Historian off the mark

Dimitri Cavalli Susan Zuccotti, author of the book, "Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy" (2001), told an audience at Rockland Community College recently that she never found any evidence, written or oral, that Pope Pius XII ever instructed bishops, priests and nuns to assist Jews during World War II. As someone who has conducted extensive research on this controversy for a forthcoming book, I would like to bring attention to a number of facts that Zuccotti has conveniently ignored. Recently, two Vatican letters were found in the archives of the diocese of Campagna in Italy. In October and November of 1940, Luigi Cardinal Maglione, the Vatican secretary of state, and Msgr. Giovanni Montini, the substitute secretary of state and future Pope Paul VI, sent sums of money to Bishop Giuseppe Palatucci of Campagna, informing him that Pius XII wanted it spent on behalf of Jews detained in Italian concentration camps and other persons who were being persecuted because of their race. According to Volume DC in the Vatican's 11-volume collection of its wartime documents, Montini instructed a convent in Rome to provide shelter to an elderly Jewish couple on Oct. 1, 1943, a few weeks after the Nazis occupied the city. Zuccotti acknowledges this document in her book, but insists that it doesn't prove that the pope had any role in Montini's action. Zuccotti, however, overlooks the fact that the document has the abbreviation for "Ex Audientia Sanctissimi," which means that Montini personally discussed the matter with the pope, who then approved the sheltering of the Jewish couple in the convent When the arrests of Roman Jews began on Oct. 16, i943, Pius XII took prompt action. He ordered Cardinal Maglione to make a strong protest with Germany's ambassador to the Vatican. Through his nephew Carlo Pacelli, the pope instructed Alois Hudal. an Austrian bishop and Nazi sympathizer living Rome, to send a letter protesting the round-ups to the German military governor of Rome. During the occupation, thousands of Jews found shelter in many religious institutions and inside the Vatican itself. In 2000, the Israeli government released the diary of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects behind the Holocaust. Eichmann recalled that the "objections given (by the Vatican) and the excessive delay in the steps necessary to complete the implementation of the operation, resulted in a great part of Italian Jews being able to hide and escape capture." Contrary to Zuccotti's claims, many prominent individuals have said that they received instructions from the pope and subordinates to assist Jews. In his books. "Nascosti in Conventi" and "Gli Ebrei Salvati da Pio XEL" the Italian journalist Antonio Gaspari interviewed a number of priests and nuns, including Sr. Ferdinanda Corsetti, who was honored ss a "righteous gentile" by the State of Israel, Sr. Maria Piromalli, Sr. Dora Rutar, and the Rev. Gfuseppe Forcelloti, who said they were encouraged by the pope and his top officials to do what they could to hek>the Jews of Rome. Zuccotti's absurd thesis that PopePius XT! did "virtually nothing" to help the Jews in Italy (and throughout Europe) collapses like a house of cards. I shpula, note that many of these facts have beer, previously brought to Zuccotti's attention through critical reviews of her book and public debates between her and other experts, such as Ronald J. Rychlak and Justus George Lawler.
The writer lives in the Bronx.

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