Pius XII entlisted a Jew to save him from the Nazis "I’m not a believer, I don’t go to church, but if I found myself before Pius XII I’d get down on my knees, because if my children and I are in existence, we owe it to him." Silvio Ascoli, Roman, class of 1945, was emotional as recounted the story of his father Bruno, "of the Jewish race" according to the norms of the infamous racial laws, whom the Vatican saved from deportation by enrolling him in its Guard. Last June the Cardinal Secretary of State spoke about this: "In October 1943, aside from the police and the Swiss Guard, there was also the Palatine Guard. To protect the Vatican and the extraterritorial holdings there were some 575 Palatine Guards.. Thus, the Secretary of State asked the powers occupying Italy to be able to take on another 1425 people for inclusion in the roles of the Palatine Guard. The Jewish Ghetto would just a little distance away…". Now a new witness testifies to the help. "My father was born in 1910, my granfather’s family belonged to the Jewish community in Ancona, and his sister with her husband were to be deported to Auschwitz." Bruno, who died in 1970, was the son of a mixed marriage and didn’t frequent the Roman Jewish community. On 28 October 1938, just after the racial laws went into force, the man asked to be baptized. But it was too late to escape the jaws of the regime which were closing around the Jews. The parish priest tried to help him, writing that Ascoli had attended catechism since August of that year, but it didn’t make any difference. "My folks tried to approach the Ministry of the Interior, attesting that they weren’t enrolled in the Jewish community. But the response was that whoever had a Jewish parent, and couldn’t prove he belonged to another religion at the time when the racial laws went into effect, was considered to be a Jew. My father was baptized to late. for my family this was a terrible blow." Thus the Ascoli were forced to declare at the Governor of Rome’s offices their membership of the "Jewish race". Two years later, in 1940, Bruno married in church, a Catholic, Maria Bianchi, even though the marriage could not have civil effect. "My mother married him knowind that things could go bad." The couple found a place in the via Famagosta in the Trionfale quarter. In October 1943, after the arrival of the Germans in the capital, Bruno Ascoli became a wanted by the police. "One day the fascists and nazis showed up at the house and asked for my father. Luckily, he was out. My family managed to let him know not to come back." Bruno escaped and briefly found a place in the loft of the repair shop of a tire dealer. "He stayed there for two week, and my mother went secretly to take him something to eat. But at the end of October, the tire dealer made him leave because it had become too dangerous to keep him there. That is when, thanks to the concern of an uncle who worked in the Vatican Museum as an usher, my father came to be enlisted in the Palatine Guard." Bruno Ascoli became an auxiliary of the Pope’s honor guard, and could live at the Vatican. "He saved his skin! He stayed there for a few months. There are photos which show him in the Palatine Guard uniform within the walls of the Vatican. In December 1943 he got precious safe-conduct papers from the Holy See attesting to his membership in the Pope’s honor guard." Silvio, the son, explained that he was in a kind of rotation, in the attempt to save as many persecuted people as possible. "In the first months of 1944, the Holy See told my father about another hideout, in the Via Mocenigo, near the Vatican walls, close to a wood warehouse. This proves there was an organized network of aid and assistance. I also told this to my children: if the Vatican had not helped my father, I would not be here. I believe that Pope Pacelli chose well: no public denunciations which would have provoked acts of repression – I don’t dare imagine what would have happened had the SS entered the Vatican – but rather give concrete help to the persecuted." Here's a link but it's in Italian but I think some of you can read it. http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=220674
Religion & Spirituality - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Pius XII actually did a very good job of balancing things - the last sentence of your quote sums it all up quite well. "I believe that Pope Pacelli chose well: no public denunciations which would have provoked acts of repression – I don’t dare imagine what would have happened had the SS entered the Vatican – but rather give concrete help to the persecuted." He was smart and no doubt guided by the Holy Spirit. He didn't want to provoke the Nazi's into shutting the whole thing down and imprisoning everyone (the Nazis were planning on doing this eventually if they would have won the war) but rather he worked quietly to ensure that as many lives as possible could be saved. Thanks for posting this......
2 :
pius xii's concordat with franz von papen (when he was still cardinal pacelli) removed the church' support from the catholic labour unions - hence clearing away one of the most serious obstacles to the nazi's introducing their race laws. the argument is that pacelli made it easier for hitler to effect the holocaust, so against the dozen or so jews he 'saved' one has to balance the 6,000,000 he helped towards the einsatzgruppen and the death camps. pacelli's case is actually quite complex. i think examination of the role he (and the church) played in the war is entirely legitimate.
3 :
Please, stop trying to present it all in a better light. You are desecrating the memory of the many people who died. Fact is, the vatican did very little. A few people helped does not compare to the millions murdered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pius_XII#World_War_II
4 :
I agree. No serious scholar contests the evidence that Pius XII took direct and indirect measures to save Jews from the Nazi 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_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html Unfortunately the Soviet Union and others had been trying to convince the world that the Catholic Church was pro-Nazi 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=YTUzYmJhMGQ5Y2UxOWUzNDUyNWUwODJiOTEzYjY4NzI= + The KGB campaign against Pius XII: http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/021607/difference.htm + Pius XII and the Jews: http://web.archive.org/web/20010919100700/http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_23_01/dalin_bkart_6_23_01.asp + http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/ww2jews.html See also "The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews From the Nazis" 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. With love in Christ.
