The Allies' recommendation is reported in a document unearthed recently by the New York-based Pave the Way Foundation, founded by an American Jew, Gary Krupp.

Krupp asserted that these revelations help to give context for the way in which Pius XII handled the Nazi horror.

The document is correspondence between the British representative to the Holy See, Sir D'Arcy Osborne, and Myron Taylor, his U.S. counterpart.

A Nov. 7, 1944, note signed by Taylor's assistant, Franklin C. Gowen, reports to Taylor that Osborne "called and said that he feared the Holy Father may make Radio appeal on behalf of Jews in Hungary and that in his appeal he may also criticise what the Russians are doing in occupied territory."

"Sir D'Arcy said something should be done to prevail upon the Pope not to do this," the note added, "as it would have very serious political repercussions."

Krupp showed ZENIT another note between the envoys' offices that references a letter about help for Jewish refugees. The note "clearly states that the letter must be destroyed in order to prevent it from falling into enemy hands," Krupp said.

Osborne wrote the May 20, 1944, note to Harold Tittman, another of Taylor's assistants.

The British representative tells the U.S. envoy's assistant that he will destroy the letter, saying that if it were to fall into enemy hands it would incriminate a priest called Father Benedetto.

Krupp observed that the destruction of documents was necessarily common during the war. "There are some critics who do not seem to understand that this is why so many written orders also had to be destroyed," Krupp noted.

News

Further information about the Catholic response to the Holocaust has been uncovered by Dimitri Cavalli, a journalist, researcher, and contributor to Pave the Way archives and publications. He has located documents from an international Jewish press called the JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency).

One release dated June 28, 1943, reports Vatican Radio denunciations of the treatment of Jews in France.

A few days earlier, June 25, 1943, the JTA reported the denunciation in German of anti-Semitic actions in Slovakia.

Cavalli also discovered a May 19, 1940, Jewish Chronicle magazine published by B'nai B'rith featuring Pope Pius XII's picture on the front cover with the lead article titled the Pope's Jewish scholars.

This article reports how the Vatican was hiring Jewish academics who were fired by Italian institutions due to Mussolini's anti-Semitic laws.

The JTA also reported a confrontation between Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon, when he was visited by Nazi authorities in France.

The Nazis told the archbishop they would leave the Church alone, if the cardinal and other clergy would not oppose the anti-Jewish laws and would stop protecting Jews.

The cardinal responded that the French clergy did not engage in politics but "is obeying the Pope." He cut short the confrontation telling the Nazis, "You no doubt know that the Holy Father has condemned the anti-Semitic laws and all anti-Jewish measures."

Another JTA article, from Feb. 5, 1943, reported a strong condemnation of Nazi theories from Cardinal Jusztinián Györg Serédi, archbishop of Esztergom.

On the same page is a short article on how Mussolini is reported to be relaxing his Jewish racial laws in order to try to strengthen his relations with the Vatican.

The Jewish Chronicle of London dated Sept. 9, 1942, reports that Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, printed 10 million pamphlets in multiple languages for distribution in Europe and Latin America, condemning Pope Pius XII for his pro-Jewish stance.

Proof

Krupp told ZENIT that "to date, Pave the Way foundation has amassed over 46,000 pages of news articles, original documents, research materials, along with numerous eyewitness video testimonies, and audio and video files answering the 47 questions left unanswered by a Jewish Catholic study session in 2001."

This material is available at the Pave the Way site.

Elliot Hershberg, Pave the Way chairman, said the abundance of material unearthed and recorded by the foundation gives plenty of material to scholars studying the Vatican's response to the Nazi regime, even as the Vatican archives on this period are still unopened.

Hershberg said the foundation is aware of the Vatican’s eagerness to complete the cataloguing process and to open the archives as soon as possible. Benedict XVI has quintupled the numbers of trained archival personnel to complete this tedious work, he explained, adding that with more than 31 million documents needing to be sewn into books, numbered page by page, and summarized, this job is difficult.

Hershberg pledged that in the meantime, Pave the Way will continue to research and post all documents relative to this period in order to hasten the resolution of this 47-year-old obstacle between Jews and Catholics worldwide.

Pave the Way Foundation: www.ptwf.org

By Jesús Colina

ROME, JULY 22, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The direct action of Pope Pius XII saved the lives of more than 11,000 Jews in Rome during the Second World War, according to documentation recently discovered by historians.

Pave the Way Foundation representative for Germany, historian and investigative researcher Michael Hesemann, discovered a number of very important original documents in his research of the open archives of Santa Maria dell Anima Church, which is the National Church of Germany in Rome.

The U.S.-based foundation, founded by Jew Gary Krupp, announced the findings in a statement sent to ZENIT.

"Many have criticized Pius XII for remaining silent during the arrest and when trains left Rome containing 1,007 Jews who were sent to the death camp Auschwitz," Krupp stated. "The critics also do not acknowledge Pius XII's direct intervention to end the arrests of Oct. 16, 1943."

"New discoveries prove that Pius XII acted directly behind the scenes to end the arrests at 2:00 p.m., on the very day they began, but who was powerless to stop the ill-fated train," he added.

