewish homeland. In 1944, Pius XII opposed the general feeling of his Secretary of State, when he responded to Monsignor Domenico Tardini’s written warning against helping the Jews establish a homeland. Pius XII wrote by hand, “The Jews need a land of their own.” This document is in the closed section of the Vatican Library and will not be available until the archives are fully open.  How can PTW make a statement about a document that has not been released?  It is at this point that I direct the reader to an earlier post I made on ADSS 11.333 where the 1944 negative attitude towards a Jewish state was made very clear by the Vatican to Winston Churchill.

The foundation explained that researchers have also uncovered the 1946 speech Pius XII delivered to a delegation of Arabs who came to Rome to dissuade the Pope from endorsing a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

“Uncovered” is something of a misnomer.  The delegation was received on 3 August 1946 and the account can be found in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (the official Vatican commentary) for 1946 from page 322. 

 Pius XII ended the meeting leaving the Arab delegation greatly disappointed by clearly stating, “As we also condemn several times in the past, the persecution that fanatical anti-Semitism unleashed against the Jewish people.”

According to research by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, it was Pius XII who “paved the way” for the Catholic Countries members of the United Nations to positively vote in favor of the partitioning of Palestine in November 1947.

This is not what the Wallenburg foundation says.  They point out that it was the efforts of Angelo Roncalli, later John XXIII, and the Vatican’s Domenico Tardini that were instrumental in helping to encourage the predominantly Catholic states of Latin America to vote in favour of partition.  Selective mis-quoting of publicly available material does PTW no favours. We have uncovered news articles about the Vatican encouraging Spain to recognize the Jewish state in 1955.

I have deleted the last paragraph which describes the supposed relationship between Pacelli and Guido Mendes and Pacelli’s familiarity with orthodox Jewish life and practice.

Pius XII: Poliakov versus Pave The Way

One of the claims made by organisations such as Pave The Way is that criticism of Pope Pius XII did not begin until well after his death in 1958.  In this short editorial from The Jewish Week Eric Fettmann makes the pertinent and historically accurate comment that criticism of Pius XII was made during the pope's lifetime.  The isolation of historians such as Poliakov speaks more of the general lack of interest in the study of the Holocaust in the 1950s as well as a reluctance in the English-speaking world to publically criticise the most vocal anti-communist on the planet.  This "old fashioned" historical research is what is sorely needed in the study of Pius XII.  I have added Gary Krupp's after Fettmann's editorial with the contentious paragraph highlighted in red.

Early Criticism Of Pius XII



Tuesday, November 15, 2011


Eric Fettmann


It is simply not true, as Gary Krupp of Pave the Way Foundation asserts, that criticism of Pope Pius XII’s public behavior during the Holocaust was “artificially created” and unknown until Rolf Hochhuth’s play “The Deputy” (Letters, Nov. 11 - sic).

The noted Holocaust historian Leon Poliakov first raised concerns in his article, “The Vatican and the ‘Jewish Question’: The Record of the Hitler Period — and After,” which appeared in the November 1950 issue of Commentary. While dealing extensively with the “glorious record of the Catholic Church in its efforts to save [individual] Jewish lives from the Nazi murderers,” he also bemoaned the Pope’s failure to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, the stridently anti-Nazi Pius XI.

“What led the present Pope, Pius XII, to adopt a less forthright policy than Pius XI?” Poliakov asked. “The fact is that during Hitler’s lifetime, the present Pope never clearly condemned the criminal policy of the Third Reich, and that the diplomatic relations between Berlin and the Vatican, although cold and reserved, remained correct.”

Indeed, he wrote, “Nothing similar to certain statements of Pius XI (let us recall his famous words: ‘We are all Semites spiritually ...’) was said at Rome under the pontificate of Pius XII.”

Despite “resounding protests made at the local [church] level, the Pope did not consider it wise to add to these protests the authority of his own voice; or if he did make a public statements, it was with such caution that his words had no effect, or were misunderstood.”

True, Poliakov’s was a lonely voice during this period. But his essay, besides being the first, continues to be one of the most insightful on this painful and complicated subject.


Here is Gary Krupp's letter to the editor - 8 November 2011. My own opinions and evaluation of Pave The Way's methodology are well known and I have written about the organisation on my blog and mentioned it in my book.  I see no reason to reiterate them here.

Countering Cardinal Koch


Tuesday, November 8, 2011



I believe Cardinal Koch, in his sincere attempt to quell the controversy, may have misspoken. Pave the Way Foundation does not support the canonization of anyone (“New Dialogue Leader Off To Bad Start,” Nov. 4). PTWF is a nonsectarian organization that impartially moves to identify and eliminate non-theological obstacles between religions. We never endorse specific religious processes such as canonization. Personally, speaking as a Jew, canonization is Catholic concept. Just as we would not favor Catholic intervention or commentary of our prayers and traditions, we should simply allow the Catholic Church to follow its canon law to determine who is or is not a saint.

Pave the Way is far from alone in its assessment of discovered documentation. There are literally dozens of true historians both Jews and non-Jews, who believe that our findings are quite real and legitimate. These include Hans Jansen of the Netherlands, Pierre Blet and Philippe Chenaux, Michael Feldkamp and Sister Margherita Marchione, among others. Jews who have defended the wartime pope include Albert Einstein, Rabbi David Dalin, Rabbi Chaim Herzog, Rabbi Toaf of Rome, Golda Meir, Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld and Sir Martin Gilbert, to mention a few.

To date we have posted on our website (www.ptwf.org) over 46,000 pages of original documents, news articles and video eyewitness testimonies, which clearly show that the current opinion of Pope Pius XII is wrong and was artificially created. We discovered that literally every Jewish leader and every Jewish organization of the day (including Rabbi Eric Greenberg’s Anti-Defamation League), showered affection, and praise upon Pius XII up until five years after his death. What happened to change this? Where are the documents that prove these new allegations? How did this happen?

The fictional play “The Deputy” was produced, translated into 20 languages, and strategically played worldwide by the Soviet disinformation department in an operation called “Seat Twelve.” This was specifically planned to isolate the Jewish people from the Catholics timed to discredit Vatican II and its new relationship with the non-Catholic world. It also was intended to discredit the Holy See and Pius XII personally.

Instantly the positive well-earned expressions of Jewish gratitude changed. The new accusations took hold, and a slew of new biased, historically incorrect books were written to feed into the controversy and to make a fortune for their authors. This effort was at the cost of legitimate Jewish gratitude. As Jews, we bought these allegations hook, line and sinker and the demonization moved forward.

Then we discovered the real “smoking gun.” Those who we have come to trust for historical accuracy have not attempted original firsthand research nor have they visited the open Vatican archives up to 1939.

Throughout our investigation and our effort to post the evidence online for public consumption, we have not been able to locate one document to support the calumnies leveled again Pius XII.

I reiterate that we do not support the canonization of Pope Pius XII, but we do emphatically support his recognition by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among Nations.”

Founder and President Pave the Way Foundation