ADSS 8.431 Marcone to Maglione

In this report to Rome, Marcone writes with a bluntness unusual in diplomatic correspondent.  He has spoken with Eugene "Dido" Kvaternik who as head of police in Croatia from 1941-1943 before he had a serious rupture with Pavelic and fled to Slovakia.  The rupture seems to have been caused by the suicide of Kvaternik's Jewish mother, Olga Frank, which makes his antisemitism all the more horrific.

Kvaternik was responsible for enabling the persecution of Croatia's Jews and creating the environment for the reign of terror against them.  From Marcone's tone Kvaternik had no inhibition in telling the Visitor that "two million Jews have been killed" and the same fate seems to lie in store for the Jews of Croatia.  Reports such as this added to the gathering mountain of information Rome possessed by the late summer of 1942.  The murder of the Jews of Europe had passed into a new phenomena - from mass killing "in the East" to a systematic continent-wide extermination campaign.

After the war Kvaternik escaped to Argentina with support from Catholic circles.  He remained an unrepentant Ustasha officer until the end and worked with expatriate Croats against the communist regime of Marshal Tito.  Kvaternik died in a car crash in Argentina in 1962.

A biographical essay on Kvaternik was posted on the Axis History Forum in 2003.

ADSS 8.431


Reference: Report number 417/42 (AES 5766/42, original)

Location and date: Zagreb, 17.07.1942

Summary statement: Germans demand extradition of all Croatian Jews; request for intervention in their favour. Difficulties facing the departure of Jewish children for Turkey.

Language: Italian

Text:


I learned the following from the Chief of Police, Dr Eugene Kvaternik [1910-1962], to whom I had complained about the cruelty used against Jews of all ages and conditions.

The German government has demanded the extradition of all Jews residing in Croatia to Germany within six months, where, according to Kvaternik, two million Jews have been killed in recent times. It seems that the same fate awaits the Croatian Jews, especially the old and those unable to work.

Having received this news about the Jews, I am continually seeking to find ways of securing their salvation. The Chief Rabbi of Zagreb [Miroslav Freiberger 1904-1943] visits me often and tells me news of new misfortunes.

I commend the Chief of Police, who, at my suggestion, has delayed as much as possible, the execution of this order. Indeed, he would be pleased if the Holy See could intervene for the withdrawal of the order, (1) or at least to suggest that all Croatian Jews be concentrated on an island or in a zone of Croatia where they could live in peace.

In the meantime, I have learned from the Chief Rabbi that Turkey is willing to accept fifty Croatian Jewish children, but not by way of Serbia, but through Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

While Bulgaria has granted transit permission, Hungary and Romania are opposed.

The Chief Rabbi implores the Holy See to intervene with these two countries in order to obtain the right of passage.

Note of Domenico Tardini 11.08.1942


After audience with Cardinal Maglione.

1. Take the step specified in paragraph 1 in the name of the Holy See. (2)


2. Inform the nuncios in Budapest and Bucharest (we will do this ourselves). (3)

References:


(1) In the margin Tardini wrote: see note at the end of the report.
(2) Cf ADSS 8.502
(3) We wrote to the two nuncios on 14.08.1942 (AES 5767/42) and informed the Visitor [Marcone] in Zagreb on the same day (AES 5766/42): “ … I would ask your paternity to propose such a solution on behalf of the Holy See and that it can be implemented …” The nuncio in Bucharest [Andrea Cassulo] wrote on 05.09.1942 to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: “… because the Turkish government would be willing to receive them [the children], the Holy See would be happy and grateful if the Romanian authorities would grant the necessary permissions”. (Number 9197/42 Archives of the Romanian Nunciature)

Eugen Kvaternik (left)

ADSS 8.430 Giuseppe Marcone to Maglione: Croatian Jews

The first series of reports from Abbot Giuseppe Marcone OSB, Apostolic Visitor to Croatia appear in ADSS from July 1942, nearly a year after his arrival in Zagreb the previous August (ADSS 5.36).  There is a clear pattern that emerges in the documents showing Marcone's work in attempting to help the Jews of Croatia.  Without further material it is hard to speak of Marcone's work as overly energetic, even when the historical contexts of Ante Pavelic's regime are taken into consideration.  Marcone does not appear to have been fooled by the murderous nature of the Ustasha, but he does appear to have maintained a position of strict neutrality.

Requests to do what he could to help Croatian Jews were forwarded to the Visitor by Cardinal Maglione (ADSS 8.238, 289, 502) and Marcone replied with reports indicating what he had done to help (ADSS 8.347, 537, 557).  Domenico Tardini noted the concerns of Niko Mirosevic-Sorgo (1884-1966), the Yugoslav ambassador to the Holy See, about Croatian Jews in Italian occupied Dalmatia threatened with possible deportation by Croatian authorities.  "Of interest to Marcone" appears at the end of the ambassador's letter. (ADSS 8.450)

There was difficulty obtaining reliable information about what was happening to Croatia's Jews in the summer of 1942, which is hard to credit given the amount of information travelling between Vatican diplomats that spoke of unprecedented murder "in the East".  As we see below and in the following post, Marcone approached two of the architects of the murder of the Jews of Croatia - Andrija Artukovic and Eugene Kvaternik - asking for their advice and  help.  In an almost surreal moment, Marcone writes that his secretary, Fr Giuseppe Masucci OSB, wrote a letter of protest to the Croatian government at the suggestion of Artukovic, drafter of the anti-Jewish laws and founder of the Croatian concentration camps! (ADSS 8.430; see below)

Marcone did work with the Chief Rabbi of Zagreb, Miroslav Freiberger (1904-1943) before he was transported to and murdered in Auschwitz.  One of the plans was to try and send Jewish children out of Croatia to Turkey (ADSS 8.514) and Italy (ADSS 8.566).  Nothing appears to come of the plan.  Freiberger wrote in gratitude for the work that Marcone was doing, which indicates the Visitor was seriously trying to help. (ADSS 8.495).ADSS 8.430

Reference: Report number 417/42 (AES 5766/42, original)

Location and date: Zagreb, 17.07.1942

Summary statement: Difficulty in obtaining information about Croatian Jews.

Language: Italian

Text:
In response to the letter number 48473 of 18.04.1942 (1) I have the honour to report as follows.
In recent months requests for information about the Jews made to the Croatian authorities have met an inexplicable silence. At the suggestion of Dr [Andrija] Artukovic, [1899-1988] Minister of the Interior [04.1941-10.1942], my secretary [Giuseppe Masucci] made a protest in my absence, after which a response was made …

References:
(1) Not published.
(2) Information omitted.

