Pius XII's 1943 letter against Jewish
statehood revealedBy Elli Wohlgelernter
The Jerusalem Post, 2 July, 1999
At the height of the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII made known to
President Franklin D. Roosevelt his opposition toward Palestine
becoming a Jewish homeland, according to a letter from the US
Archives obtained by The Jerusalem Post from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center. Dated June 22, 1943, the letter sent by A. G. Cicognani, the
pope's special representative to the US, to Ambassador Myron Taylor,
Roosevelt's special emissary to Pius XII, is believed to be the
first explicit expression of Pius's policy against Zionism conveyed
to the American government.
"It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by the
Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the
necessity of a people returning to a country they left nineteen
centuries before," the letter reads. "If a 'Hebrew Home' is desired,
it would not be too difficult to find a more fitting territory than
Palestine. With an increase in the Jewish population there, grave,
new international problems would arise."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the
letter "is an indictment of Pius XII, because it basically says that
when the pope wanted a point of view expressed about how he clearly
felt, he said it clearly. Where is a similar letter to Adolf Hitler,
telling Hitler that the Vatican finds his policies against the Jews
repugnant? But at the height of the Holocaust, the Vatican knew how
to oppose the State of Israel."
Rabbi David Rosen, head of the Israel office of the
Anti-Defamation League and an expert on Catholic-Jewish relations,
said that "it has been well known for a long time of the shameful
policy the Holy See maintained during that period, and this is just
but one confirmation of that fact." Rosen said Pius's anti-Zionism
was a continuation of long-standing Vatican policy, which all
changed with the issuing of Nostra Aetate.
Hier said the letter, which was found two weeks ago in research
being conducted on Pope Pius, further spotlights the issue of the
church's moving forward his candidacy for sainthood. "Many people
have asked me, what is it our business who the Catholics appoint a
saint?" Hier said. "Normally I would agree with that. But in the
presence of survivors, tens of thousands of whom are still alive in
their last few years, that they should live out their lives knowing
that the person whom they heard nothing from, nothing but silence,
has been designated as a saint - many people around the world will
say a saint was alive in the Vatican during the Holocaust. That is
an insult to the memory of the Holocaust, and is an insult to the
survivors."
