An excellent and thoroughly historical blog post from Vox Day--author of the outstanding book The Irrational Atheist and not a Catholic himself it should be mentioned--concerning the misconceptions and myths surrounding the so-called "Papal Inaction/Silence" during the Second World War and the genocide of the Jewish people.
An excerpt:
Pius XII can also be confirmed to have vigorously and repeatedly protested the National Socialist actions through direct communications with the German government. The Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, testified at the Nuremburg Trials: "I do not recollect at the moment, but I know we had a whole deskful of protests from the Vatican. There were very many we did not even read or reply to."
Israeli sources report that papal relief programs saved more Jews than any other, an estimated 860,000. It is not an accident that 80 percent of Italy's Jews survived the war despite the German occupation, about four times more than survived the war in other occupied countries. Many important Jewish leaders of the era, including Israel's first president, first foreign minister, and chief rabbi were explicit in their gratitude towards Pius XII and the Catholic Church for their defense of the Jewish people. Time Magazine printed a letter from Albert Einstein in 1940:
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . . 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."
But as for the man Pius XII himself, let Golda Meir pronounce the final judgment. After his death in 1958, she delivered the Israeli government's official condolences to the Vatican:
"We share in the grief of humanity… When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace."
Read it all here.
What is most interesting, from a personal perspective at least, is that before my return to Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, I used to wholeheartedly believe the various misconceptions, half-truths and anti-Christian/Catholic propaganda--such as the issue above--that would circulate through popular culture.
It is truly amazing what a little personal research and study into actual historical fact--as opposed to simply passively listening and accepting what was taught to me in my high school/university years from academia and the surrounding culture--can do for one's perspective, understanding and knowledge of historical truth.
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