Catholic Church during Holocaust books

Question

i have a big research paper due in about 2 weeks. i need books relating to the catholic church and its silence during the holocaust...any suggestions? thank you.

Answer 1

Information is below.

Answer 2

Early in 1940, Hitler made an attempt to prevent the new Pope from maintaining the anti-n**i stance he had taken before his election. He sent his underling, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to try to dissuade Pius XII from following his predecessor’s policies. "Von Ribbentrop, granted a formal audience on March 11, 1940, went into a lengthy harangue on the invincibility of the Third Reich, the inevitability of a n**i victory, and the futility of papal alignment with the enemies of the Führer. Pius XII heard von Ribbentrop out politely and impassively. Then he opened an enormous ledger on his desk and, in his perfect German, began to recite a catalogue of the persecutions inflicted by the Third Reich in Poland, listing the date, place, and precise details of each crime. The audience was terminated; the Pope’s position was clearly unshakable."[7]

The Pope secretly worked to save as many Jewish lives as possible from the n***s, whose extermination campaign began its most intense phase only after the War had started. It is here that the anti-Catholics try to make their hay: Pius XII is charged either with cowardly silence or with outright support of the n**i extermination of millions of Jews.

Much of the impetus to smear the Vatican regarding World War II came, appropriately enough, from a work of fiction—a stage play called The Deputy, written after the War by a little-known German Protestant playwright named Rolf Hochhuth.

The play appeared in 1963, and it painted a portrait of a pope too timid to speak out publicly against the n***s. Ironically, even Hochhuth admitted that Pius XII was materially very active in support of the Jews. Historian Robert Graham explains: "Playwright Rolf Hochhuth criticized the Pontiff for his (alleged) silence, but even he admitted that, on the level of action, Pius XII generously aided the Jews to the best of his ability. Today, after a quarter-century of the arbitrary and one-sided presentation offered the public, the word ‘silence’ has taken on a much wider connotation. It stands also for ‘indifference,’ ‘apathy,’ ‘inaction,’ and, implicitly, for anti-Semitism."[8]

Hochhuth’s fictional image of a silent (though active) pope has been transformed by the anti-Catholic rumor mill into the image of a silent and inactive pope—and by some even into an actively pro-n**i monster. If there were any truth to the charge that Pius XII was silent, the silence would not have been out of moral cowardice in the face of the n***s, but because the Pope was waging a subversive, clandestine war against them in an attempt to save Jews.

"The need to refrain from provocative public statements at such delicate moments was fully recognized in Jewish circles. It was in fact the basic rule of all those agencies in wartime Europe who keenly felt the duty to do all that was possible for the victims of n**i atrocities and in particular for the Jews in proximate danger of deportation to ‘an unknown destination.’ "[9] The negative consequences of speaking out strongly were only too well known.

"In one tragic instance, the Archbishop of Utrecht was warned by the n***s not to protest the deportation of Dutch Jews. He spoke out anyway and in retaliation the Catholic Jews of Holland were sent to their death. One of them was the Carmelite philosopher, Edith Stein."[10]

While the armchair quarterbacks of anti-Catholic circles may have wished the Pope to issue, in Axis territory and during wartime, ringing, propagandistic statements against the n***s, the Pope realized that such was not an option if he were actually to save Jewish lives rather than simply mug for the cameras.

The desire to keep a low profile was expressed by the people Pius XII helped. A Jewish couple from Berlin who had been held in concentration camps but escaped to Spain with the help of Pius XII, stated: "None of us wanted the Pope to take an open stand. We were all fugitives, and fugitives do not wish to be pointed at. The Gestapo would have become more excited and would have intensified its inquisitions. If the Pope had protested, Rome would have become the center of attention. It was better that the Pope said nothing. We all shared this opinion at the time, and this is still our conviction today."[11]

While the U.S., Great Britain, and other countries often refused to allow Jewish refugees to immigrate during the war, the Vatican was issuing tens of thousands of false documents to allow Jews to pass secretly as Christians so they could escape the n***s. What is more, the financial aid Pius XII helped provide the Jews was very real. Lichten, Lapide, and other Jewish chroniclers record those funds as being in the millions of dollars—dollars even more valuable then than they are now.

