7/28/2019 "Historian Off the Mark" by Dimitri Cavalli in the Rockland Journal-News newspaper in New York (June 23, 2003), p. 4B

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Historian off the markDimitri Cavalli

Susan Zuccotti, author of the book,"Under HisVery Windows:The Vaticanand the Holocaust inItaly" (2001), told anaudience at Rockland Community Col-lege recently that she neverfound any ev-idence, written or oral, that Pope Pius XIIever instructed bishops, priests and nunstoassist Jews during World War II.As someone who has conducted ex-tensive research on this controversy fora forthcoming book, I would like to bringattention to a number of facts that Zuc-cotti has conveniently ignored.Recently, two Vatican letters werefound in the archives of the diocese ofCampagna in Italy. In October and No-vember of 1940, Luigi CardinalMaglione,theVatican secretary ofstate, and Msgr.Giovanni Montini, the substitute secre-tary of state and future Pope PaulVI, sentsums of money to Bishop GiuseppePalatucci of Campagna, informing himthat Pius XII wanted it spent on behalfofJews detained in Italian concentrationcamps and other persons who were be-ing persecuted because of their race.According to Volume DC in the Vati-can's 11-volume collection of its wartimedocuments, Montini instructed a conventin Rome to provide shelter to an elderlyJewish couple on Oct. 1, 1943, a fewweeks after the Nazis occupied the city.

Zuccotti acknowledges this documentin her book, but insists that it doesn'tprove that the pope had any role in Mon-tini's action. Zuccotti, however, overlooksthe fact that the document has the ab-breviation for "Ex Audientia Sanctissimi,"which means that Montini personally dis-cussed the matter with the pope, whothen approved the sheltering of the Jew-ish couple in the conventWhen the arrests of Roman Jews be-gan on Oct. 16, i943, Pius XII tookprompt action. He ordered CardinalMaglione to make a strong protest with

Germany's ambassador to the Vatican.Through his nephew Carlo Pacelli, thepope instructed Alois Hudal. an Austrianbishop and Nazi sympathizer livingRome, to send a letter protesting theround-ups to the German military gover-nor ofRome.During the occupation, thousands ofJews found shelter in many religious in-stitutions and inside the Vatican itself.In 2000, the Israeli government re-leased the diary of the Nazi war criminalAdolf Eichmann, one of the chief archi-tects behind the Holocaust. Eichmann re-called that the "objections given (by theVatican) and the excessive delay in thesteps necessary to complete the imple-mentation of the operation, resulted in agreat part of Italian Jews being able tohide and escapecapture."Contrary to Zuccotti's claims, manyprominent individuals have said that theyreceived instructions from the pope andsubordinates to assist Jews. In his books."Nascosti in Conventi" and "Gli Ebrei Sal-vati da Pio X E L " the Italian journalist An-tonio Gaspari interviewed a number ofpriests and nuns, including Sr. Ferdinan-da Corsetti, who was honored ss a "right-eous gentile" by the State of Israel, Sr.Maria Piromalli, Sr . Dora Rutar, and theRev. Gfuseppe Forcelloti, who said theywere encouraged by the pope and his topofficials to do what they could to hek>theJews of Rome.Zuccotti's absurd thesis that PopePiusXT! did "virtually nothing" to help theJews in Italy (and throughout Europe)collapses like a house ofcards. I shpula,note that many of these facts have beer,previouslybrought toZuccotti's attentionthrough critical reviews of her book andpublic debates between her and otherex-perts, such asRonaldJ. Rychlak and Jus-tus George Lawler.The writer lives in the Bronx.

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