NYT Obituary of Andrija Artukovic.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/19/obituaries/andrija-artukovic-88-nazi-ally-deported-to-yugoslavia-is-dead.html


Andrija Artukovic, 88, Nazi Ally Deported to Yugoslavia, Is Dead


By RALPH BLUMENTHAL


Published: January 19, 1988


Andrija Artukovic, a former leader of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia who was extradited from the United States to Yugoslavia, died Saturday in a prison hospital in Zagreb, where he had been condemned to death for mass murder, the Yugoslav press agency announced yesterday. He was 88 years old and had won a stay of execution on the ground of poor health.


''Convicted war criminal Andrija Artukovic died of illness,'' the press agency, Tanyug, said. It did not specify the ailment but the court had previously found him to be suffering from sclerosis, heart ailments and anemia.


Mr. Artukovic's son, Radoslav, a stockbroker in Los Angeles, said yesterday that when he last saw his father in prison in December he was down to 95 pounds and was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He said his father ''was only guilty of being on the wrong side of World War II.''


Mr. Artukovic, a longtime resident of Seal Beach, Calif., south of Los Angeles, was the highest-ranking fascist official known to have found refuge in the United States after the war. He was the Interior Minister and then Justice and Religion Minister in the government of the Croatian fascist dictator Ante Pavelic. The postwar Yugoslav Government charged Mr. Artukovic with ordering the machine-gunning of hundreds of civilians and with responsibility for the killing of more than 700,000 other Serbs, Jews, gypsies and Croats.


Charged With Killings


As the chief justice official in the German-created puppet state of Croatia, Mr. Artukovic was accused of drafting racial laws modeled after the Nazi statutes and setting up a network of concentration camps. He was directly charged with the reprisal slayings of civilians in the village of Vrgin Most.


After his long-disputed extradition to Yugoslavia in February 1986, he was tried for war crimes and convicted after a one-month trial during which he maintained his innocence. He said he never knew of any killings and had never been to Vrgin Most. The Government postponed execution of the death sentence last April.


Mr. Artukovic's 35-year effort to stave off Yugoslav demands for his return spun an extraordinary legal chronicle that illustrated both the exhaustiveness of American judicial review and the politicization of American courts, in the opinion of some experts.


After the war, according to a Justice Department investigation, Mr. Artukovic escaped to the British zone of Austria where he was questioned and inexplicably released. He fled next to Switzerland, where he adopted the alias Alois Anich, and then to Ireland.


In 1948, with his wife and three children, he traveled to California on a 90-day tourist visa that was to sustain his residency in America for the next 38 years. Identity Is Learned


As early as 1949, the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles learned his true identity but took no action against him.


By 1951 the Yugoslavs, who had been hunting him since 1946, learned he was in California and disclosed the story to the newspapers. Mr. Artukovic was then arrested. But Croatian emigre groups and influential clerics petitioned for his release and he was let out of jail pending an extradition hearing.


An aide to Deputy Attorney General Peyton Ford instructed Immigration that Mr. Artukovic ''should not be sent to apparently certain death at the hands of the Yugoslav Communists.'' In fact, he added, ''if his only crime was against Communists, I think he should be given asylum in the U.S.''


Mr. Artukovic was ordered deported in 1952 and the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the ruling. But other court decisions threw the question into doubt and the case seesawed back and forth until 1957 when the Supreme Court sent the case back for an Immigration rehearing. A commissioner then ruled that the Yugoslav affidavits charging Mr. Artukovic with murder were unreliable and alleged, at most, political crimes. The Case Is Revived


Yugoslavia's effort to try Mr. Artukovic languished for nearly two more decades until the Immigration Service revived the case under pressure in the late 1970's. The Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations finally won the extradition order two years ago.


Mr. Artukovic was born Nov. 29, 1899, in Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, studied law and grew active in the Croatian separatist movement. In 1934 he was charged with others in the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles but he was aquitted. Afterward he fled Yugoslavia, working with the Nazis in Germany, Hungary and Austria until Hitler's formation of Croatia in 1941.


In addition to his son, he is survived by his widow, Anamarie, and four daughters, Visnja, Zorica, Ruzica and Nada, who live in California and Arizona.


The Yugoslav Government said Mr. Artukovic's remains would be disposed of in accordance with the death penalty, apparently meaning the body would be cremated and the ashes scattered to avoid creating a memorial.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrija_Artukovi%C4%87  

Andrija Artukovic seated far left next to

Abbot Marcone and Archbishop Stepinac.

 

1986 Andrija Artukovic on trial for war crimes in Zagreb.

Pavelic, Croatia and the Vatican

Over the last few months I have been reading my way through Volume 8 of ADSS.  It is a selection of documents that deal with the Vatican's attempt to help the victims of the war, especially the Jews.  I have posted a series of documents on the attempts made to stop the deportations from Slovakia.  In these texts we have seen how the Vatican used both its diplomatic efforts alongside the work of its representatives "in the field" combined with local and international influences. 

Between March and October 1942 about 58,000 Slovakian Jews were deported, most were sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  Deportations did not resume until September 1944 when the Red Army was approaching the eastern borders.

Slovakia's neighbour, the German-puppet state of Croatia, had many similarities.  Both were ruled by men who claimed legitimacy in part through Catholicism, both sought papal approval for their regimes, both employed German-style antisemitism as government policy, both used police and militia as enforcers of anti-Jewish laws, both exercised state-sanctioned persecution, imprisonment, exclusion, expropriation and extermination of Jews, and both relied in varying measures on the tacit approval of at least some of the Catholic clergy.

Croatia was different in a number of respects - all of them marking the Ustasha regime of Ante Pavelic as one of the most bloody and sadistic episodes not only of World War Two and the Holocaust, but of modern European history.  Not even the Balkan "ethnic cleansing" of the 1990s came close to the horrors of the Ustasha.  One indicator was the revulsion expressed by the different members of the German and Italian military, as well as the Gestapo, to the means by which the Ustasha murdered their victims.  The history of the mass murder of Jews, Orthodox Christian Serbs, and largely Catholic and Orthodox Roma by the Ustasha and their collaborators is by any standards sickening reading.

The Vatican's diplomatic involvement with the Pavelic regime began with the request from Pavelic for a papal representative in Zagreb.  Pavelic visited Rome in May 1941 in part to seek Pius XII's blessing for the new Croatian state as well as score the propaganda coup of having papal recognition done on the world stage.  Pavelic was to be disappointed on both counts. 

Pius has been widely criticised for receiving the dictator; but what choice did he have?  Having proclaimed neutrality at the outbreak of the war, the pope could not very well refuse to receive a head of state, even a Nazi puppet such as Pavelic who made so much of his Catholicism.  Nonetheless, the Vatican did move to ensure that the visit was as low key as possible. 

ADSS provides us with a timeline of how the Holy See saw the Pavelic visit and what was possible, what was probable, and what would certainly not happen.

The references come from Volumes 4: June 1940-June 1941 and 5: July 1941- October 1942.

