How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

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jola
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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#16

Post by jola » 09 Feb 2009, 10:22

...Golda Meir, the late and beloved Prime Minister of Israel, who said this of him at his death in October 1958:

''During the 10 years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and commiserate with their victims.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A964948260

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Peter H
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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#17

Post by Peter H » 10 Mar 2009, 11:41

Review of Rabbi Dalin's book.

https://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/is ... id-g-dalin
The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis, by Rabbi David G. Dalin
Hal G.P. Colebatch

Rabbi David Dalin, a professor of history and political science, and the splendid Regnery publishing house, have done a great service in producing this book. Meticulously detailed, it completely destroys the myth that Pope Pius XII was pro-Nazi or did less than his utmost to save Jews from the Nazis, and pays tribute to what he actually did. Its wealth of information, much previously unknown, has been praised by commentators like Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University, who has said:

“David Dalin’s search for the truth about Pope Pius XII led him to the discovery that the tragedy of the Jewish people has been shamelessly exploited by foes of traditional religion. With righteous indignation, Dalin sets the record straight, documenting the dishonesty of Pius’s leading attackers and demonstrating that the wartime Pope was a friend and protector of the Jewish people in their hour of greatest need.”

Rabbi Dalin commences with the words:

“It is ironic that sixty years after the Holocaust—with anti-Semitism virulent among Islamic fundamentalists and growing rapidly among secular Europeans—that the left-liberal media in the West has tried to blame Pope Pius XII (and even the Catholic church as a whole) for anti-Semitism.
“No-one believed this at the time. From the end of World War II until at least five years after his death in 1958, Pope Pius XII enjoyed an enviable reputation among Christians and Jews alike …”

He points how the campaign of vilification against the Pope began with the play The Deputy, by German Rolf Hochhuth (later a close friend and defender of David Irving, and the subject of a limerick in Robert Conquest’s The Abomination of Moab), and made into a Hollywood film, Amen, in 2002.

Rabbi Dalin is also scathing of the book Hitler’s Pope, by John Cornwell, pointing out that even the cover photograph (approved by Cornwell) is viciously dishonest in its inference: it shows the future Pope Pius XII, then Cardinal Pacelli, a Vatican diplomat, leaving a reception in Germany given by the pre-Hitler President Paul von Hindenburg, in 1927, six years before Hitler came to power. He is dressed in Vatican diplomatic regalia, which could easily be confused with Papal garments, and is being saluted by two German soldiers in distinctive German steel helmets. It is not possible to see the uniforms and insignia of the soldiers clearly, and though they were actually soldiers of the Weimar Republic they could be taken for soldiers of the Third Reich. Dalin quotes the historian Philip Jenkins:

“The casual reader is meant to infer that Pacelli is emerging from a cosy tete-a-tete with Hitler—perhaps they have been chatting together about plans for a new extermination camp? … Perhaps photographs do not lie, but this particular book cover—offered in the context it was, and under the title Hitler’s Pope—comes close.”

(The picture can be seen at John Cornwell’s Wikipedia entry.) To compound this, the caption on the English edition claims the photograph was taken in Berlin in 1939, when Hitler was in power—a falsehood without any qualification whatsoever. Rabbi Dalin’s dissection of both these works leaves them without a shred of credibility. The film Amen is also totally false, presenting as fact incidents which never happened—anyway it was a box-office failure. Dalin documents how the left-liberal media has been quick to publicise, generally uncritically, the myth of “Hitler’s Pope”, but has generally denied even mentioning the scholarly works written in the Pope’s defence.

In fact the Pope never met Hitler, and when Hitler visited Rome in 1938, Pius very publicly snubbed the Nazis by leaving for Castel Gandolfo.