In late 1943, Mussolini, who had been at odds with the papacy all through his tenure, was removed from power by the Italians, but Hitler, fearing Italy would negotiate a separate peace with the Allies, invaded, took control, and set up Mussolini again as a puppet ruler. It was in this hour, when the Jews of Rome themselves were threatened—those whom the Pope had the most direct ability to help—that Pius XII really showed his mettle.

Joseph Lichten records that on September 27, 1943, one of the n**i commanders demanded of the Jewish community in Rome payment of one hundred pounds of gold within thirty-six hours or three hundred Jews would be taken prisoner. When the Jewish Community Council was only able to gather only seventy pounds of gold, they turned to the Vatican.

"In his memoirs, the then Chief Rabbi Zolli of Rome writes that he was sent to the Vatican, where arrangements had already been made to receive him as an ‘engineer’ called to survey a construction problem so that the Gestapo on watch at the Vatican would not bar his entry. He was met by the Vatican treasurer and secretary of state, who told him that the Holy Father himself had given orders for the deficit to be filled with gold vessels taken from the Treasury."[12]

Pius XII also took a public stance concerning the Jews of Italy: "The Pope spoke out strongly in their defense with the first mass arrests of Jews in 1943, and L’Osservatore Romano carried an article protesting the internment of Jews and the confiscation of their property. The Fascist press came to call the Vatican paper ‘a mouthpiece of the Jews.’ "[13]  

Answer 3

OOO! well....

There is this great book called "The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965" by Michael Phayer.

It's really great. I took a course in the Holocaust. Wrote a paper on Pius XII. I think i got an A- on the paper. The book pretty much is an outline for any good essay on the silence of the C. Church during the holocaust.

All verrrry interesting stuff. :)

Here is a link:http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Church-Ho...

Answer 4

"Pius XII? This is the only human being who has always contradicted me and who has never obeyed me." Adolf Hitler --- from Hans Jansen's The Silent Pope? (2000)

In October 1958 in front of the United Nations General Assembly, Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel, said of Pope Pius XII at his death :

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

Some of the Jewish organizations that praised Pope Pius XII at the time of his death for saving Jewish lives during the horror of the n**i Holocaust were:

+ The World Jewish Congress

+ The American Jewish Committee

+ The American Jewish Congress

+ The Anti-Defamation League

+ The Central Conference of American Rabbis

+ The National Conference of Christians and Jews

+ The National Council of Jewish Women.

+ The New York Board of Rabbis

+ The Rabbinical Council of America

+ The Synagogue Council of America

No serious scholar contests the evidence that Pius XII took direct and indirect measures to save Jews from the n**i death machine.

At the start of World War II, Pope Pius XII’s first encyclical was so anti-Hitler that the Royal Air Force and the French air force dropped 88,000 copies of it over Germany. Here is a link to the Summi Pontificatus: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Unity of Human Society, October 20, 1939: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_x...

Unfortunately the Soviet Union and others had been trying to convince the world that the Catholic Church was pro-n**i since the death of Pope Pius in 1958. Here are some sources:

+ The KGB made corrupting the Church a priority: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTU...

+ The KGB campaign against Pius XII: http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/021607/d...

+ Pius XII and the Jews: http://web.archive.org/web/2001091910070...

+ http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/w...

See also "The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews From the n***s" by Rabbi David G. Dalin which has compiled further overwhelming proof of Pope Pius XII"s friendship for the Jews beginning long before he became pope.

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. "

- Albert Einstein, Time Magazine, December 23, 1940 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...