4.348  16.05.1941  Note of Giovanni Battista Montini, Secretariat of State: Pavelic had requested an audience with the pope.  Pius will grant a private audience. It was standard Vatican diplomatic practice not to grant formal diplomatic recognition to a state created during wartime or to recognise altered borders of a state made during war.  While Pavelic was, as far as the Croatian and German governments concerned, the head of state, the Vatican still recognised the Yugoslavian government in exile in London as the legitimate government and accorded Sorgo Mirosevic (1884-1966) full diplomatic status as its ambassador.  Therefore there would be no discussion of "recognition" of the new Croatian state.

4.351  17.05.1941 Note of Domenico Tardini, Secretariat of State: Making reference to the previous note, Tardini writes that the situation is "delicate".  The question was how to grant the audience - it would be diplomatically foolish to deny one since Pavelic made much of his Catholicism - without it becoming a political spectacle.

4.352  17.05.1941 Note of Tardini:  The pope will receive Pavelic alone in a private meeting.  The diplomatic language was "without delegation".  Pavelic could arrive at the Vatican in whatever way he chose, but once inside, he was going to be treated as a private person, a Catholic meeting with the pope.  There would be no formal agenda, no photos, no exchange of gifts and no reception with honour guards, papal nobility etc.  It would be as plain as possible.

4.356  18.05.1941 Note of Montini:  Pavelic and his entourage were received by the pope in a general audience - ie, as a group of Catholics who have come to Rome to see the pope.

4.357  18.05.1941 Note of Montini: The rector of St Jerome [the Croatian National College in Rome] Monsignor Magjerec will fly the Croatian flag during Pavelic's visit.

4.358  18.05.1941 Note of Montini: Pavelic's audience with the pope.  Pius XII received Pavelic as a "son of the Church".  Any recognition of the new state must wait until the end of the war.

19/20.05.1941 L'Osservatore Romano published a full account of the Pavelic visit.

4.361  18.05.1941 Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State to all Nuncios and Apostolic Delegates: Circular emphasising the apolitical nature of Pavelic's visit to the pope. The fact that this was sent to all the papal representatives is very significant.  Rome wanted no misunderstanding about the visit - it was private and was in no way an approval of either Pavelic's regime or the new state.  Diplomatically, this was a very begrudging acceptance of something considered very unpleasant and unwanted.  I have no doubt Pavelic would have been made aware of the circular.

4.364  19.05.1941 Maglione to all Nuncios and Apostolic Delegates: More information on the audience granted to Pavelic.  Pavelic and his entourage were received by the pope.  Pius and Pavelic then went into another room for a private conversation.  At the end of this the pope returned to greet the delegation.  The customary courtesy call to the Secretary of State did not happen.  This reinforces what was mentioned above and also points to the high degree of sensitivity the Vatican knew surrounded the visit.  Pius knew the visit would generate hostility from many quarters.  This is possibly the first recorded "public relations management" exercise by the Vatican.  Misinformation was not slow to appear.  See 4.373, 379,407

4.369  21.05.1941 Note of Montini: Sorgo Mirosevic, the Yugoslav minister, requested L’Osservatore Romano publish the precise details of the audience granted to Pavelic.  Reports from French Radio suggest the Pope gave official recognition to the new state and spoke of a concordat.

4.385  02.06.1941 Note of Tardini:  Sorgo Mirosevic had made a protest at news of a papal representative being appointed for Croatia.  The protest was rejected.

4.386  02.06.1941 Sorgo Mirosevic to Secretariat of State:  Official protest at the news that the Vatican will appoint a papal representative to Croatia. While Mirosevic's protest is understandable, the Vatican's position can not be ignored.  There was no advantage for the pope is he refused the opportunity of having a representative in Croatia.  It was a case of realpolitik.  A diplomat of Mirosevic's experience would certainly understood this.  The protest was a diplomatic formality.

4.392  07.06.1941 Note of Tardini:  The pope has promised the Archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Stepinac, that he will appoint a papal representative to Croatia.  I have written about this in an earlier post.

4.400  13.06.1941 Note of Tardini:  Pavelic has expressed dissatisfaction that Croatia is to receive a nunciature while Croatia is to be given an Apostolic Visitor who is only "an observer".  This was not accurate.  Giuseppe Burzio, the papal representative in Slovakia, held the rank of charge d'affaires, which was less than ambassadorial rank.  The nunciature was not restored until after the war.

4.404  14.06.1941 Secretariat of State to Sorgo Mirosevic:  The Vatican's formal response to Mirosevic's protest of 02.06.1941.

ADSS 5.17  22.07.1941 Note of Tardini:  (See to 5 and 9).  The papal representative to Croatia will not have the title of Apostolic Visitor because of papal diplomatic policy regarding states created during war. Evidently there was a change of mind as the title was retained.

5.21  25.07.1941 Maglione to Stepinac:  Abbot Giuseppe Marcone has been appointed as the papal envoy to Croatia.

Marcone's despatches from Croatia mirrored much of what Giuseppe Burzio was reporting from Slovakia, namely a regime with a murderous policy towards Jews and others deemed unworthy of participation in the building of the new Croatia.

ADSS 8.426 Note by Domenico Tardini on Slovakia

In the ultra-careful world of Vatican diplomacy even the private notes between members of the Secretariat of State were couched in restrained language.  In this note penned by Domenico Tardini, we come as close as possible to an expression of controlled anger at the seemingly impossible situation in which the Vatican found itself.  Without any ambiguity, Tardini wrote that the world would understand that the Holy See had no way of controlling Hitler; but how could it understand that Rome could not control a priest.  And herein lay the great weakness of the Roman system: the Pope was as strong and powerful as the Catholic world in its global diversity allowed him to be.  If a priest, in this case Jozef Tiso, would not accept the authority of the Pope and be obedient, and if the local bishop to whom this priest had promised "respect and obedience" could not rein him in, there was not much anyone else in the hierarchy or Curia could do.



ADSS 8.426

Reference: AES 5085/42

Location and date: Vatican 13.07.1942

Summary statement: Steps taken by the Holy See for the Jews of Slovakia.

Language: Italian

Text:

I can send the memo to the English Minister [D’Arcy Osborne] to you. (1) It would be good to also recognise the action of the Slovak bishops who protested [against the deportations].

NB: The trouble is that the President of Slovakia is a priest. Everyone understands that the Holy See can not put Hitler in his place. But who can understand that it can’t restrain a priest?

Attachment: From the Secretariat of State to the British Legation.

With reference to the notes 39/2/42 (2) and 39/6/42 (3), respectively on 25 March and 6 July [1942] the Secretary of State of His Holiness is pleased to inform His Britannic Majesty’s Legation that it did not fail to make repeated representations to the Slovak government in favour of non-Aryans who lived there, seeking to support the action taken in this direction by the bishops of Slovakia.