Rabbi Dalin has collected many eyewitness accounts of how Pope Pius XII and the Vatican were directly responsible for sheltering thousands of Jews in the Vatican and in church properties in and about Rome, as well as 3000 in Castel Gandolfo. As a result about 85 per cent of Rome’s Jews were saved from deportation and murder. This was despite the fact that Rome was first under the Italian Fascist regime, and then Nazi military occupation, making the Pope in the Vatican a virtual prisoner (though some of the German officers appear to have given clandestine help and warnings). In the case of Slovakia alone, the Pope’s moral pressure on the government was, according to the French Jewish scholar Leon Poliakov, directly instrumental in saving about 20,000 Slovakian Jews.

Thus while the Pope denounced and worked against Nazism, he was in a hideously difficult position in that more outspoken activity could lead to greater reprisals against the innocent. I was surprised that Rabbi Dalin did not quote the case of Edith Stein, though this was very much to the point: Edith Stein (now canonised) was a Jewish-born convert, a Carmelite nun and an outstanding philosopher and theologian. During the Nazi occupation of Holland she was in a Dutch convent. The Dutch Bishops’ Conference had a public statement read in all the churches of the country on July 20, 1942, condemning Nazi racism. In a retaliatory response on July 26, 1942, the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, ordered the arrest of all Jewish-born converts to Catholicism, who had previously been spared. Stein and her sister Rosa, also a convert, were captured and shipped to Auschwitz, where they died in the gas chambers a few days later.

The Pope’s anti-Nazi statements and activities, up to the very limit that he could press them, are a matter of record. These included the encyclical Summi Pontificatus, issued shortly after the outbreak of war, and a number of homilies, and he gave bishops instructions to help all victims of Nazism. Early in the war he stated that the Nazi atrocities in Poland affronted the moral conscience of mankind, leading the New York Times to declare: “now the Vatican has spoken with authority that cannot be questioned, and has confirmed the worst intimations of terror that have come out of the Polish darkness”. In Britain the Manchester Guardian called Vatican Radio “tortured Poland’s most powerful advocate”. In 1940 Albert Einstein, a Jewish refugee from Nazism, said: “Only the Catholic church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign … I now praise [it] unreservedly.” On July 3, 1943, Judge Joseph Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee, declared:

“We have heard … what a great part the Holy Father has played in the salvation of the Jewish refugees in Italy, and we know from sources that must be credited that this great Pope has reached forth his mighty and sheltering hand to help the oppressed of Hungary.”

Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, stated: “No keener rebuke has come to Nazism than from Pope Pius XI and his successor Pope Pius XII.” Dalin has documented many other contemporary tributes from Jewish leaders of different countries, including Isaac Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Israel: “The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates … are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world.”

The Pope’s Christmas messages were clear condemnations of Nazi attacks on Jews, to the fury of the Nazis. There were even Nazi plans to kidnap the Pope, which Hitler discussed in July 1943, and Mussolini said the Pope was “ready to let himself be deported to a concentration camp rather do anything against his conscience”. It is extraordinary that this overwhelming evidence has been not merely overlooked but actually suppressed.

Before the war, when the Italian Fascist regime began implementing anti-Semitic legislation and driving Jews out of universities, the Pope saved Jewish academics by giving them posts at the Vatican or helping them escape to America.

This book also illuminates a little-known aspect of history: from very early times Popes including Gregory the Great (590–604) protected Rome’s Jews and denounced anti-Semitism in general. Even the “Borgia” Pope, Alexander VI, had a notable record here, creating the first Chair of Hebrew at the University of Rome and frequently entertaining the Chief Rabbi at the Vatican. He created a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution in Spain and Portugal.

Rabbi Dalin also shows that the religious leader who was the greatest enemy and persecutor of the Jewish people in the Second World War was in fact the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was in constant touch with the Nazi leaders and a friend of Himmler, and whose constant urging upon them of a policy of extermination may well have been crucial in bringing about the decision to proceed with the Holocaust—the decision was made at the Wannsee conference, two months after the Mufti’s initial meeting with Hitler.

