Pope Pius XII told French churches not to return Jewish war babies

NEW BID TO SMEAR POPE PIUS XII FAILS

On January 9, the New York Times ran a story about an article in an Italian newspaper that claimed to have uncovered a 1946 document that implicates Pope Pius XII in a scheme not to return baptized Jewish children (who were hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust) to their parents after the war. Since its publication, the controversy has exploded.

Catholic League president William Donohue spoke to this issue today:

“The document that was the source of the New York Times piece says that Pope Pius XII personally approved the decision not to return Jewish children who had been sheltered by Catholics during the war. But there are many problems with this interpretation. As first pointed out by Rev. Peter Gumpel in Rome, the document was unsigned, did not appear on Vatican stationery and was written in French, not Italian. Even more convincing is what has been learned subsequently.

“Thanks to Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale, the original document in question has now been identified. To begin with, the document never originated in the Holy See: the text bears the seal of the apostolic nunciature of France. And not only does the document not say what it has been alleged to say, it says the very opposite! To wit: It expressly says that the children who were sheltered by Catholic institutions should be returned to their original Jewish families. In the event Jewish organizations, as opposed to Jewish families, sought custody of the children, that was to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

“Zenit, the international news agency that covers the Vatican, learned that the origins of the document extend to a letter written in 1946 by Isaac Herzog, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, to Pius XII. In it, Herzog thanked the pope for helping Jews during the Holocaust and for sheltering ‘thousands of children who were hidden in Catholic institutions.’ He then requested that these children be returned to their original families. Which, as we now know, is what happened.

“In short, what the critics of Pius XII are suffering from is a heady dose of Rathergate: they willingly took the bait and now look rather foolish.”

New York Times Covers the Holocaust

Rabbi Morton Pomerantz
Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005

The world is now observing the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. More Jewish people were slaughtered there than at any other point on earth. In the midst of the remembrance, it is well to recall the New York Times article by C.L. Sulzberger noting the liberation.

Cyrus Sulzberger listed the different kinds of people slaughtered at the camp: men, women, children, Poles, Italians, etc. One thing old Cyrus neglected to mention in his article was the religion of the overwhelming majority of victims: They were Jews.

This should not surprise us. After all, another Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, was one of a number of speakers at a public recognition of the revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto; he was noteworthy on this occasion by being the only speaker to forget to mention that the people engaged in this revolt were Jewish. What is more important: Jews being slaughtered in enormous numbers, or the Sulzberger clan downplaying their Jewishness so they can be admitted to Gentile clubs in New York?

One can find in the Times index the subject of Jews being slaughtered in concentration camps, but not before the indices of 1950 and beyond. If my memory serves correctly, VE Day occurred in 1945.

Time has passed. The millennium has turned. The New York Times has issued an apology for the manner in which it covered the slaughter of Jews in Europe during the Second World War. But why apologize to me? Despite my father's honorable service to his country during the war (he was a physician), I was safe and sound here in America. The people to whom the Times owes an apology went up in smoke in Auschwitz and other death camps.

The major media have disgraced themselves by calling the Times "America's newspaper of record." In the interest of truth and advertising, the Times should change its motto from "All the news that's fit to print" to a simple Latin expression: "Caveat emptor." The Latin would give class to the paper, and it would be truthful; it means let the buyer beware.

When the Holy Father, who is certainly not Jewish, speaks of the horrors of Auschwitz after having lived in Poland through the dark days of Nazism and the cruel oppression of the communists, one is moved to tears; when the Sulzberger clan, who most certainly are Jewish, decide to deal with Auschwitz at this late date, one tends to lose one's appetite.

What happened at the death camps was a new level of horror and depravity in an already sick world; what the Sulzbergers did does not by any means match what the Nazis did, but it is disgusting enough. The silence of the Jewish community generally about the shabby role that the Sulzberger clan and the New York Times played in reporting the story of the European slaughter should bring shame to everyone who is Jewish in America.

To our esteemed Jewish leaders: Does the cat have your tongue?

To the New York Times and the great Sulzberger family: You are beneath my contempt.

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