The Secretary of State had the honour of giving verbal notice to the Legation of these steps and has also reported them to the Apostolic Delegate in London.(4)

References:
(1) Follows.
(2) ADSS 8.328
(3) Not published. 06.07.1942 Osborne asked for information on the activities of the Holy See reported in an article in the Basler Nachrichten (Basel News) on Alexander Mach.
Cf ADSS 8.334.
(4) ADSS 8.345, note 1.

ADSS 8.383 Karel Sidor to Maglione - Slovakian spin

On 23 May 1942 the Slovakian government made its formal response to the Vatican's protest against the anti-Jewish laws passed in 1941 and the deportations that commenced in March 1942.

In a piece of hyperbole that is breath-taking for its "spin" on the anti-Jewish laws, Slovakian minister Karel Sidor, communicated the formal response of the Slovak government's attempt to justify the anti-Jewish laws that the Vatican had objected to.  Sidor expressed the Slovakian government's "belief" that there was a "Jewish Question" that needed a "solution".  In language that echoed German euphemisms for deportation and worse, Sidor parroted the line that Germany would honour all its agreements to treat the deported Slovak Jews "humanely". 

Did Sidor or his masters in Pressburg (Bratislava) honestly believe Maglione and the Pope would believe the official statement?  We have seen in previous documents that information was arriving in Rome detailing the appaling conditions faced by Jews in Poland, and Jews deported from other places.  Indeed, Sidor makes reference to deportations from France, Holland, Belgium and other places and the creation of a Jewish "district" around Lublin.  Even Hungary was prepared to surrender its 800,000 Jews to the Germans.

By the time Sidor sent his note to the Secretary of State, the Vatican knew of the mass murder of Jews in Belarus and Ukraine, had reports of horrific conditions in ghettos across Poland and the Baltic States and had some indication of worse things going on "in the East".

The Slovakian note also used a book written by Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Secretary of State to Pius XI until 1929, where an argument was advanced justifying the State's right to limit the natural right to marry under certain circumstances. Gasparri's book, "Canonical Tracts concerning Marriage" published in 1932, did not discriminate on the grounds of race.  His arguments were an exploration of the legitimate role of the State to govern within the boundaries of the natural and civil law.

Catholic marriage theology recognised civil marriage as a legal and valid marriage, but did not have the status of a sacramental marriage conducted before a deacon, priest or bishop.  Sacramental marriage was indissoluble either by civil or canonical courts.  Catholic theology understood "nullity" to exist when the appropriate disposition, age or willingness to have children was absent.  Officially, the Church was not well disposed to the idea of Catholics entering into civil marriage without also contracting a sacramental marriage as well.

According to the Slovak government there were renegade ministers, mostly Protestants, who were busy baptising Jews at an alarming rate.  However, since all baptisms after September 1941 were not recognised for the purposes of deportation, this was a minor irritation.  Jews baptised before September were exempt from deportation.

At the end of the document was a note written by Domenico Tardini: "returned by His Holiness", indicating Pius had seen and read the note.  The Pope's response is not recorded.  At the same time the call for a formal protest against the murder of the Jews was mounting among the immured diplomats in the Vatican as well as from many sources outside.  This was to cause Pius considerable anxiety as he struggled to maintain the facade of strict neutrality.  However, the killing frenzy was now beyond anything remotely comparable in recorded history; it was something new.  It demanded a response.

ADSS 8.383


Reference: Number 428/42 (AES 3919/42 original)
Location and date: Rome, 23.05.1942

Summary statement: Attempted justification and explanation of the Slovakian race laws and false information about the treatment of the Jews.

Language: Italian

The undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Republic to the Holy See has the honour to communicate to His Eminence, the Cardinal Secretary of State to his Holiness a note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic in response to the note of the Secretary of State of His Holiness number 8355/41 of 12 November 1941 with his note of 8 May 1942 number 8325/1/42 has notified our Legation of the following direction:

The response to the Note of the Secretary of State of His Holiness of 12 November 1941, number 8355/41 could not be given immediately for the following reasons:

The solution of the Jewish Question is a very serious problem on which the competent authorities of Slovakia have had to apply their full attention. It was planned that the President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, a few days after receiving the Verbal Note (in December) would go to Rome. Monsignor Burzio, the Charge d’affaires of the Holy See expressed the same opinion during talks with the President of the Council. Instead of exchanging formal notes, it would be better do deal with the problem of the plight of the Jews in Slovakia face to face so as to provide exact and detailed information for any questions in this regard.

For various reasons the Prime Minister’s trip to Rome was first postponed to January 1942 and then to March.

But at this time there was a change in the solution of the Jewish question. Between the Slovak government and the German government negotiations took place on the solution of the Jewish problem in Europe and it was considered that the emigration of the Jews from Slovakia is only a part of a larger program. (2) Currently, half a million Jews in Europe will be sent to Eastern Europe. Slovakia was the first state whose Jewish residents would be accepted by Germany. At the same time the emigration of Jews from German occupied France, Holland, Belgium, the Protectorate, from Reich territory is also underway. Even Hungary has expressed its readiness to send its 800,000 Jews as reported a speech of Dr Kallay, President of the Council on 20 April this year.

The Slovak Jews will be located in different places around Lublin where they will stay permanently. The Aryan population will be transferred from these territories and in its place will be an exclusively Jewish district with its own administration, where Jews can live together, and provide for their existence through work. Families will remain together. There was some alarm expressed that some Jewish girls and men of Jewish origin emigrated and were sent to work before their families, but this was done in order for them to prepare the necessary things for the other Jews, especially women, the old, sick and children. The emigration of the remaining members of Jewish families has already begun so that all Jewish families will be reunited. All Jews will be under the protection of the Reich (Schutzbefohlene – literally “wards”).

We have received the promise of the Reich government that Christians of Jewish origin will be placed in a separate area.

According to our law they are regarded as Christians of Jewish origin who were baptised before 10 September 1941, that is, before the Jewish law came into force. This exception does not apply to Jews who have been recently baptised or baptised for the sake of some expediency. That some have received baptism on the eve of emigration for material interests has determined as demonstrated in the following statistics:

In Žilina Stefano Puskas, a Calvinist pastor, baptised 180 Jews on one day, 110 on the next, and another 40 on the third day; a total of 330 Jews baptised in three days. He received from every Jew he baptised thousands and thousands of Slovak crowns. In Vrútky, 86 Jews were baptised, and in Zvolen, 160. Another Protestant pastor in Nitra baptised 80 Jews. In Bratislava a Protestant pastor baptised 276 Jews in one day. A Protestant pastor in Trenčin baptised 50 Jews in one day, in Ružomberok 28, Prešov 46, Spišská Nováves 87, Trnava 107, Hlohovec 29. The greater number were baptised by Protestant pastors. The German government for its part, has told us that the Jews will be treated humanely.

