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We were in luck with our guide, a well-educated 34 year-old Polish man, Jurek. The motto on the top of the entry gate at the Auschwitz extermination camp that says in German, ‘Work Brings you Freedom’. Of course, the German sign is a lie, as were the stories being told to the more than six million Jewish people rounded up for ‘resettlement in the East’. At the end of the War, when the Russian Communist Army took over this land that had already been through such suffering, to ‘liberate’ it from the Nazis, instead, they brought with them a total absence of freedom. What a dichotomy!
A point of history: The Master Plan of the Third Reich called for expansion of the boundaries of Germany. They envisaged a new civilisation of a superior Aryan race for the whole of Europe for one thousand years. The invasion of Poland was not simply for domination. In their view the Jews together with the Polish people had to be exterminated as they were considered to be sub-human. Some able people would be spared for a time to be the ‘slave workers’ in this vision of an expanded Germany.
One of the first steps was to remove the Leaders in Poland. This included the elite, intellectuals, and also the handicapped, clergy, and other minorities, who were all rounded up and killed. The remaining Polish people were then subjugated, oppressed and put to work like slaves.
Auschwitz was not just one camp – it had five satellite camps with the largest being at Birkenau. The shocking, grisly revelation was learning that 75-80% of the arrivals at the railway siding in Birkenau, Nazi Officers stood and made a ‘Selection’ – those who could work were separated into one group. Women, children and elderly, under the impression they were going to the showers, were marched to buildings in the nearby forest and told to undress. They were then herded into a large room, two thousand at a time, when Nazi officers would drop cyanide gas pellets in from above, until they died.
We walked along the same railway tracks, and inspected one carriage that has been restored as a monument by the Lowy family of Australia in memory of their father, Hugo Lowy. Hugo’s daughter, Edith, lived next to me in Sydney. I was very familiar with her stories of loss and suffering right up until she lost her mind.
I will not go further into the stories of the Extermination Camps. A few pictures will give you some idea of what else we witnessed.
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Finally, Freedom!
Click to see the photo album of our visit to Auschwitz / Birkenau Extermination Camps
FROM PIUS XII to ST JOHN PAUL II –
OFTEN OVERLOOKED SUBTLE AND EFFECTIVE DIPLOMACY BY THE HOLY SEE
Michael, this is a succinct but very illustrative narrative of such perverse time in history starting in the Thirties and ending in 1989 with the fall of the Iron Curtain. Easily said, fifty years of oppression, humiliation, and the absolute denial of basic human rights.
I can identify with this. It’s been fifty-four years since Communism also took over my birth country, Cuba. Pope Pius XII declared both Nazism and Communism ‘intrinsically perverse’. It is incredible still that unscrupulous governments can oppress a people for so long.
John Paul II played a major role in the fall of Communism, but I would be remiss not to comment on the great influence that again another Pope had in the chain of events between the years of 1939 through the end of the Second World War.
After Pius XI’s Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli was instructed to negotiate with Mussolini some of thee very basic freedom of movements that the Church had enjoyed for hundreds of years, and that had been taken away during the Unification of Italy. Having reached a successful agreement in 1929 under the name of the Lateran Treaty, when the Vatican was established as an independent country in the middle of their confiscated lands, Cardinal Pacelli was once again given a most challenging assignment, that of being Apostolic Nuncio to Berlin. Soon, he became the anchor for the Episcopacy in Germany.
Cardinal Pacelli had spent many years in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and was an expert in Canon Law. The accomplished Cardinal was a scholar of European Politics and kept His Holiness Pius XI well informed about the dangerous time that Germany was going through with an out of control economy, staggering unemployment, and general discontent, in addition to not having recovered from the humiliation and loss of territory the country went through after the First World War. Pacelli advised Pius XI of an Austrian populist who had created a political party in Germany and was gaining acceptance from the general population.
I will not go into any description of what everyone is well aware of regarding the ascension to power by Hitler, the War, and its consequences but it is here where I want to highlight the mastermind of this great, but overlooked man. After the death of Pius XI, a conclave was called and Cardinal Pacelli was elected as the Vicar of Christ on Earth and takes the name of Pius XII in honour of his three predecessors with the words “Accepto im Crucem” “I accept my Cross”.
Before being elected to the Chair of Peter, Cardinal Pacelli, as Secretary of State, had personally negotiated a Concordat with Hitler that enabled the Church to save the lives of tens of thousands of people including Jews and non-Jews. As an example, he was able to have Hitler agree that cloistered Convents would not be violated by German troops. Needless to say, the Church had to be very careful in ensuring that the lives being saved through things of this kind would not result in yet more killings.
It was also Pius XII who appealed to Roosevelt and Churchill, and to Hitler and Mussolini to avoid the bombing of the great Patrimony that is in so many places throughout Italy. A great man, an ascetic, a scholar, who lived the life of a saint having led the Church through one of the most tumultuous periods of world history.
Subtle diplomacy by the Holy See in complicated and difficult international disputes continues today as seen by Pope Francis’ Invitation to Jews, Palestinians and Orthodox Christian Leaders to come to the Vatican, and together with him pray to the same One God that each worships to have the courage to negotiate Peace for the souls of so many people who have suffered so much for so many years.
