Customer Reviews

Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is a tough book. Zuccotti presents tough arguments and asks equally tough questions about the role of the Vatican in Italy during the Holocaust. Her research work and her piecing together the intricate jigsaw puzzle of doucuments has created a text that is difficult to refute and damning in its conclusions. Zuccotti demonstrates convincingly that Pope Pius XII and many within the heirarchy of the Catholic Church were, at best, passive in the face of the rescue work done by so many Italian Catholics, or, at worst, hostile to rescue work. At the same time she suggests, again, with considerable force of documentation and testimony, that the Vatican was quite content to be seen as the inspiration of rescue when in fact the historical record demonstrates otherwise. Trawling through the Vatican's published archival material and linking it up with diocesean archives, Jewish communal sources as well as memoirs and published testimonies of the persecuted, the perpetrators and the rescuers, Zuccotti has given historians a valuable guide to understand some of the complex "why's" of the Vatican's silence and lack of activity during the Holocaust. It is precisely her dispassionate narrative and allowing the sources to speak for themselves that gives this book so much power. The defenders of Pius XII and the Vatican bureaucracy need to either demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt their claims that Pius did all he could or end what has become a re-hashing of old and tired chestnuts that rely on innuendo, suggestion and a mish-mash of attributed quotes. If Pius, or one of his subordinates directed the convents and monasteries of Rome to lift cloister, please show us. If he instructed bishops, even verbally, to assist efforts in rescuing Jews, please provide the references - surely someone must remember them. Zuccotti has done the academic world a great service in this fine scholarly work. For Catholics, and indeed for all Christians, this work is another challenge to seek the truth - even if that truth is unpalatable. Only then can the present Pope's words about reconciliation between Jews and Christians have the full force they deserve. (For the record the reviewer is a believing and practicing Catholic.)

Replete with unsupported speculation and bizarre hypotheses Zuccotti's book may be the worst and least helpful I've ever read on the subject. She clearly sets out to debunk Vatican claims of assistance to Jewish refugees but employs fuzzy, results oriented "thinking" to do so. A typical instance involves her acknowledgment that the Vatican supplied foodstuffs to a convent which sheltered Jews but she observes that there is "no way to know how much food was delivered" and "that any supplies were intended specifically for Jews". This type of dopey observation is found throughout the book. This is not a scholarly, well reasoned investigation of the issue but rather a collection of Zuccotti's oddball musings. One would benefit by reading just about any other treatment of the subject.

I read this book as part of my Honours research project into the Vatican's diplomacy with Nazi Germany. I was told that John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope", despite the accolades and the best seller status, was a poor piece of academic work, a thesis which Cornwell himself eventually recanted (See the reference in The Economist, http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3471137).
Indeed it was so poorly researched that even critics of Pius XII did not take the book seriously.

Zucotti's work, the other hand, is a somewhat more valuable resource, as she has rather detailed references to primary documents in her endnotes. Indeed some have their contents spelled out quite extensively in the body.

However, such referencing, buttressed by her award winning status as a holocaust author, creates a veneer of credibility, a smokescreen behind which Zucotti expresses her obvious contempt for Pius XII. This is largely done through her highly selective use of quotes from the primary sources.

Zucotti commits the Cardinal (no pun intended) sin for all historians, begin with a conclusion, use the documents that prove that conclusion right, and either ignore or dismiss the rest. Such an approach runs right through the book.

Where a quote is used that is or can be construed to be critical of Pius XII, she would quote it to the fullest. Where primary documents mention the opposite (and my research showed there were plenty of them), she automatically dismisses the authors of said documents, many of which were eyewitnesses to the things that Zucotti keeps asserting Pius XII did not do, without any justification whatsoever. She uses absolute pearlers in dismissing those authors, such as the classic "He (the eyewitness) should have known better".

