Posted on 04/29/2009 7:47:03 AM PDT by NYer
Yad L'Achim, a haredi anti-missionary organization, called Monday on Pope Benedict XVI to help find thousands of European Jews who as young children were saved from the Holocaust by Catholic clergy and laymen and were never told of their Jewish origins.
"During his visit here, we want the pope to call on all members of the Catholic Church to reveal the identities of thousands of Jews saved by the church from the Nazis," said Rabbi Shalom Dov Lipshitz, who heads the organization. "We believe that hundreds, perhaps thousands of Jews and their offspring can be discovered if the Pope makes an unequivocal announcement while in Israel that every Catholic has an obligation to reveal the Jewish roots of those saved from the Holocaust."
Lipshitz said that Yad L'Achim had a list of about 2,000 names of children believed to have been handed over to Catholic families, orphanages and other Church institutions to hide them from the Nazis.
A sample page from the list was sent to The Jerusalem Post. It includes the names, birthdates, places of birth and last known addresses of the individuals thought to be Jews.
All of the people on the list were from Holland, and all were born between 1920 and 1938.
Lipshitz said Yad L'Achim's list, based on information collected after the war, also included Jews from France, Italy and Belgium.
The organization also wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI.
"As you know, during the Holocaust, thousands of Jewish parents deposited their children with Christian families to protect them from the Nazis, fully intending to retrieve them and return them to their families and their nation after the war. Tragically, a very large percentage didn't survive, and these Christian families refused to reveal to the children their true identity," the letter read.
"We view with utmost gravity media reports that these families were acting on [the] order of Pope Pius XII, who stated that the orphans should not be told they are Jews," it said.
Father David Neuhaus, patriarchal vicar for the Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel, said that it was impossible for the Catholic Church to adopt an overall principle for dealing with Jews who had been raised as Catholics.
"Tremendous complexities arise, and each case must be treated individually," said Neuhaus.
"Human lives are involved in these tremendously complex, emotionally charged cases," he explained. "Besides the theological issues of what faith these people belong to, there are also very human issues of relationships. Catholic families who raise a Jewish orphan feel that he or she is their very own. To whom should this orphan be returned? To a distant relative that the survivor does not even know? To the Jewish people?"
He added that "even after these Jews are told of their origins, they react in many different ways. A simple declaration on the part of the pope is not going to solve these problems."
Some prominent Jewish leaders were saved by Catholics. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, was hidden from the Nazis by a Catholic nanny who had him baptized and raised him as a practicing Catholic. Foxman's parents survived the Holocaust and reclaimed him.
But many young Jewish children never returned to their families and were raised as Catholics.
Grzegorz Pawlowski, formerly Zvi Hersch, serves as a priest in Jaffa. He was rescued by Polish Catholic nuns and never returned to the Jewish faith, although he is aware of his Jewish roots. He moved to Israel to be near his brother, who remained Jewish.
Rabbi David Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committee's Department for Interreligious Affairs, who is helping to coordinate the pope's visit to Israel, said that Holocaust survivors with Jewish roots had the right to know about it, but doubted that the pope was the right person to petition.
"It is more appropriate to meet with the local archdioceses and attempt to track [them] down on a local level," said Rosen. "It is a bit sensationalist to turn to the pope."
Damned if you; damned if you don’t ... first the Church was accused of not doing enough to save the Jews, now it is accused of converting 2000 children. At what point will someone say “Thank you for risking your lives to save ours”.
The tragic legacy of the holocaust goes on and on.
Broken lives, broken families, broken hearts endlessly.
Jews who are Catholic? Catholics that are Jews? Its all a mater of religious up bringing, its not a nationality. They are believers, leave them be. Why stirr up the pot? (Rhet.)
Agreed. Maybe this particular group should ask American (liberal) Jews (78%) why they voted for a guy named Hussein who does flybys in NYC to terrify the citizens for his Saudi bosses.
The Pope should be spending his time smacking down the liberal American Catholic church and their liberal universities.
That’s easy. Our very own John Kerry.
I agree. Also why is it the Catholic church’s responsibility to find these families?
Maybe they are missing out on their portion of the World Banking System.
LOL!
Jews, for the most part, believe that if you have Jewish parents, you are born a Jew “automatically.” It’s not a matter of religious upbringing, but of ethnicity...magritte
“We believe that hundreds, perhaps thousands of Jews and their offspring can be discovered if the Pope makes an unequivocal announcement while in Israel that every Catholic has an obligation to reveal the Jewish roots of those saved from the Holocaust.”
So Rabbi, you don’t actually KNOW if any of these children were raised Catholic, do you?
God help us all.
Well, duh. It's a bit dangerous to tell a young child something that if acidentally blurted out would get him killed.
The professional clergy on both sides have their axes to grind. It’s not surprising to find that the Rabbis want it all done now and the Priests have an endless list of reasons why it can’t be done. As far as the individuals go, if you were orphaned in Holland in the early 40’s and wound up being raised by nuns, you either a) put 2 and 2 together by now and made your decision, b) are an idiot or c) don’t care one way or the other.
Exactly. The LESS these children knew, the safer they and the families caring for them were.
I would imagine that after the war, many families thought of these children as their own and struggled with just how much and what to tell the children, especially after a year or two when it became clear that their parents were probably dead.
And don’t forget that it’s entirely possible that many of the individual don’t WANT to know.
Let’s say you were born in Belgium in 1939, your family placed you with Christian friends when you were less than a year old. You were raised in the Belgian countryside and have NO MEMORY of your parents or the war. You have a wonderful life and family growing up. When you are a teenager you might notice that you don’t really look like anyone in your family, but it doesn’t really matter. Eventually, you pretty much “figure it out,” but you also realize that nothing will be gained from bringing it up and that it would probably be unbelievably painful for your family (that raised you) to discuss.
What do they believe? In Europe most likely nothing, hence anything.
Still, I think they have a right to know their heritage, just as I believe that all adopted children have the right to know their heritage.
If they truly believe the Gospel, they won't convert, and if the do convert, they weren't saved to begin with.
I read a while back some prophesy that said if a person born Jewish and having converted to the Catholic Church ever became pope, it would spell the end of the Church. Has anyone ever heard that or did I just happen on some nutty writing? Thanks, AR
You mean like Peter?
Oh bravo! Ping for watching :-)
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