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Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy

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Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Pius XII, the Vatican, and the Catholic Church, cry out to the world; "There is no need for us to defend ourselves before you in this matter!" (Deuteronomy 3) The scorching flames of revisionists and those who have made Pius XII a scapegoat for others failures can not destroy the living and documented record of the man who saved more Jews than all the Churches and rescue organizations combined. When Pius's public words only brought about more suffering and death, this great diplomat quietly went into action and threw open the doors and treasury of the Church. Written with the help of the memory of the Jews who suffered in Italy, and those who worked in diplomatic circles at the time,one quickly sees that actions do speak louder than words. Let what others have shamefully done to the memory of this great man be a lesson to others who truely want to learn from history. For no one did more to stop the Holocaust, including Shindler and Wallenberg, and yet no one has been more unjustly blamed than this, the loneliest of voices from World War II, and the greatest of all the righteous gentiles.

The book clearly documents how Pius XII and Italian Catholics saved thousands of Jewish lives. This is a tribute to the heroic efforts of the Vatican to save Jews. No "silence" here.

The strength of the book is simply its evidence: thousands of documents (letters, newspaper reports, chancery reports, diplomatic cables) showing the heroic efforts of Pius XII to save persecuted Jews and Christians during World War II. No silence here---only determined diplomatic and humanitarian charity.

This book's strongest feature is its quotes from documents written during and immediately after the war. The ones after the war were written mostly by Jews. It confirmed again that the mainstream media like the New York Times are liars or abysmally stupid. Moe than 50 years after the events they seem to know it better than those who lived at the time. A must read!

All of Marchione's books on Pius XII are the sort of straight forward, fact filled, indisputable studies Catholic haters like to suppress. I've seen no editorial reviews of this unusual contribution to setting the record straight. The book is filled with personal stories, told by Jews and Catholics who were there. If you want a more traditional approach to the matter, try Marchione's "Pope Pius XII:Architect of Peace" and her scholarly "Consensus & Controversy".
If you like memoirs and first hand accounts, also read Chief Rabbi of Rome during the Nazi occupation Eugenio Zolli's "Before the Dawn", republished recently as "Why I Became A Catholic".

This reviewer read Sister Marchione's YOURS IS A PRECIOUS WITNESS when the book was first published in 1997 and was impressed by it. Sister Marchione demonstrates a passion for her work, and her book undermines Pope Pius XII's critics.

Sister Marchione condenses an array of evidence based on documents, interviews, anecdotes, etc. to illustrate that Pope Pius XII was a hero who worked tirelessly to save hundreds of thousands of Jews in Italy during W. W.II.

Part one of the book gives the Italian historical background of Italian attempts to rescue those whom the Italian and later German authorities had designated for concentration camps.

Part two of YOURS IS A PRECIOUS WITNESS details the efforts of the Catholic Church authorities and their religious to use any means possible to rescue Jews in different areas of Italy. This section of the book is important in that Sister Marchione makes clear that these efforts were sponsored by Pope Pius XII who knew very well that the German political leadership were incensed at these efforts. What may interest readers is that Hitler had a plan to invade the Vatican, massacre the Catholic leadership, and relocate the Papacy in Lichenstein. Pope Pius XII knew this at the time, but he did not waiver in his efforts to rescue Italian Jews.

What should also be known that while the Catholic priests, nuns, sisters, monks, etc. were taking great risks, these brave men and women were operating under Pope Pius XII's policies and direct orders. In other words, Sister Marchione makes clear that these efforts, which the German and Italian Fascist authorities considered illegal and subversive, had both the blessing and the sanction of Pope Pius XII.

Sister Marchione demonstrates in a book of 203 pages of text a concise record of Pope Pius XII's courage, class, and determination to fullfill his mission as Christ's Vicar. Sister Marchione has included appendices, document listings, and a good bibliography that will lead the interested reader to numerous resources that clearly vindicate Pope Pius XII.

While Sister Marchione's book is not combative in any obvious sense, she undermines the mainstream media's view of Pope Pius XII. What may be amusing to readers is that during Pope Pius XII's lifetime, THE NEW YORK TIMES editors and writers praised Pope Pius XII's rare courage and determination. The current gurus of THE NEW YORK TIMES should read YOURS IS A PRECIOUS WITNESS to know just how wrong they are today. In other words, THE NEW YORK TIMES editors are either so incredibly stupid or biased, that reading this book would correct their own anti-Catholic stupidity.

One should further note that Sister Marchione is a first class scholar. Her book is lucid and would be useful to both professional historians and laymen alike. This reviewer highly recommends this book.

Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy
by Margherita Marchione
New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997
Pp. 259. Softbound. $16.95.
ISBN 0809140322

Review by Reverend Brian Van Hove, S.J.
Alma, Michigan
Published in La Civiltà Cattolica (I/3568[Febbraio 1999]: 423-424)[I.T.] and in
The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 23

This short volume is dedicated to the memory of Father Robert A. Graham, S.J., who wrote extensively on the subject of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Its focus is somewhat narrow and does not attempt to tell the whole story. Rather, Dr. Marchione, a Religious of the Pontifical Institute of the Religious Teachers Filippini, concentrates on Italy, Rome, and the Vatican. Based on verifiable historical sources, it is an apologetical defense of Pius XII against the claim that he was "silent".
Even the international Jewish relief agencies and the Red Cross were "silent" because no other strategy was possible. Several factors led to the need for this approach. The Nazi betrayal of the pontifical concordat with the German State, Nazi reaction to the encyclical of Pius XI `Mit brennender Sorge,' and the bitter experience in Holland after the Dutch bishops denounced the Nazi laws imposed there in July, 1942--all taught that the only realistically effective way to deal with Hitler was by quiet action and secrecy.
Marchione goes on to stress that deeds have more importance than words, and the deeds of Pius are still available for the record before the people who survived the War have all passed away. Thus the book is in part necessarily oral and anecdotal, detailing specific families and individuals and their difficulties in evading arrest by the Gestapo during the Occupation in Italy. She gives particulars and her sources are delightful for the historian looking for the "human dimension" and "the feminine touch" rather than the citation of statistics and figures alone. Her sources are "hard" sources nonetheless, even though of a genre different from the many volumes of the more official Records and Documents of the Holy See Relating to the Second World War, 1965-1981. (ref. page 57)
Photographs tells us of these deeds of the Church, the mitzvoth of Pius who fed the population in Rome and Castelgandolfo at Vatican expense. There are photographs of Jews disguised as priests living in the Vatican, the dining halls set up to feed refugees, and the works of Religious Orders operating under instruction from Pius though the normal channels of the Holy See. The Brothers of St. John of God ["Fatebenefratelli"] were especially helpful to Jews and other partisans. Nor are the Jesuits forgotten for their efforts when the Generalate at Borgo Santo Spirito was used as a coordinating center for Jews to emigrate out of Europe in 1944. (page 169)
Marchione points the way for further regional and national studies. In an age which too easily says "not enough was done" we need to hear what was done under impossible circumstances and at great sacrifice. Prime Minister Golda Meir said it so well in 1958 after Pius died, "When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the pope was raised for its victims." (page 57)

A good part of this book is inspirational. The book documents how many Italian Catholics acted to help and protect Jews in Italy. Their sacrifices and courage should never be underestimated. Nazi-controlled police and government prohibited hiding or assisting Jews with penalties ranging from imprisonement to death. Risking not only their own but family lives, Italian Catholics including those in the Vaticans protected Jews. The number and percentage of Jews killed in Italy was less than that in many other countries.

That said, Marchione takes the sacrifices of individual Catholics in Italy to argue that the Church vigorously opposed the persecution of Jews and acted to prevent the Holocaust. Few could agree. Important accords were signed between the Church and Fascist Italy and even Nazi Germany. Cardinal Coughlin espoused a vigorous anti-semitic message in the 1930's in the United States without any opposition or condemnation.
Coughlin identified Jews with international banking and communism and said they were themselves themselves responsible for Hitler's moves against them. Few German priests spoke out against Hitler.

German Catholics were an integral part of Nazi Germany. German Catholics helped burn Jewish synagogues, arrest Jews for deportation to concentration camps, and arrange for their extermination. These German Catholics largely followed church dogma going to church on Sunday after they had helped kill Jews
during the week, they attended Christenings after burning down temples and arresting 9 year old boys and girls. They did partly from venal motives and partly because they knew no better, for the Church failed to clearly condemn Hitler and Nazism, preferring to issue ambiguous and delicately worded statements for internal use. German Catholics by and large did not have abortions or divorce for they followed church dogma; they helped kill Jews for their church did not condemn this.

Clear Pope Pius could have done something important. He could have clearly and unequivocally announced that the horrible campaigns against Jews such as Kristtalnacht were wrong. As the head of a large religion whose members followed his dictates, he had the ability to stop Nazism. Had he told his members that persecuting and killing Jews was wrong and would lead to excommunication, many German Catholics would likely have followed those instruction. Pius's reign will be remembered as one of cowardice and complacency, with the death of millions of women, children, and men as result.

The discussion of Pope Pius does tend to dispell the notion he was an anti-semite (see the misleadingly titled book Hitler's Pope). Otherwise, why would he have helped the Jews in Italy. Instead, it shows he was a cowardly man, of no high moral principle, who would do what he could so long as it would not rock the boat.

His limited actions can be contrasted with others in the Church who did far more with far less power. When they helped Jews escape, their legacy is one of strength, courage, and self-sacrifice, and it is important to memorialize that. Like the range of human behavior during World II, ranging from the heartless killing to tremendous sacrifice, the actions of those in the Church spanned the gamut.

After reading "Hitler's Pope" I was interested in a counterpoise. This book doesn't serve the purpose. It is a poorly assembled collection of anecdotal evidence of Italian compassion and actually does a disservice to the case for Pius' silence.