In late October the Zenit news agency ran an interview with Jewish historian Michael Tagliacozzo, head of the Beth Lohame Haghettaot, the Center of Studies on the Shoah and Resistance in Italy. (Beth Lohame Haghettaot in Israel is one of the world’s largest museums and centers of documentation on the Holocaust.)
Throughout interview Tagliacozzo presents historical documentation showing Pius XII did everything within his diplomatic power to protest the Nazi treatment of Jews and ordered members of the Church to protect and hide them from the Germans. Most compelling was Tagliacozzo’s account of his own experience in wartime Rome:
"After the Nazis’ action [of arresting and deporting thousands of Italian Jews on October 16, 1943], the Pontiff, who had already ordered the opening of convents, schools and churches to rescue the persecuted, opened cloistered convents to allow the persecuted to hide. Msgr. Giovanni Butinelli, of the parish of the Transfiguration, told me that the Pontiff had recommended that parish priests be told to shelter Jews.
"I personally know a Jewish family that, after the Nazis’ request for 50 kilos of gold, decided to hide the women and children in a cloistered convent on Via Garibaldi. The nuns said they were happy to take the mother and girl but they could not care for a little boy. However, under the Pope’s order, which dispensed the convent from cloister, they also hid the boy.
"I myself was saved from persecution thanks to the Church’s help. I remember it was October 16, a rainy day. It was a Saturday, the third day of the Jewish feast of Sukkot. I had sought refuge in Bologna Square.
"When the Germans arrived, I was able to escape through a window and I found myself on the street in my pajamas. A family helped me and hid me. I then went to my former Italian teacher who let me stay in her home and asked several priests to find me a safe place.
"Finally, after almost a week, thanks to a recommendation of Fr. Fagiolo, I was hidden in the Lateran. I remember they treated me wonderfully. After not having eaten for two days, Fr. Palazzini gave me a meal with all God’s goods: a bowl of vegetable soup, bread, cheese, fruit. I had never eaten so well."
When asked what he thought of Cornwell’s book, Tagliacozzo replied, "I haven’t read it, but I know that much nonsense is written and, unable to contribute new arguments, they give exaggerated interpretations. I am an historian and I do not look for controversies."
Incidentally, little more than a month before the paperback release of Hitler’s Pope, a new book, Hitler, the War, and the Pope, appeared. Undertaken several years before Cornwell’s book appeared, the new book—by law professor Ronald J. Rychlak—is a meticulous refutation of the "black legend" of Pius XII’s silent complicity with Hitler. It won’t get the press Cornwell’s book did—few in the secular world care about a pope who is holy, even saintly—but it’s an honest, scholarly antidote to the dissembling poison of Cornwell. Look for an article by Rychlak, "Historical Dishonesty: The Lie of Hitler’s Pope," in next month’s issue of This Rock.