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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
In the month of April, 1957, I was in Israel and thanks to a letter of introduction from a Dublin Jewish friend, spent part of an evening with the Chief Rabbi, an old Dubliner, Dr Herzog. I told him that I would be passing through Rome the following week and hoped to have a brief audience with Pius XII. I explained that the purpose of this interview was to present to the Pope a book I had written on St Joseph ten years previously, but which was dedicated to His Holiness ‘to commemorate his charity to the stricken Jews of Europe’. Dr Herzog became quite enthusiastic about Pius XII. He was very proud to have been received in audience by him, rather exceptionally on a Sunday morning, and told me that the audience lasted a full half hour. ‘Take my blessing to him’ the old patriarchal Jew repeated and this I promised to do. When I did so a week later I recalled the fact that Jews the world over seemed very grateful to the Pope for the help he had given them. We were speaking in French and the Pope ended the brief interview with words I translate as I wish I could have done more’.
I had been a member of a Dublin Christian-Jewish society at the time of the ‘Final Solution’ and had kept a fairly constant curiosity about the attitude of Jews to Pius XII since that time. With the exception of occasional remarks in the Israeli press and a rather silly comment in Gerald Reitlinger’s otherwise dignified and scholarly work, this attitude was more sympathetic than that of Jews to any previous Pope.
1 The exact words were ‘J’ aurais voulu faire davantage'.
2 I shall not give detailed annotation in this article. Almost all quotations are at first‐hand.
3 The ‘memorial’ to the death camp at Auschwitz is a model of some railway carriages on a siding. It is also a memorial to those who could have put the railway out of action by bombing.
4 Von Bergen, German Ambassador to the Vatican at the time, referred on one occasion to the ‘ultimatum‐like vein ‘ of the notes; in others there was explicit reference to ‘flagrant acts of unlawfulness and violence’ to ‘harshness and despotism worse than the Kulturkampft’ to ‘malicious slander and defamation, disgraceful calumnies’ appearing day after day in press and speeches.
5 Two items of ‘evidence’ have recently been shot to pieces. A remark attributed to the Pope about not wanting to cause a crisis of conscience for German soldiers has been proved apocryphal; Professor Friedlander's assertion that the Pope invited the Berlin National Orchestra to perform in the Vatican likewise.
6 Pinhas Lapide thinks that Jews saved or rescued by Catholics may have numbered 400,000. The Opera di San Raffaele was conspicuous in this work.
7 Assistant editor of America, a specialist in these matters.
8 I have not mentioned Pius XII ‘s personal protest to Ribbentrop in the Vatican in March, 1940, because of the complexity of the evidence. The Pope's words to the College of Cardinals and to Cardinal Preysing in 1943 have been widely printed. In 1942 Tittmann reported to Washington that the Holy See was convinced ‘that a forthright denunciation of Nazi atrocities, at least in so far as Poland is concerned, would only result in the violent deaths of many more people’. He also reported in that year that a statement handed him by Cardinal Maglione, Secretary of State, 'adds it is well known that the Holy See is taking advantage of every opportunity offered in order to mitigate die suffering of non‐Aryans' (my italics). Tittmann did not question this factual assertion, though he had been pressing for an open denunciation.
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