Zucotti also uses an artifically narrow criteria to determine the credibility of certain hypotheses put forward by defenders. She demands that documentary evidence be availabe, otherwise it did not happen. Normally it would be a fair criterion, but in the context of an occupation by the most deadly war-machine in the world, the existence of such documents would have placed the possessor and/or author of those documents, and anyone associated with them, in grave danger.

Does Zucotti accept this? Instead she demands that someone with the intelligence to forsee that decades ahead, someone would question the reputation of Pius XII, and accordingly safekeep any written instructions from him. This retrospective projection is by far, the most unreasonable claim for any Historian to make.

In sum, I would say, use Zucotti for her references (for they are quite good), but never subscribe to her silly dismissals, her retrospection and outrageous thesis. For something more balanced on the critical side of this debate see Guenter Lewy's "The Catholic Church and the Holocaust". For the contra, see Ronald Rychlak's "Hitler, the War and the Pope".

Pope Pius XII has often been criticized for his silence during the extermination of European Jewry during World War II. In his defense, some have alleged that the pope was doing a great deal to help the Jews but that his efforts were necessarily behind the scenes. This meticulously researched and balanced book examines exactly what the pope, his advisers, and his assistants at the Vatican Secretariat of State did to help the Jews of Italy. It finds that they did very little.The book begins by discussing prewar Vatican and Jesuit publications, in which Zuccotti uncovers a hitherto little-known prevalence of anti-Jewish sentiment. These publications, along with archival documents, indicate that Vatican protests against Italian anti-Jewish laws were limited to measures affecting converts and Jews in mixed marriages with Catholics, as was help with emigration; the papal nuncio's visits to foreign Jews in Italian internment camps did not differ from those to non-Jews and in no way eased their material discomfort; and interventions by diplomats of the Holy See for Jews threatened with deportation were rare, always polite, and seldom decisive. Above all, Zuccotti finds no evidence of a papal directive to church institutions to shelter Jews and much evidence to suggest that the pope remained uninvolved. The notion that Pius XII was outstandingly benevolent and helpful to Jews behind the scenes proves to be a myth.

For years there has been controversy over the role of Pius XII and his conduct during the Holocaust. A couple of years ago John Cornwall came out with a book called Hitler's Pope. This book is clearly superior to this one in many ways. Zuccotti is an expert in both Italian history and the Holocaust and she has fully researched both the available dioscean archives and the twelve volume series of Vatican documents in the second world war. She is noticeably fair, giving the pope credit where credit is due, and is careful about the risks a firmer anti-Nazi policy would have achieved. What is her conclusion? "As some 6,746 Jews from Italy were being shipped north to share the fate of the others, the pope's own countrymen similarly looked to him for guidance. They found little or nothing."

Pius XII has many defenders, but Zuccotti is good in showing where they are wrong. She points out that there was a certain degree of hostility or coolness in pre-war Catholic newspapers. These were not parochial or insignificant papers: they were leading papers of either the Vatican or the Jesuits. She points out that while Pius XI did say "Spiritually, we are all Semites" in 1938, the L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican paper, did not. There was some support in the Vatican, if not for the racist 1938 Italian laws, for measures that reduced the Jews to second- class citizenship. She also points out that for several years the Vatican concentrated what attention it did give to Jewish converts to Catholicism. Zuccotti is good at dismantling other myths. In defense of his shameful silence about the deportation of Roman Jews, defenders said he donated money when the Nazis imposed a forced loan on the Jewish Community. In point of fact he merely offered to loan them money, and only after he had been asked by the Jewish community when they incorrectly thought they might not be able to raise the money themselves. Papal defenders like Father Robert Leiber, Joseph Lichten and Pinchas Lapide claim that the Vatican helped arrange 3,000 visas to Jews and converts, when in fact less than a thousand went to converts, with most of the Vatican money was actually a contribution from Jewish agencies.