Adolf Eichmann’s deputy, Dieter Wisliceny, said at the Nuremberg trails that the Mufti was “one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures”. On a visit to Auschwitz he told the guards at the gas chambers to “work more diligently.” Among other activities he recruited a Muslim SS unit, the “Hanjar Troopers”, who murdered 90 per cent of Bosnia’s Jews as well as, while the going was good, countless Christians. He made regular broadcasts on Berlin radio, exhorting his audience to “Kill the Jews wherever you find them.”

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, President of Towards Tradition, writes of this book:

“Courage is contagious, so clutch this book close to your heart. Righting great wrongs requires great courage, and that is what The Myth of Hitler’s Pope delivers. With devastating effectiveness, Dr Dalin exposes their motives and subdues the assailants who with rashness and folly attempt posthumously to assassinate Pope Pius XII. This restoration of a good man’s good name is a mitzvah—a Jewish good deed.”


Rob - wssob2
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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#18

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 10 Mar 2009, 15:00

Here are some more links concerning Rabbi Dallin's book:

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Hitlers-Pope ... 0895260344

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=100

http://www.regnery.com/books/mythhitler.html

What's interesting about content onthe last URL is that it rhetorically asks
“Was Pope Pius XII secretly in league with Adolf Hitler?" and then responds "No, says Rabbi David G. Dalin...Hitler’s cleric—Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who advised and assisted the Nazis in carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution / How Pope Pius XII rescued Jews—and deserves to be called a “righteous gentile”—while the grand mufti of Jerusalem called for their extermination"
Br. Benet Exton, who wrote the Catholic News Agency review above that, mentions
Dalin reveals who really was Hitler’s cleric, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Husseini was opposed to the Jews in word and deed. He was opposed to more Jews coming to his country, Palestine. He came to hate Jews so much that he killed them and encouraged others to do that too.

Husseini befriended Hitler because they both hated Jews and wanted to exterminate them. Dalin shows that Husseini was active in Europe and the Middle East. He escaped to the Middle East after the War and was protected by various Arab governments and groups. Husseini spread his form of Islam throughout the Middle East. Dalin says he influenced Yasser Arafat and the PLO and other Palestinian organizations. Many Arab political parties took up Nazi ideology. Dalin says that al-Qaeda and other “fundamentalist” Islamic terror groups have been influenced by Husseini, Hitler’s mufti.
A couple of questions for AHF members

- Do these comments above illustrate a trend among pro-Pius XII commentators to paint the Muslim cleric Husseini into a Nazi scapegoat in an effort to deflect criticism from Pius XII?

- Do these comments illustrate an anti-Muslim bias common in current conservative Catholic circles in part a reflection on the "GWOT" (Global War on Terror)

I don't know - which is why I am asking these questions, but I will say I disagree with Brother Benet Extons comment "Many Arab political parties took up Nazi ideology." - Yes that is true. So did many European CATHOLIC political parties - the Belgian Rexists and the Croatian Ustache spring immediately to mind.

UMachine
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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#19

Post by UMachine » 11 Mar 2009, 00:30

Rob - wssob2 wrote:Here are some more links concerning Rabbi Dallin's book:

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Hitlers-Pope ... 0895260344

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=100

http://www.regnery.com/books/mythhitler.html

What's interesting about content onthe last URL is that it rhetorically asks
“Was Pope Pius XII secretly in league with Adolf Hitler?" and then responds "No, says Rabbi David G. Dalin...Hitler’s cleric—Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who advised and assisted the Nazis in carrying out Hitler’s Final Solution / How Pope Pius XII rescued Jews—and deserves to be called a “righteous gentile”—while the grand mufti of Jerusalem called for their extermination"
Br. Benet Exton, who wrote the Catholic News Agency review above that, mentions
Dalin reveals who really was Hitler’s cleric, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Husseini was opposed to the Jews in word and deed. He was opposed to more Jews coming to his country, Palestine. He came to hate Jews so much that he killed them and encouraged others to do that too.

