Pius XII Gave Instructions Specifically to Save and Protect Jews
Magazine to Publish 2 Wartime Letters | 815 hits ROME, JAN. 29,
2003 (Zenit.org).- Two documents soon to be published reveal
Pope Pius XII's preferential help for the Jews during the years
of Nazi persecution. The documents would undercut the
accusations that Pius XII avoided making express reference to
the Jews during the Nazi era. Susan Zuccotti, history professor
at Barnard College in New York, contends in her book "The
Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy" that there is no proof of
Pius XII's intervention in favor of the Jews. "Pius XII never
used the terms 'Jew' or 'race,'" writes Zuccotti. "The Pope
often expressed in general terms his sorrow over the suffering
of innocent civilians, but without referring explicitly to the
Jews." Given these grave accusations, the magazine Inside the
Vatican will publish in its forthcoming issue two letters sent
by Pius XII in 1940 to Bishop Giuseppe Maria Palatucci of
Campagna, in southern Italy, where a ma