Pius XII has benefited from the belief that what good things the Church did do must have been an expression of his will. It is a key value of this book that Zuccotti shows that was not the case. Italian foreign ministry officials actually took the initiative in making sure Jews were not deported from occupied Croatia, while the rather mild-mannered protests and interventions at most bucked up their confidence. Pius XII's own criticisms of the Nazis and Nazi racism were vague. "Jews" were never mentioned, "descent" (as opposed to race) was only mentioned a handful of times. Those who were already sympathetic to Jews could read support for their own activities, those who were not could ignore the Jews with a clear conscience. Much of the Catholic initiative came from individual priests and bishops, while much of the help and the money came from Jewish organizations themselves, such as Desalem. If there has been a written order to help the Jews, why was it not in the twelve volumes of Vatican documents? If there was a written order, why did the Patriarch of Venice, the Archbishop of Perugia and other priests do little or nothing to help?

The Pope by later 1942, had enough information to know that the Jews of Europe faced an unprecedented danger. He should have done more but did not. He and his predecessor could have condemned the racial laws of the 1930s. He could have condemned them again after Mussolini's fall. He could have given the papal order that his defenders assume that he did. One might add to Zuccotti's claim that he could have informed the hierarchy in Ireland, Switzerland, Canada and the United States to do more to help the Jews. This would have been especially helpful in Canada, which had a truly pathetic record in helping refugees and much Catholic opposition to doing more. (As one can see in Irving Abella's None is Too Many) One might even add that as head of the Church Pius XII should have realized he should have run more risks, not less, than occupied Europe. But he did not. Reading Zuccotti's book, we find that though Pius XII was as celibate as a saint, he had the soul of a bureaucrat.

Having read several recent books on this subject, I find that an author's bias is reflected in his/her writing more on this issue than perhaps on any other. This is particularly striking in the recent Rychlak book ("Hitler, the War, and the Pope") which is unabashed propaganda, veiled thinly or not at all. Even the more objective Cornwell book ("Hitler's Pope"), although it supports the opposite side of the debate, has occasional undertones of prejudice.

In contrast to these and some other authors, Zuccotti presents her arguments by giving fair consideration to both sides of the issue. Her fine scholarship is evident throughout this entire study, which is meticulously annotated and documented, but her writing is directed to general readers of history, rather than to her professional peers. The book makes for very enjoyable reading on this painfully tragic subject.

Anyone who is interested in reading about Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and his efforts--or lack thereof--to reduce or even address the persecution of European Jews before and during World War II should begin with this book.

The book's scholarly veneer cannot hide the deep anti-Catholic bias that fuels this attack on Pius XII.

The book concludes that Pius XII did little to help persecuted Jews behind-the-scenes during World War II. But this bizarre conclusion rests on the strangest of methods. A few examples:

1. The author limits herself to the 12-volume set of diplomatic archives of the Vatican during World War II. But odd things are done with the archives. For example, many convents and monasteries in Italy abolished cloister and sheltered Jewish refugees. Many religious have testified that this violation of canon law was done with the approval of, indeed by the urging of Vatican authorites. But since the author can't find any such "directive" in the diplomatic archives, she concludes against all historical evidence that it didn't happen. But why would the Vatican leave such intramural discussions in cables to foreign amabassadors?

2. When the author has massive evidence of Vatican protests against Nazi persecution, she systematically tells the reader to dismiss the evidence. She admits that the Vatican sent hundreds of diplomatic notes of protest against persecution of Jews. But the tone is too soft. She notes the Vatican's protest against Italian racial laws. But it's too motivated by concern for Catholics of Jewish descent. In other words, by the author's own admission, the Vatican publicly and privately protested fascist/Nazi ant-Semitism on numerous occasions. There was no "silence" here. Yet, the author, despite her evidence, arrives at the opposite conclusion therough this strange dismissal of the evidence in front of her.

3. The author ignores two other key, public sources for the Vatican's criticism of Nazism: Vatican Radio transcripts and Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. It is obvious why they are ignored. They provide a detailed denunication of Nazi anti-Semitism which would derail the author's thesis.

