What the Vatican and Pius XII knew about the Holocaust

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

“New documents from the pontificate of Pope Pius XII and their meaning for Jewish-Christian relations – a dialogue between historians and theologians” is the subject of an upcoming international conference held at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from October 9-11, 2023. In March 2020, Pope Francis opened the Vatican Archives for the acts and documents of the wartime pontificate. During the last three years, historians searched and evaluated thousands of hitherto unknown documents and made several sensational discoveries. Some of them will be revealed at the conference in Rome for the first time. We interviewed the German historian Michael Hesemann, who has studied Pius XII in the Vatican Archives for the last 14 years, on the latest discoveries and their consequences.

Dr. Michael Hesemann studied history at Göttingen University and works for the American Pave the Way Foundation, promoting the reconciliation of Catholics and Jews. Since 2009, he has studied thousands of documents in the Vatican Archives, both on the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Hesemann, at an international conference at the Gregorian, new documents will be presented: A list of about 3200 Jews hidden in religious Institutions in Rome and a letter written to the Pope’s secretary, Fr. Leiber, describing the Holocaust. Will the history have to be rewritten?

Yes and no. What has to be rewritten is the “black legend” of the silent and disinterested Pope which was originally promoted by Rolf Hochhuth in his 1963 play “The Deputy” and lately recycled by David Kertzer in his 2022 book “The Pope at War”. Today we know that Pius XII. not only mentioned the horrible fate of the Jews in three public speeches but also tried so save as many as possible. Already in 1939, he tried to obtain 200,000 visas for German Jews, but only received not even 10,000. In over 40 diplomatic interventions in Hitler’s vassal states like Vichy France, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria, he managed to have that numerous deportations were either postponed or even cancelled, what saved the lives of 947,000 Jews, as I prove in my book. None of these facts are questioned by the newly-discovered documents. Instead, they are additional stones of a mosaic, rounding up the general picture.

But why didn’t Pius XII inform the world about the Holocaust, when he learned about it through his secretary as early as in December 1942?

Well, we don’t even know if Fr. Leiber informed Pius XII on the letter, since the sender, a personal friend and fellow Jesuit, Fr. Lothar König, asked him to keep this letter strictly confidential since any leak would endanger the lives of his sources. But even if he did, what did it prove? For the Pope, it was 4th-hand-information. Similar rumors already poured in since the summer of 1942, but they were all bits and pieces and often contradictory. The letter mentions an extermination camp at Rawa Russka, probably the KZ Belzec, which is only 22 kilometers away. Indeed, Belzec was even mentioned in another document, a request by the US representative at the Holy See from September 1942, who wanted to learn what the Vatican knows about a camp he called “Belick”. But due to the different names and spellings, nobody could know that it refers to the same death camp. Prudence forbids to proclaim unverified reports as fact, so all the Pope was able to do is to condemn the Nazi crimes in a rather general way, which he did in his famous Christmas speech of December 24, 1942. In this, he remained as vague as the Allies a week before in their statement, for good reasons. Half a year later, on June 2, 1943, he explained this vagueness: “Every word that we addressed to the responsible authorities and every one of our public declarations had to be seriously weighed and considered in the interest of the persecuted themselves in order not to make their situation unwittingly even more difficult and unbearable.” He feared retaliation measures of Hitler which would not only increase the speed of killing in the Concentration Camps but would also give the Nazis a reason to persecute the Catholic Church in Germany and end all possibilities of the Holy See to act and help behind the scenes. Later, from September 1943 until June 1944, when Nazi-Germany occupied Rome, Pius XII was literally a hostage of Hitler, who ordered the arrest or even the assassination of the Pope in the very moment he speaks out in favour of the Jews.

But wasn’t he overly prudent and too careful in this dramatic situation, when nearly 6 million Jews were massacred in the Nazi death camps?

Superficially seen, maybe. But as I prove in my book, he did much more. Since October 1939, he was involved in the plans of the German military opposition, a conspiracy of high-ranking officers who intended to kill Hitler, take over control in Germany and end the war. It is the same group which unfortunately failed on 20 July 1944, when Oberst Stauffenberg managed to deposit a bomb under Hitler’s table at the Führer-Headquarter Wolfsschanze and started “Operation Valkyrie”. Pius XII not only supported this group but also acted as an intermediator with the Western Allies. He literally risked his state and head for the higher good, to get rid of Hitler and Nazism. So indeed, he was a very brave man and, behind the scenes, did everything to stop the killings.

On 16 October we all commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Sabbath-razzia, the arrest of the Roman Jews by the Nazis in 1943. Do you think Pius XII did enough to help them?

Absolutely, and the newly discovered list is just the last piece in a long chain of evidences. So, what happened on that sad day? Although even Gestapo-Chief Kappler had assured to spare the ca. 8,000 Roman Jews, Hitler ordered their deportation “as hostages to Mauthausen” (a work camp in Austria). The arrests begun with a razzia in the early hours of 16 October 1943. But on the very same day, at 12 a.m., after “only” 1,259 Jews were arrested, the “Judenaktion” was suddenly stopped. This was no coincidence, as the documents in the Vatican Archives prove.

Just after Pius XII. learned of the arrests in the early morning, his Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, ordered German ambassador Ernst von Weizsäcker into the Vatican- Weizsäcker warned him of the consequences of an open protest and promised to help, but did not do anything. Consequently, Pius XII sent his nephew Carlo Pacelli to the Austrian bishop in Rome, Alois Hudal, who had some sympathies with the Nazis and was respected by the German town commander, General Stahel. Under instruction by Pacelli, Hudal wrote a letter to Stahel, requesting him to stop the deportation, since otherwise the Pope would protest publicly against it, with grave consequences. Stahel understood and called Himmler, warning of a public revolt in Rome and problems for the nearby front, so that the Reichsführer SS “gave order to stop those arrests immediately”, as Stahel informed Hudal the next day. Stahel paid a high price for this help; two weeks later, when Himmler had learned about the background of his appeal, he was sent to the Russian front; he died as a POW in Russia.

Unfortunately, the 1,007 already arrested Jews could not be saved; their train was sent to Auschwitz instead of Mauthausen, although the Vatican – as documents reveal – inquired about their fate until January 1945 and believed they were still alive, when actually most of them were murdered in the gas chambers right after their arrival. But in Rome, the Pope knew exactly what to do. On 25 October, he stated in L’Osservatore Romano: “The August Pontiff… has not for one moment ceased employing all means in His power to alleviate the sufferings … the universally paternal charity of the Supreme Pontiff … does not pause before boundaries of nationality, religion or race. This manifold and incessant activity of Pius XII has been greatly intensified recently by the increased sufferings of so many unfortunate people”, what, of course, referred to the Jews. Once again, he sent Carlo Pacelli to Bishop Hudal to request 550 placards calling Roman monasteries and seminaries “Property of the Holy See, exempt from house search and confiscations”.

Indeed, in 235 monasteries and convents, 4,205 Jews were hidden, plus 160 in Vatican City. Of 3200, we know the names, thanks to the newly discovered list. Eventually, about 6,400 of the Roman Jews, or 80 % survived the Holocaust, more than anywhere else where a SS-razzia happened. And indeed, the Jewish community recognized this and publicly expressed their gratitude after the war.