During his recent visit to Bratislava, the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Holy See, Karel Sidor, reported verbally that the Holy See had received information according to which the Slovak government had given orders to capture all young people of Jewish origin and send them to the military front to be placed at the free disposal of the German soldiers. Such a thing has never been done and can not be done because according to the Nuremberg laws such behaviour is punished heavily. Officially we were told that some German soldiers who had affairs with Jewish women were sentenced by military tribunals and shot.

In Slovakia, after the current emigration of Jews, there will be only a small minority so that the concerns mentioned in the Note cited above may not even be present even in a single marriage case.

With regard to Article 9 of the Government ordinance which prohibits marriages between Jews and non-Jews, permit us to draw attention to the book by Cardinal Gasparri: Canonical Tracts concerning Marriage – published in 1932, Part 1, page 143 where it says:

(Latin) “The civil authority can, in some circumstances, for reasons of the public good, may prohibit, for a time, the right to marry and determine the conditions of marriage for those able to fulfil it”. Then: “But since the law of nature does not bind a case under pain of nullity, so the marriage entered into was, perhaps, against civil law and is valid, (sometimes it is even lawful), and therefore the civil authority can negate the effects of civil marriage separately from inseparable ones”. (Note: This is based on the Catholic theology of marriage which recognises civil marriages which can be nullified, as opposed to sacramental marriages which cannot.)

The Slovak law thus sets: “the improper impediment has been stated” (quote is in Latin) that prohibits marriages of this type and punishes those husbands and wives who dare to contract marriage against this law. The Ministry of the Interior also permits exemptions in exceptional circumstances and for grace reasons.

According to Article 38 of the government ordinance, young people of the Jewish race are not excluded from those schools where they can receive necessary instruction for their religious life. It is also not forbidden to Catholics of Jewish origin for them to take part in religious events, such as Mass, pilgrimages, processions, Marian groups etc.


Note of Tardini:

Returned from His Holiness 03.06.1942.


Cross references:
(1) ADSS 8.153 and Part Two.
(2) Compare this with the declarations of Minister Mach. See ADSS 8.368, note 4.

ADSS 8.368 Notes from the Italian Embassy on Slovakia

As the deportation of the Slovak Jews continued to create unpleasant reactions for the government, Prime Minister, Alexander Mach, called a press conference in late March to explain the government's decision.  The secretary of the Italian embassy to the Holy See, Francesco Babuscio Rizzo recorded notes from the meeting and forwarded them to the Vatican Secretariat of State.  There was some confusion over the dating of the memo.  Babuscio Rizzo dated his notes "7 May 1942" which was the day he wrote the version that was sent to the Vatican.  Babuscio Rizzo had received news of the meeting some time around 16 April, and the press conference itself was convened on or around 27 March.  Whatever the correct day, the content of Mach's "justification" for the race laws is an exercise in self-delusion.  We know that the nunciatures in Switzerland and Hungary had reports that Slovakian Jews were suffering terrible privation and were expected to die shortly after their deportation from Slovakia.

The notes made by Domenico Tardini and, later, the editors of ADSS, show very clearly that Mach's words were not taken seriously and in no manner reflected the truth that was becoming clearer and supported by reports from other parts of German-occupied Europe and Russia.

ADSS 8.368


Reference: No number. (AES 3657/42 original)
Location and date: Rome 07.05.1942 (1)

Summary statement: Declaration of the Slovak government on the race laws.

Language: Italian

Text:

At 12 o’clock this morning (2) journalists of allied countries and members of the press were summoned to a meeting by Prime Minister Mach to be briefed on the Jewish question in Slovakia (3) particularly in relation to protests made among the people.

“The Jewish question in Slovakia – began the Minister – must be resolved in a total way and must lead to the exclusion of all the Jews from the life of Slovakia …” (4)

The final decision for the total resolution of the Jewish problem was taken in the Council of State, also I wish to say, against the wishes of some of the Council members who raised objections. I gave assurances that the Jews expelled from Slovakia and sent to preselected places, would be treated humanely. Families will be reunited. I strongly deny the rumours that Jewish women are being sent to “sexual” destinations, as well as inhuman processes that the Jews will be submitted to. They will find in the towns to which they are sent the means to work and live.

I repeat that the women with children left behind, will be reunited as soon as possible.

I have given assurances, to the objections made to me, that the Jews who leave Slovakia, and that will be all of them, will never return. An international agreement guarantees this. The constitutional law permits us to remove citizenship from Jews who will be deported. Those who attempt to escape the action underway, trying to hide, will be liable to arrest. We do not keep any account of all the baptisms performed by certain clerics in recent times. Baptised or not, all the Jews must go … (5)

References:

1. Babuscio Rizzo corrected the date at the time of recording his notes. It should read 16.04.1942. Tardini notes: “Babuscio Rizzo was correct in saying that the information was forwarded to the Italian government on 16 April.”


2. Tardini note: “Which day? 27.03?”


3. Cf ADSS 8.334, 343, 360.


4. The minister explained the reason for the racial legislation and gave false assurances: “… the Jews in Slovakia, up until 14 March, influenced the economic, cultural, political and social life of the country and radical action against them could not be taken without causing damage and serious imbalance …”


5. Frivolous accusations against the Slovak Jews omitted.

Note of Monsignor Tardini: 08.05.1942. From Francesco Babuscio.

ADSS 8.326 Burzio to Maglione: deportations will proceed

At some point in the afternoon of 25 March 1942, Giuseppe Burzio received news from the Ministry of the Interior telling him that the rumours of a suspension of the planned deportation were false.  Burzio did not reveal his source at the Ministry, only that he received the news from it.  There is an urgency in this telegram that reflected the growing unease among Vatican diplomats in Bratislava, Budapest and Rome.  While controlling Hitler or Mussolini was beyond the realms of possibility for the Vatican, the idea that a priest, Jozef Tiso, would ignore direct requests from the Pope, seemed unbelievable.

It is in the note written by Domenico Tardini on 27 March that the impotence of the Holy See is felt most keenly.  Instructed by Cardinal Maglione, Tardini telegrammed Burzio and told him to go and see Tiso personally and plead with him to halt the trains.  Maglione sent his own telegram shortly afterwards setting out very clearly what Burzio was to do and say to the Priest-President. (ADSS 8.332)


ADSS 8.326
Reference: Tel nr 22 (AES 2388/42)
Location and date: Pressburg (Bratislava) 25.03.1942 @ 1810
(Arrived Rome 0930 26.03.1942)

Summary statement: Information sent yesterday that the government had suspended the deportation of the Slovak Jews was false.

Language: Italian

Text:

Contrary to yesterday’s rumour (1), the Government has not given up its inhuman proposition and is at present concentrating 10,000 men and an equal number of women as the first contingent. Afterwards, there will be more transports until all are deported. I was told the above (?) by the Ministry.