This book is extremely useful as a contribution to the ongoing debate as to the moral imperatives, which existed upon Pope Pius XII to speak out against what remains the most catastrophic occurrence in human memory namely the holocaust. The book primarily focuses on the Italian situation and the relationship between the Vatican and the Italian State during the 1930's as well as the war. Again and again the author points out her view of the Vatican's distinction between racial and religious policies introduced against the Jewish people in Italy. The Fascist government introduced racial laws, which striped the Jewish people of their civil and human rights while the church, in the author's view at least acquiesced these provisions on the basis that they believed that the Jewish People were traditional opponents of Christianity.

Throughout the book the author quotes examples of how the Vatican could have been more forceful in its condemnation not simply of the Holocaust but of the ever-worsening conditions of the Jewish people in Europe from 1935 onwards. The crescendo of criticism reaches its high point in the chapter dealing with the round up of roman Jews in October 1943. The silence of Pius in this instance is the very essence of the authors thesis that the Pope for what ever reason failed the moral test not simply in terms of speaking out but of personally intervening to stop the barbarity Under His Very Windows as it were.

The author does of course place papal defences like for example, the possibility that speaking out would have made the suffering of others worse alongside her own criticisms. However I have to say that the book is quite scathing of Pope Pius's role and attitude throughout the war. This is not to say that the book is biased or of no value it certainly is both in its content and ease of understanding, its just that with any emotive subject of this magnitude those for and against make their own case more strongly and on this subject its difficult not to have or develop a view based on what we believe are moral imperatives.

The author must be a young person, who has led a relatively sheltered life. Anyone who was there knows that the Resistance, by its very nature, worked in secret. For example, the author failed to thoroughly research the Asissi Underground. Under the Pope's order to the bishop, Jews arrived there from Rome, were sheltered in convents and monasteries, provided with false identities, and smuggled to Genoa for passage on neutral ships. In the RC church of those days, obedience was paramount. Orders always came from above. No one would lift the cloister without Papal permission, even to shelter Jews. Ms. Zuccotti ignores the tragedy of Hitler's predictable reprisals. Whenever church leaders spoke publicly against persecution of Jews, as in the Netherlands, more Jews were rounded up and sent to extermination camps. The Pope did speak out as much as possible, as documented by the New York Times, noting his was "the only voice." At the time, few countries, including the USA, would accept Jewish refugees. All U.S. ports refused to let the St. Louis dock here, sending Jewish passengers back to Europe and death. Only false identity papers and Catholic baptismal certificates, provided by the Church at the Pope's order, allowed Jews to sail to neutral countries. The author fails to explain why the ranks of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican suddenly swelled, or why so many Jews were camped out in the subterranean depths of the Pope's summer residence at Castelgandolfo. These numbers are all documented. She also ignores the testimony of the Chief Rabbi of Rome concerning the Pope's help. When Hitler demanded gold from the Jewish Community in exchange for their lives, it was the Pope who offered to make up the shortage. Has she actually read Rabbi Zolli's book "Before the Dawn"? The wisdom of experience with the true evil of the powerful Nazi regime is missing from this book, and renders it rather sophomoric.

This is yet another piece of anti-Catholic vitriol charading as serious scholarship about World War II.

The author claims that Pius XII did nothing to save Italian Jews but she simply ignores the massive, public evidence that he did. She makes no reference to the memoirs of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, personally sheltered by the pope and who recounts the hundreds of Italian Jewish lives saved by the Vatican. She ignores the abolition of cloister in Roman convents and monasteries (a move clearly approved by the pope) in order to provide refuge to persectuted. She claims that she found no "formal order" to this effect and ignores the published testimony of priestsand nuns from the period who cite Pius's approbation of this rescue effort.

When she runs up against evidence she can't ignore, she dismisses it as ineffectual. She can't deny the hundreds of diplomatic protests send by Pius against Nazi atrocities, but she finds that they didn't change things much. What was Pius to do? Send in the Swiss Guard against the SS?

...