Pope Francis: ‘Inside every Christian is a Jew’
Josephine McKenna Religion News Service | Jun. 16, 2014
VATICAN CITY Underscoring the close ties between Christianity and Judaism and calling Holocaust denial “madness,” Pope Francis told an interviewer that “inside every Christian is a Jew.”
In an interview published Friday in Spain’s La Vanguardia newspaper, the pope said dialogue between the two faiths can sometimes be a “hot potato.”
“I believe that interreligious dialogue must investigate the Jewish roots of Christianity and the Christian flowering of Judaism,” Francis said. “I understand it is a challenge, a hot potato, but it is possible to live as brothers.”
Francis’ statement seems to go further than his predecessor, St. John Paul II, who made headlines in 1986 as the first pope to visit Rome’s main synagogue and declared Jews to be the “elder brothers” of the Christian faith.
“Every day, I pray with the Psalms of David. My prayer is Jewish, then I have the Eucharist, which is Christian,” the Argentine pontiff added.
The pope also took the opportunity to criticize Holocaust denial as “madness” while defending the record of Pope Pius XII, who led the Roman Catholic church during World War II.
Francis will soon have to decide whether to advance the sainthood cause for the controversial wartime pope, who is accused of failing to speak out publicly against the mass murder of Jews. For years, Jewish leaders and Nazi hunters have demanded the Vatican open up its secret wartime files.
Francis said he was concerned about “everything which has been thrown at poor Pius XII” while stressing that he sheltered Jews in the convents of Rome and other Italian cities, as well as the popes’ summer residence in Castel Gadolfo.
“I do not mean to say that Pius XII did not make mistakes — I make many mistakes myself — but his role must be read in the context of the time,” Pope Francis said.
Francis added that he breaks out in an “existential rash” when he hears people speak against Pius and the church’s wartime record while ignoring inaction by the Allies fighting against Nazi Germany.
“Did you know that they knew perfectly well the rail network used by the Nazis to take the Jews to the concentration camps? They had photographs,” he said. “But they did not bomb these rail lines. Why? It would be nice if we spoke a little bit about everything.”
During Friday’s interview with the Barcelona daily, Francis was also asked about his own security, saying he refused to travel in a bulletproof “sardine can” vehicle because he wants to mingle with ordinary people.
“It is true that anything can happen, but let’s face it, at my age I have nothing to lose,” the 77-year-old pontiff said.
The former archbishop of Buenos Aires was also asked how he would like to be remembered as a pope.
“I have not thought about that,” Francis said. “But I like it when you remember someone and say ‘He was a good guy, he did what he could, and he was not that bad.’ I would be happy with that.”
Sunday 15 June 2014.
Pope Pius XII and the Nazi occupation of Rome
An audience of about one hundred was present for Tim Fischer’s presentation. His address was wide ranging and he cited examples and evidence to support the points he made. He mentioned some of the criticisms made of Pope Pius XII in relation to this period and challenged the claims of some specific individuals and groups. He asserted that: “In war and peace the Holy See matters and this was the case for the Jewish people in Rome during WWII”.
Tim discussed the lead-up to, aspects of and the outcomes of WWI and the attempts to promote peace by Pope Benedict XV. He examined the implications of the 1929 Lateran Treaty which recognised the full sovereignty of Holy See and the state of the Vatican City. He mentioned the lead-up to and the early years of WWII in Italy including a split in the Roman Jewish community: some were not opposed to the Fascists while others were. The latter group was led by Rabbi Zoller (sometimes spelt Zolli) who warned his community about the risks they faced.
In 1943 Mussolini was overthrown and Italy was occupied by Germany. In October 1943 orders were given, from Berlin, to deport the Jews of Rome to the death camps. Pius XII issued orders for convents and monasteries to give shelter to Jews. Tim Fischer mentioned examples of this including an Ursuline convent which sheltered about 100 Jewish people and the extraordinary measures and risks taken in acquiring the food and water needed. Castel Gandolfo was also as used as a shelter. Tim mentioned that of the approximately 1000 Jews deported from Rome very few survived, but over 7000 were saved by Pius XII’s direction to provide shelter. He also mentioned that the Synagogue in Rome was spared from destruction largely due to the intervention of the Pope.
Tim mentioned aspects of Pius XII’s background and style, other statements he made and actions he took. Tim again addressed the criticism made that Pius XII had not strongly opposed Nazi actions and had not used the word Holocaust. He reminded the audience that Rabbi Zoller, who led the Jews in Rome during the Nazi occupation, strongly defended the actions of Pope Pius XII and converted to Catholicism soon after WWII. Tim also mentioned criticism of Rabbi Zoller related to his conversion.
To finish his illuminating talk, the audience was shown a number of photos taken when Tim was the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See.
An interesting question time followed when many of the points made in various publications were put to Tim who provided sound answers. Some aspects of the current situation in the Middle East were raised and Tim again referred to individuals and particular lobby groups and their possible motives. He also stated “that in diplomacy, words are like bullets”.
An addendum: An article by Josephine McKenna (16 June 2014) on the National Catholic Reporter’s website titled Pope Francis: ‘Inside every Christian is a Jew’, reports on a number of recent statements by Pope Francis referring to Pope Pius XII and his actions during the Nazi occupation of Rome. http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-francis-inside-every-christian-jew Worth reading!