Note of Monsignor Tardini on a separate page:

27.03.1942. Eae (Ex audientia Eminentissimi – After meeting with Sec State)

Telegraph Mons Burzio – in response to his telegram – telling him the steps he is to take and instructing him to go personally to see Tiso. (2)

(I do not know if this will fail to stop … the madness! And the two madmen: Tuka who acts and Tiso – a priest – who lets him do it!)

References:

(1) ADSS 8.324

(2) Cf ADSS 8.332

ADSS 8.303 Angelo Rotta to Maglione on the Slovak Jews

Reading through the material in ADSS Volume 8, it is very clear that by early 1942 the Vatican was receiving more and more accounts of worsening persecution of Jews from German-occupied Russia, Poland and Slovakia.  In this document the Nuncio in Hungary, Angelo Rotta sends two letters.  The first is a cover note from Fr Endre Hamvas, vicar general of the archdiocese of Budapest and vice-president of the Association of the Holy Cross, a support network for Jewish converts to Catholicism.  The second is an appeal to the Pope from the Jewish community in Bratislava (Pressburg).  The tone of the second document is blunt:  "We are doomed". 

The chronology of the document and its enclosures is thus:

no date, but no later than early March 1942:  The Jewish Community in Bratislava write a letter of appeal to the Pope and send it to Budapest via the Association of the Holy Cross, an organisation for Jewish converts to Catholicism.

12.03.1942:  Endre Hamvas passes the Bratislavan letter along with his own cover note to the Nuncio, Angelo Rotta.

13.03.1942:  Rotta sends the letters to Rome, adding that the matter is "urgent". (ADSS 8.303)

14.03.1942:  The Secretariat of State calls the Slovakian minister, Karel Sidor, for a meeting to discuss the imminent deportation of the Jews. (ADSS 8.305)  It was noted that there had been a prior meeting to discuss "racial matters" the previous November (ADSS 8.199)

17.03.1942:  Domenico Tardini notes that Nuncio Rotta is to be informed of the meeting with Sidor (ADSS 8.305) as well as charge d'affaires, Giuseppe Burzio in Bratislava.

19.03.1942:  Maglione replied to the Swiss nuncio, Filippo Bernardini, (ADSS 8.300) informing him of Vatican intervention for the Slovakian Jews. (ADSS 8.312)


ADSS 8.303

Reference: Nr 7021/42 (N. Pr 536) (AES 2180/42 orig)
Location and date: Budapest 13.03.1942
Summary statement: Request intervention for Slovakian Jews.
Languages: Italian, Latin and German

Text:

(Italian) Allow me to send the attached letter to the Holy Father concerning the unfortunate Jews of Slovakia threatened with a general expulsion to Poland. The petition was presented by Monsignor [Endre] Hamvas (1890-1970), Vicar General of Budapest and Vice-President of the Association of the Holy Cross among the baptised Jews of Budapest.

As well I add the letter of Monsignor Hamvas addressed to me about the matter; it helps to better clarify the question. I could not refuse this act of charity, especially since it is so urgent.

Attachments:

1. Endre Hamvas to Angelo Rotta 12.03.1942.

(Latin) Some Slovaks from Bratislava (Latin: Posonio) earnestly and humbly begged that the Most Blessed Father [Pius XII] be approached so that his holiness, the President of the Republic of Slovakia [Jozef Tiso] and governor of the Jews in the republic, would deign to protect the Jews. The Jews of Slovakia hope for the protection of the Most Blessed Father [used this time for Tiso], the President who is a good priest, so that he would save them from the decree which goes that about 90,000 Jews will be expelled from Slovakia into Poland. Among this number can be presumed Jews who have been baptised.

The above mentioned Jew has given us a letter in an unconventional form, for which he excused himself for writing, on behalf of the Jews of Slovakia, because he could not carry individual letters due to the vigilance of the border guards. I have transcribed and typed the letters and presumed to enclose them.

2. Letter of the Jewish Community of Pressburg (Bratislava) to Pope Pius XII.

(German) Most Holy Father! The Jews in Slovakia, 90,000 souls, turn to Your Holiness for help and rescue.

We are doomed. We know we are to be transported to Poland (Lublin). Everything has already been taken from us (wealth, linen, clothes, businesses, houses, money, gold, bank deposits and all domestic equipment) and now they wish to banish Slovak citizens to Poland. Without any ready money and material goods, means certain ruin and lead to starvation.

Nobody can help us. We put all our hope and confidence in Your Holiness as the safest refuge of the persecuted.

Because the local Nuncio is away and we do not know when he will return, we turn to Your Holiness through the Nuncio in Budapest, who was easy to reach.

Will Your Holiness graciously call on the President of Slovakia to act in the name of humanity and charity and not permit us and our children to go into exile?

Note of Monsignor Tardini: 17.03.1942

1. Nuncio (ie Angelo Rotta) is to say that we have taken the step of seeing [Karel] Sidor (Slovakian minister to Holy See). (ADSS 8.305)

2. To do the same for Monsignor [Giuseppe] Burzio (Holy See Charge d’affaires in Bratislava) (ADSS 8.332)

Note of Secretariat of State to Angelo Rotta 21.03.1942

This office has not failed to raise the matter immediately with the Slovakian minister. The Office will try to prevent the enforcement of this provision (the deportation). [The meeting with the Slovakian minister took place on 14.03.1942]


NB: The Holy Cross Association was established in 1939 for the protection of baptized Jews under the spiritual leadership of Professor József Jánosi SJ and directed by the journalist Dr. József Cavallier.

ADSS 6 The Brazilian Visa Episode Part 1

Brazilian Visas Project 1939-1941



German Catholic refugee agencies had been working since 1933 to help Catholics of “non-Aryan” descent to leave the country. In 1935 the German Catholic bishops made the Raphaelsverein (St Raphael’s Work) the official agency responsible for assisting katholische Nichtarier (Non-Aryan Catholic - using the official government terminology). Based in Hamburg, the Raphaelsverein had been established in 1871 as an agency to help German Catholics emigrants. Its energetic general secretary was Pallotine priest, Max Grösser (1887-1940). With very limited resources at his disposal, Grösser and the Raphaelsverein helped 967 Non-Aryan Catholics leave Germany between April 1937 and March 1938.

One major reason for the relatively low figures was the German government’s deliberate policy of impoverishing Jews. Every effort was made to strip Jews of all assets, including the money spent to fund their emigration from Germany, an “atonement tax” levied per person after the November 1938 pogrom, and the 25% “flight tax” imposed on remaining assets. Jews were only permitted to take RM 10 in cash with them as they left the country.

The total population of Christians (Catholic and Protestant) of Jewish descent was estimated at about 138,500. Using population proportions of one third Catholic to two thirds Protestant to Germany in 1938 (ie before the anchluss with Austria) the number of Catholics of Jewish descent was around 46,000. That number jumped to close to 180,000 after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938.

