Jewish leaders condemn Vatican's plan to venerate Pope Pius XII

"With this decree the Pope says that Pius XII is a person that we have to admire, recognize as a model of Christian virtues, and it is very, very important that the church gives officially this appreciation of this important pope that we know was guiding the church in very difficult times." said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.

The move by the sitting Pope, Benedict XVI, brings the controversial World War II pontiff, Pius XII, a step closer to sainthood, despite persistent allegations from historians and Jewish groups that he did not do enough to help prevent the murder of six million Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany.

In Israel the news has been met with a mixture of disappointment, bewilderment and anger by Jewish leaders.

Rabbi Yisrael Lau told CNN: "I say with all the respect. Don't do it, especially not now when many survivors are still alive and it will hurt them deeply knowing that the man who could save, could do much more and did not do it. Don't make him holy. This is a shame I think for the church. It is not a good education for generations to come."

The Vatican maintains Pius XII worked quietly behind the scenes to save Jewish lives during the war, but church archives that might shed more light on his actions remain sealed despite repeated requests from historians for access.

Earlier in the year the German-born Benedict faced a wave of criticism for reinstating a holocaust denying Bishop who had been excommunicated for reasons unrelated to the Holocaust.

F.D.R DID NOT RESPOND TO THE JEW’S PLEAS.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism exist even today. Certainly there was anti-Semitism at that time all around the world, but it was not mainly from Catholics and much less from the Catholic Church. Germany was not alone; there was plenty of anti-Semitism in the highest spheres of the Allied governments.

Jewish historian Richard Breitman has written five books, one on the Holocaust and another on Nazism. He is, up to this day, the only person authorized to study the OSS secret documents of U.S. espionage during WWII. The Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera.” interviewed him on June 29, 2000. In the article, Breitman not only confirms the role played by Pius XII in defending and safeguarding the persecuted during the Nazi regime but he also found “the Allied silence on the Holocaust surprising. Their first testimonies are from the end of 1942…” He also remarked that the documents denoted how the Nazis considered that the Vatican was in the side of the Allies. (10)

The reaction of the US, French and British governments at that time, and even later, when knowledge of the concentration camps existed, were certainly not in solidarity for the persecuted Jews. In the middle of the genocide, Britain closed the doors of Palestine to the Jews. The U.S. government accepted a total of 10,000-15,000 Jewish refugees throughout the war – a truly scandalous statistic.

Jewish leaders ask Allies to bomb railway lines to concentration camps

The posturing with strong public declarations followed by the empty deeds of the allied leaders did not save any Jewish lives. On June 6, 1944, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the well known Zionist leader, later president of Israel, proposed to the British Minister, Anthony Eden, that the railway line to Auschwitz should be bombed. The British, after consultation, denied the request alleging the “great technical difficulties involved.” As the Jews died by the thousands daily, why was there not a rescue plan on the Allied side to counter the Nazi machinery of extermination? The Allies had already dropped tens of thousands of bombs on German cities. Why was that simple request which would have saved hundreds of thousands Jews and Christians refused? Later on, J.F. Martin, chief private secretary of Winston Churchill, explained “the great technical difficulties.” In a letter to Dr. Weizmann he wrote that they had discussed the matter with the Soviets and that the Soviets vetoed it.

When the evacuation of over 60,000 Jews from Bulgaria was suggested, Eden replied that the whole problem with the Jews was very difficult. “If we do that (said Eden) then the Jews of the world will be wanting us to make similar offers in Poland and Germany.” (11)

In 1943, there was a memorandum from British embassy sent to the U.S. State Department expressing their fear that the Germans may “change over from a policy of extermination to one of extrusion, and aim, as they did before the war, at embarrassing other countries by flooding them with refugees.” The State Department blocked, with Roosevelt’s connivance, efforts in Congress to help the Jewish refugees on their way to Palestine. (12)

The Jews depended on the success of The Catholic Church’s lone efforts -they had no other friends on the side of the Allies.

Franco offers refuge in Spain to persecuted Jews.

The reaction of the Western democracies was in stark contrast with that of “Fascist” Spain. General Franco’s regime, even though his country was devastated and impoverished after a bloody civil war, recognized all the Sephardic Jews living in the Nazi occupied territories as Spanish citizens. That measure allowed them to return to Spain- the beloved Sepharad, land of their ancestors where they lived a golden age more than five centuries ago.

Franco’s government also collaborated with the Holy See and several South American countries in providing false passports for Jews trying to flee the Nazi scourge. More than 50,000 Jews were saved thanks to the Spanish government actions. When the Nazis discovered the covert operation, some of the Latin American countries retracted from accepting the validity of the faked passports.

The Vatican, on January 24, 1944, interceded with the Latin American governments asking them to recognize the passports “no matter how illegally obtained”, and the humanitarian operation proceeded. Brazil gave 3,000 enter visas. Paraguay, Chile and others South American countries were also very receptive to the Pope’s pleas in favor of the Jews.

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