See also:

+ The Holy See vs. the Third Reich by Ronald J. Rychlak http://soli.inav.net/~jfischer/oct98/ron...

+ Jewish Historian Praises Pius XII's Wartime Conduct by Michael Tagliacozzo http://academics.smcvt.edu/pcouture/jewi...

+ Did Pius XII Remain Silent? by Fr William Saunders http://catholiceducation.org/articles/re...

+ Pius XII and the Jews: The War Years, as reported by the New York Times by by Rev. Msgr. Stephen M. DiGiovanni, H.E.D. http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/piusn...

With love in Christ.

Answer 5

Here is a list of articles:

http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/frame...

Answer 6

well, i think you are going to have trouble writing on the Catholic Church's silence during the Holocaust.  if the Catholic Church was silent, then why were THOUSANDS of Catholic priests and nuns sent to the concentration camps?  They were sent because they spoke out against the catholic Church

Pope Pius XII was not silent in the face of Nazism, either before he was elected pope in 1939 or during the war years. As Golda Meir, future Israeli Prime Minister and then Israeli representative to the United Nations, said on the floor of the General Assembly at the Pope’s death in 1958: “During the ten years of n**i terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and commiserate with the victims.” Some of the Jewish organizations that praised Pope Pius XII at the time of his death for saving Jewish lives during the horror of the n**i Holocaust were: the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, the Synagogue Council of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, the American Jewish Congress, the New York Board of Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the American Jewish Committee, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the National Council of Jewish Women. Were all these simply lying or playing politics? Would these organizations insult the memory of the millions killed for some ephemeral political gain?    

While stationed in Germany in the 1920s, Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, was deeply concerned about the nascent n**i party in Germany. As early as 1925, Pacelli expressed fears about the n**i threat. He reported to Rome that Hitler was a violent man who “will walk over corpses” to achieve his goals. In 1928, with Pacelli’s assistance, the Holy office issued a strong condemnation of the anti-Semitism foundational to the n***s: “(T)he Holy See is obligated to protect the Jewish people against unjust vexations and…particularly condemns unreservedly hatred against the people once chosen by God; the hatred that commonly goes by the name anti-Semitism.”  

As the Holy See’s Secretary of State in the 1930s, Pacelli lodged nearly 60 formal protests with the n***s over their treatment of the Jews. He wrote most of the 1937 encyclical of Pope Pius XI Mit Brennender Sorge that was a strong denunciation of Nazism. The encyclical, written in German, was published and distributed throughout Germany at the risk of life. In 1938, Pacelli had spoken at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris against the n**i “pagan cult of race,” as well as the “vile criminal actions” and “iniquitous violence” of the n**i leadership. In 1939, immediately after the death of Pius IX, the German government issued a veiled warning to the College of Cardinals not to elect Pacelli as he was known to be an enemy of Nazism. In the very first encyclical of his papacy, issued on October 20, 1939 (Summi Pontificatus), Pius XII warned of the dictators of Europe – “an ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies” – and called for St. Paul’s vision of world that was neither Gentile or Jew. The Gestapo labeled the encyclical a direct attack, while the French had copies printed and dropped by air over Germany. The New York Times summarized the encyclical as an uncompromising attack on racism and dictators.  

During the war, the New York Times called Pius XII “the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all…the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism…he left no doubt that the n**i aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christmas peace.” In major Christmas messages in 1941 and 1942 Pope Pius XII condemned the racial hatred of the n***s. Vatican Radio and the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, both under the direction of Pope Pius XII, issued numerous statements against the n**i actions. In written letters to world leaders – even to those leaders in n**i satellite countries – Pius XII expressed his horror of the persecution of the Jews. He reminded Catholics of Europe that it was their duty to protect victims of Nazism. He begged allied countries to accept Jewish refugees and would fight through his nuncios to prevent forced Jewish deportations to work camps.    

The record goes on and on. Pius XII and the Church were neither silent nor complacent in the face of the n**i horror.