Catholic agencies, and that included the Vatican, simply did not have the resources to sponsor mass migration of Jews out of the Greater German Reich. Help would have to come from governments. After the Evian Conference in July 1938 it was clear that attempts to help Jews leave Europe were diminishing rapidly.

This sets the scene for arguably, one of the most ambitious projects attempted during the war, and the one that came so close to concrete action. It is also one of the most vivid examples of the activity of the Vatican using all its resources to help Jews escape German persecution. At every stage the pope was actively involved.

It is essential to remember that official German policy towards the Jews until the early summer of 1941 was migration and / or expulsion from the German sphere of influence. The change in policy to extermination sometime around July 1941 marks the end of all migration schemes and also marks the end of the Brazilian visa plan.

What follows is my reconstruction of the visa episode using the material in ADSS volumes 6 and 8. The chronology covers the most important part of the visa episode, from March to December 1939.

The reader can find a summary of the affair in the introductory essay at the beginning of Volume 6, pages 15-21. (The essay is in French.)

ADSS 6


1939

Docs 8-9: 31.03.1939.

Cardinal Michael Faulhaber (1869-1952), Archbishop of Munich wrote to Pius XII asking for the pope’s help in obtaining immigration visas to Brazil. This was based on conversations Faulhaber and Wilhelm Berning (1877-1955), bishop of Osnabrück had with bishops from Argentina and Brazil while they were in Rome for the pope’s coronation earlier that month. Faulhaber writes that the Munich office of the Raphaelsverein has been in contact with Helio Lobo (1883-1960), a Brazilian diplomat in Switzerland who had authority to issue up to 3000 Brazilian visas for German and Austrian Catholic priests and religious refugees. However, Lobo was open to using the visas for Jewish refugees who would work as agricultural labourers. Berning’s letter of the same day supported Faulhaber’s request.


Doc 11: 05.04.1939

Cardinal Luigi Maglione (1877-1944), Secretary of State, wrote to Archbishop Benedetto Aloisi Masella (1879-1970), nuncio to Brazil asking him to convey the wish of the pope that President Getulio Vargas (1882-1954) would grant the 3,000 visas. (This was done on 14.04.1939 and appears as Annexe I on page 100 after Document 35. The date in ADSS is recorded as 1936 – an error.)



Doc 28: 05.06.1939


Pallotine priest Max Grösser (1887-1940), Secretary General of Raphaelsverein wrote to Pius XII asking for his help in assisting Catholics of Jewish descent to immigrate to Brazil.



Doc 30: 06.06.1939

Maglione to Masella. The pope asked for news on the request for the 3,000 visas.


Doc 33: 20.06.1939

Maglione to Masella. President Vargas has granted the 3,000 visas as an act of personal homage to the pope.



Doc 34: 23.06.1939

Maglione to Faulhaber. Maglione informs Faulhaber of the granting of the visas.



Doc 35: 28.06.1939


Masella to Maglione. Masella sends the conditions under which the visas will be granted. Brazil will leave it to the discretion of the Holy See to determine who gets a visa – Germans or other nationalities. (Annexe I is Masella’s request in the name of the pope; Annexe II is the Brazilian response on 24.06.1939 confirming the grant of the visas.)


Conditions for the granting of the visa [sourced from several documents in ADSS]:

a) Applicants must deposit a minimum of 20 Contos di Reis with the Bank of Brazil; (the equivalent of RM 39,000 / 273,000 Italian lire / $US 15,600) A sum that was impossible for most Jewish refugees.


(In 2011 = $US 250,000)


b) Applicants must be Catholics of Jewish descent;


c) Applicants must travel as a family unit (minimum three persons), ie single people will not be issued a visa;


d) Applicants were expected to work in agriculture and farming.



Doc 37: 11.07.1939

Maglione to Masella. Maglione instructs Masella to thank Vargas.



Doc 39: 13.07.1939

The Procurator General of the Pallotines, Fr Franz Xaver Hecht (1885-1953) wrote to Angelo Dell’Acqua (1903-1972) in the Secretariat of State suggesting that it would avoid confusion if the Raphaelsverein was declared the only agency for the distribution of the Brazilian visas. (This request was repeated in a letter from Hecht to Maglione [Doc 41] on 17.07.1939).



Doc 40: 16.07.1939

Maglione to Masella. Maglione asks for the conditions for the granting of the visas.



Doc 42: 20.07.1939.

Berning to Maglione. Responding to the details sent in Document 35, Berning says the financial conditions for the granting of the visas are too heavy. The Holy See should ask for a relaxation of the financial restrictions. The bishop also points out that most of the potential immigrants have no experience as agricultural workers. Berning also suggests Protestant non-Aryans be considered for the Brazilian visas.



Doc 44: 22.07.1939

Masella to Maglione. The visas are directed primarily at non-Aryan German Catholics.



Doc 46: 29.07.1939

Maglione to Masella: Masella asked to approach the Brazilian government and request an ease of restrictions on the visa conditions. Document 47 (31.07.1939) is Masella’s acknowledgement and indication of attempting to seek an ease of visa conditions.



Doc 53: 30.08.1939


Maglione to Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo (1873-1946), Nuncio to Germany: Maglione passes on information about the visas and attempts to have conditions eased.



Germany invaded Poland on 01.09.1939

Doc 57: 02.09.1939

Orsenigo to Maglione: The nuncio sends two letters: the first from Grösser asking the Holy See to intervene with the Brazilian government for the easing of visa conditions; the second proposed Jewish immigration to Argentina.



Doc 61: 11.09.1939

Orsenigo to Maglione: Discussed immigration of non-Aryan Catholic families to Brazil.



Doc 70: 19.09.1939


Maglione to Masella: Maglione repeats his earlier request [Doc 46] that Masella press the Brazilian government to ease visa conditions.




Doc 95: 21.10.1939


Maglione to Masella: Third request – as per docs 47 and 70. Growing urgency.


Doc 96: 24.10.1939

Archbishop Valerio Valeri (1883-1963), Nuncio to France to Domenico Tardini (1888-1961), Secretariat of State: Is there a possibility of using some of the Brazilian visas for Non-Aryan Catholic refugees in France? Document 97 is Maglione’s response.

 Doc 106: 13.11.1939

Masella to Maglione: Brazilian government asks for a tax payment of 20,000 Italian lire per potential immigrant.



Doc 111: 22.11.1939

Secretariat of State to the Brazilian Embassy to the Holy See: Formal request for a mitigation of the conditions attached to the visas.




Doc 120: 14.12.1939


Secretariat of State to the Brazilian Embassy to the Holy See: Formal request to use the 3,000 visas.

