Hungarian Holocaust survivors recently received a formal apology from the U.S. government to go along with a $25.5 million settlement for a trainload of gold, art and other possessions looted by the Nazis and later seized by the U.S. Army at the end of World War II.
The contents of the Hungarian Gold Train were sold off to finance post-war refugee assistance, but the Army requisitioned some for official use or decorations; and individual soldiers stole a small amount for souvenirs.
This closes the book on one case, but many others remain open 60 years after the end of the war.
No country has been as forthright in opening its archives of that era as the United States (although some records incredibly remain secret); and none has been more reluctant than the Vatican.
The Vatican holds the richest treasure of hidden documents — and possibly the keys to looted property. But the vaults are sealed tight and probably will remain so for another generation or two, if not forever, despite the efforts of Jewish leaders worldwide.
The issue is particularly delicate in light of charges that the wartime pontiff, Pius XII, was indifferent to the plight of the Jews, or worse; and because his most recent successors have made great strides in healing rifts between Catholics and Jews.
The two faiths are currently celebrating the 40th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”), the Second Vatican Council’s repudiation of the concept of continuing Jewish guilt for Jesus’s death.
The late John Paul II did more to improve Catholic-Jewish relations than any of his predecessors. He was the first pope to visit a synagogue, first to pray at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, first to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. His successor, Benedict XVI, is determined to “walk in [his] footsteps.”
Year for a year
The Vatican agreed in 1999 to permit an international committee of three Jewish and three Catholic historians to examine Holocaust-era records; but that collapsed when the Vatican refused to open all relevant materials.
Behind the Vatican action is a tradition of releasing all the papers of a pontificate simultaneously once they have been assembled, examined and catalogued by Church officials. The process usually takes a year for each year of a papacy.
Vatican officials are currently working on the documents of Pope Pius XI, who died in 1939. At that rate, the record of Pius XII (1939-1958) could be decades away.
That is how the Vatican has operated for centuries and it is not inclined to change, said an Israeli expert who has spent years at the Vatican. But there is another reason, he added: “No doubt they have much to hide.”
“The papers will have been thoroughly sanitized before release. If there’s a smoking gun it will disappear in the cataloguing process, and you’ll never be able to prove anything unless they find something really good about his helping Jews, and then they’ll probably release it early,” the expert said.
Pius XII has been called “Hitler’s pope” for his failure to condemn publicly either Nazism or the Holocaust. As Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, he was the papal nuncio (ambassador) in Germany and obviously knew what was going on inside the Third Reich; as pope, he also knew from papal envoys throughout Europe and other sources, yet he didn’t raise his voice.
Gerhardt Riegner of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva sent him detailed information throughout the war years about what was going on.
Defenders contend strong condemnations would have had severe consequences for Europe’s Catholics and worse for any Jews they tried to protect.
Many Catholics throughout Europe helped rescue thousands of Jews; but that was more the result of local initiatives and personal heroism than any Vatican-directed policy.
Only unfettered access to the archives can answer lingering questions about the Vatican’s role, but we shouldn’t have to wait until nearly a century has passed since Hitler’s defeat.
While in no rush to open the records, the Vatican is in a hurry to canonize Pius XII. So long as the dark cloud of doubt hangs over his papacy, it would be in the Church’s interest to remove it before it is allowed to obscure the great progress made since “Nostra Aetate” and especially under John Paul II.
That won’t happen unless Pope Benedict, the German-born Joseph Ratzinger, who was drafted into the German army late in World War II, feels a special responsibility to help clarify the record.
The pontiff, who reads classical Hebrew, has reached out to Jews from the beginning of his papacy. He visited a synagogue in Cologne, home to Germany’s oldest Jewish community; and he called Nazism an “insane racist ideology.”
He wants to be a friend of Israel and the Jews. He has invited Israeli President Moshe Katzav for a state visit later this month.
Jews should continue pressing for opening Vatican archives, but with a finesse that won’t endanger the growing relationship.
Benedict has the opportunity to set the historical record straight by overruling the Vatican’s plodding bureaucracy and piercing its obsession with secrecy by opening the records before having the censors sanitize them. And he should do it “Nostra Aetate” — “In Our Time.”
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based syndicated columnist and a former chief lobbyist for AIPAC.
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