Husseini befriended Hitler because they both hated Jews and wanted to exterminate them. Dalin shows that Husseini was active in Europe and the Middle East. He escaped to the Middle East after the War and was protected by various Arab governments and groups. Husseini spread his form of Islam throughout the Middle East. Dalin says he influenced Yasser Arafat and the PLO and other Palestinian organizations. Many Arab political parties took up Nazi ideology. Dalin says that al-Qaeda and other “fundamentalist” Islamic terror groups have been influenced by Husseini, Hitler’s mufti.
A couple of questions for AHF members

- Do these comments above illustrate a trend among pro-Pius XII commentators to paint the Muslim cleric Husseini into a Nazi scapegoat in an effort to deflect criticism from Pius XII?

- Do these comments illustrate an anti-Muslim bias common in current conservative Catholic circles in part a reflection on the "GWOT" (Global War on Terror)

I don't know - which is why I am asking these questions, but I will say I disagree with Brother Benet Extons comment "Many Arab political parties took up Nazi ideology." - Yes that is true. So did many European CATHOLIC political parties - the Belgian Rexists and the Croatian Ustache spring immediately to mind.
There is no need to bring up the matter of Husseini,Pius XII can stand on his own record.In the past,it appeared that Husseni's association with the Third Reich was brought up to discredit Arafat,they were related,IIRC.If anything,this nonsense about the pope is to deflect criticism from the U.S and Britain,who actually had the means to stop the Holocaust long before they did.

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DrG
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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#20

Post by DrG » 11 Mar 2009, 01:09

Rob, as far as I can tell, this is the first time I see a Catholic trying to involve the Grand Mufti in place of Pius XII; it is clearly the personal opinion of Mr. Exton, not a wide-spread habit or point of view among Catholics.

Guido

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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#21

Post by SloveneLiberal » 07 Nov 2020, 15:53

I would advocate myself for hypothesis that pope Pius XII did not talk in public against holocaust because Vatican tried to reconcile axis powers with the western allies specially in the time after the capitulation of Italy. It was obvious to Vatican that communism will penetrate deep in Europe and that was the worst scenario for them. They were ready to help efforts to depose Hitler, but were against the allied strategy which demanded unconditional surrender of axis powers.

But of course because Jews were influential specially in USA and they knew very well that holocaust is going on they had another goal. To punish Germans collectively for supporting Hitler and National socialists. And indeed the great majority of Germans at that time supported them. On December 17, 1942, the United States joined ten other Allied governments in issuing a public declaration condemning Nazi Germany’s “bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination” of the Jews. That was of course very well known also to European leaders at that time which were collaborating with the Nazis and quite some of them were catholics. Like in Croatia or Slovakia for example.

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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#22

Post by SloveneLiberal » 07 Nov 2020, 15:58

Something more about it:

Croatian catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović wrote in late 1943 a memorandum for the British ambassador at Vatican in which he argued western allies should keep independent Croatia or at least establish a catholic confederation of east and middle European nations. Draganović was working in the same line like also Vatican did. For example cardinal Pizzard in June 1943 told to NDH ambassador at Vatican Lobkowicz that Serbs and Croats should not live together any more and that before mentioned catholic confederation should be established. They tried to convince USA and British governments that after capitulation of Italy they should start peace negotiations with Germany and not to insist on the demand for unconditional surrender.



Nacionalizem in nasilje, written by Pino Adriano and Giorgio Cingolani, published in 2019, Mengeš, pages 296-300.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krunoslav_Draganovi%C4%87

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Re: How is Vatican really connected with holocaust?

#23

Post by SloveneLiberal » 16 Dec 2020, 22:28

In fact the research about this question is currently going on in Vatican, because now Vatican opened its archives. At the moment it is stopped because of Corona virus. You can check in this latest DW documentary what researchers found after the first week of studying the archives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JDgasDHZv0

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