Pius XII - co-workers - Luigi Maglione 1877-1944

The most cursory glance at Actes et Documents will reveal a group of names appearing on a frequent basis. Among them is the name of Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State from March 1939 to August 1944. For the first five and half years of Pius XII’s papacy, Maglione was his “right hand man”, but little is known about this very important and pivotal Vatican official.

Maglione was born a day short of one year after Eugenio Pacelli, that is, 2 March 1877, in the town of Casoria near Naples in southern Italy. He studied for the priesthood at the Collegio Capranica in Rome along with Pacelli, and was ordained priest in July 1901 for the archdiocese of Naples. Until 1903 Maglione worked in parishes in Naples.

Following a career trajectory similar to Pacelli, Maglione began studying for the diplomatic corp and attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy from 1905 to 1907 before entering papal service in the Secretariat of State in 1908. At the end of World War One he was appointed by Benedict XV as papal representative at the League of Nations before being made Nuncio to Switzerland in September 1920. As was customary, the new nuncio was ordained a bishop and created Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine. In June 1926 Maglione moved to Paris where he was nuncio until mid-1938. His reception by the French was cold; they considered him pro-German, but he used his considerable personal skills and charm to win over his opponents. Time reported that Maglione was involved in the Hoare-Laval Pact (1935) that attempted to provide an amicable end to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. (Time 20.03.1939) Pius XI elevated him to the College of Cardinals on 16 December 1935.

Maglione was recalled to Rome in July 1938 and appointed Prefect of the Congregation of the Council which was responsible for the diocesan clergy (today known as the Congregation for the Clergy). His time there was short. Pius XI died on 10 February 1939 and his successor, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, was elected Pope on 3 March 1939. A week later, the new Pius XII named his old friend Maglione, Secretary of State. (New York Times 10.03.1939) By this time the new Cardinal Secretary had a reputation for being anti-fascist, and followed the initiatives set out by the pope, namely to steer a course that would do everything possible to avoid another European war.

Pius XII did not want creators of policy. He wanted implementers. Maglione had been trained in the same late-Tridentine understanding of the Catholic Church that Pacelli had. He knew it and understood it. Thinking independently was not part of the practice of a Secretary of State to the Pope, just as independent thinking was not part of the role description of the Secretary of State to the President of the United States of the Foreign Minister to the Australian Prime Minister.

What then do we learn of Maglione’s style? He was an able diplomat, a skilled negotiator, unfailingly polite and reserved, who faithfully implemented papal policy from March 1939 until his death in August 1944. He could also be quite blunt. In January 1943 Maglione wrote to the exiled bishop of Wloclaweck, Charles Radonski defending the pope’s decision not to make his letters to the Polish bishops public:

If you ask why the documents sent by the Pontiff to the Polish bishops haven not been made public, know that it seems better in the Vatican to follow the same norms, the Polish bishops themselves follow...Isn’t this what has to be done? Should the father of Christianity increase the misfortunes of Poles in their own country? (ADSS 3 Part 2 Doc 460, translation from Blet p 84)


On rare occasions, such as in December 1942, we glimpse the man in a slightly unguarded moment, sending New Year greetings to Nuncio Gaetano Cicognani in Spain in an attachment to an official document, marked “Personal”. (ADSS 7.78)

What did Maglione know of the extermination of European Jewry? The simple answer is, “as much as the Pope did, and the Pope knew a lot”. It would have been unthinkable for Maglione not to pass on to Pius anything of significance; and the murder of the Jews was the most significant event occurring in Europe during the war year. Perhaps the most puzzling thing remains the evidence of muddled reactions to the ever-growing reports of German atrocities.

By August 1942 the Vatican, and that included Pius and Maglione, had as clear a picture of the mass-murder of the Jews as did Churchill, Roosevelt and, had he been particularly interested, Stalin. On 26 September 1942, Myron Taylor, the personal representative of President Roosevelt to the Holy See, presented Maglione with an account of atrocities beyond anything heard of before. The document was part of what has become known as the Riegner Telegram. It disclosed in considerable detail what was happening in Poland. Did the Cardinal pass the memorandum from Taylor onto the Pope? I presume he did. If he did not, it would constitute a major breach in policy and behaviour. What happened after? We do not know – yet. Perhaps the Archives will reveal how these men reacted to this news.

Maglione was a heavy smoker which probably hastened his death 22 August 1944 at the age of 67. (New York Times 23.08.1944; Time 04.09.1944). Pius did not replace Maglione, but took on the responsibilities of the Secretariat himself with the assistance of Monsignori Domenico Tardini and Giovanni Battista Montini.

Reading my way through ADSS!

This is what I have been doing for the last two years - reading my way through the 12 volumes of Actes et Documents. I've created a series of tables as I read; one is a summary of each document, and another is a table of people mentioned. So far I have read and annotated nearly five volumes.

I do enjoy reading and translating and going off on tangents looking up odd details and information about different people and places. It has been an amazingly enriching experience.

Things will pick up a bit once I hit Volume 6 - it is the first volume that deals with the victims of the war (and I have read most of that material already - just have to create the tables!)

So ... I came across this document written by Domenico Tardini, one of the principal officials in the Secretariat of State. He made a note of a conversation he had with the British minister, D'Arcy Osborne, who had been interned in the Vatican since Italy declared war on the UK in June 1940. Osborne faithfully relayed instructions from London to the Vatican. On occasion, he was asked to pass on some more critical messages. This is one of them. It is an indication that the selection of documents made by the editors between 1965 and 1981 was a genuine attempt to give as detailed, and accurate, a picture of the operation of the Papal Secretariat of State during the war years as possible.

The set out of the text and the translation from the Italian, where necessary, is my own.

ADSS 5.416

D’Arcy Osborne to Monsignor Domenico Tardini

21.07.1942

Subject: Opinion in the Foreign Office, London, concerning the position of the Vatican in the war.

Archive Reference: AES 5682/42

Language: English with note by Domenico Tardini in Italian (translated)

Text:

I would not like you to think that we are not aware that the Pope is being Criticised by the Axis Powers, but you have summed up our chief criticism in the last words of your dispatch, namely, “the endeavour of the Vatican to maintain a precarious equilibrium outside of and above the war”. In order to do this we feel that ever since the entry of Italy into the war the Pope has more and more assimilated himself to the status of a sovereign of a small neutral State in the geographical neighbourhood of Axis Powers, and, for worldly rather than spiritual reasons, has allowed himself, like others, to be bullied. In short, we feel that His Holiness is not putting up a very good fight to retain his moral and spiritual leadership, when he should realize that in Hitler’s new world there will be no room for the Catholic religion and that if the Papacy remains silent, the free nations may find that they have little power to arrest the anticlericalism which may follow the war.

21.07.42: Note by Tardini:

This note was delivered to me today by the English Minister; which declares that it is a draft of a private letter of a friend [of Osborne’s], but which reflects the mentality of the Foreign Office.

22.07.42. Seen by the Holy Father.