According to a recent study by researcher Deacon Dominiek Oversteyns, there were 12,428 Jews in Rome on Oct. 16, 1943.

"Pope Pius XII's direct action saved the lives of over 11,400 Jews," Krupp explained. "On the morning of Oct. 16, 1943, when the Pope learned of the arrests of the Jews, he immediately ordered an official Vatican protest with the German ambassador, which he knew would no doubt be fruitless.

"The Pope then sent his nephew, Prince Carlo Pacelli, to meet with Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal. Bishop Hudal, head of the National Church of Germany in Rome, was by some accounts, sympathetic to the Nazi's and had good relations with them. Prince Carlo Pacelli told Hudal that he was sent by the Pope, and that Hudal must write a letter to the German Governor of Rome, General Rainier Stahel, to demand that the arrests stop."

Bishop Hudal's letter to General Stahel stated: "Just now, a high Vatican source [...] reported to me that this morning, the arrest of the Jews of Italian nationality has started. In the interest of a peaceful dialogue between the Vatican and the German military command, I ask you with urgency to give order to immediately stop these arrests in Rome and the surrounding area. The German reputation in foreign countries requires such a measure and also the danger that the Pope would openly protest against it."

The letter was then hand-delivered to General Stahel by a close confidant to Pope Pius XII, German Father Pancratius Pfeiffer, superior general of the Society of the Divine Savior, who personally knew General Stahel.

The following morning, General Stahel responded by telephone: "I forwarded the affair immediately to the local Gestapo and to Himmler personally, Himmler ordered that, concerning the special status of Rome, these arrests are to be stopped immediately."

These events are further confirmed by the testimony obtained during the investigation of relator (high Judge) to the cause of Pius XII, Jesuit Priest Father Peter Gumpel.

Father Gumpel stated that he personally spoke to General Dietrich Beelitz, who was then liaison officer between Kesselring's office and Hitler's command. General Beelitz listened in to the Stahel-Himmler telephone conversation and confirmed that General Stahel used a threat of military failure to Himmler if the arrests were to continue.

Exemptions

An additional document titled "The direct actions to save innumerable persons of the Hebrew nation" states that Bishop Hudal managed -- through his contacts with Stahel and Colonel Baron von Veltheim -- to get "550 religious colleges and institutions to be exempt from inspections and visitations of the German military Police."

Just in one of these places, the Institute of St. Joseph, 80 Jews were being hidden.

The note also mentions the involvement "for a great part" of Prince Carlo Pacelli, the nephew of Pius XII. "The German soldiers were very disciplined and respected the signature of a high German official ... Thousands of local Jews in Rome, Assisi, Loreto, Padua etc. were saved due to this declaration."

Michael Hesemann stated that it is obvious that any public protest by the Pope when the train departed could have triggered the resumption of the arrests.

In addition, Hesemann explains that Pave the Way has on its Web site the original SS order to arrest 8,000 Roman Jews, who were to be sent to the work camp at Mauthausen -- to be held as hostages -- not the death camp in Auschwitz. One may speculate that the Vatican may have felt they could negotiate their release.

We have learned that it was also Bishop Hudal who was acknowledged by the Vatican as actively participating in helping some Nazis war criminals escape arrest after the war's end.

Because of his political position, Bishop Hudal was persona-non-grata at the Vatican and in fact, was chastised in writing by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI), for even suggesting that Vatican help any Nazi escape arrest.

Gary Krupp, President of Pave the Way, further commented that "Pave the Way has devoted vast resources in order to obtain and post publicly all of this information for historians and scholars. Curiously, none of the most outspoken critics of Pope Pius XII, has bothered to either come to the open Vatican Archives (completely opened since 2006 up to 1939) for original study, or even accessed our restricted free Web site, according to sign in sheets in Rome and our registration records."

Krupp further commented that he has the sincere hope that the scholarly representatives of the Roman Jewish community, research original materials only steps from their homes.

"I believe they will find that the very existence today of what Pope Pius XII called 'this vibrant community' is because of the secret efforts of Pope Pius XII to save every life," said Krupp. "Pius XII did what he could, while under the threat of invasion, death, surrounded by hostile forces and infiltrated by spies."

Elliot Hershberg, chairman of Pave the Way Foundation, added: "In the service of our mission, we are committed to try to bring some resolution to this controversy, which affects over 1 billion people.

"We have used our international connections and trust to obtain and post on our free restricted Web site over 46,000 pages of original documents, original news articles, video eyewitness, and scholarly interviews in order to spoon-feed this documentation to the historians and scholars.

"The international publicity from this project has yielded new documentation almost weekly, which show how we have moved to eliminate the academic logjam that has existed since 1963."

Prelate Who Saved Some 10,000 Jews Dead at 98

Archbishop Ferrofino Assisted Pope Pius XII

ROME, APRIL 16, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of a conference given April 7 at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute in Rome by Mateusz Szpytma, of the Krakow Branch of the Institute of the National Remembrance.

The speech tells the story of the Ulma family -- the couple and their seven children -- who were killed along with eight Jews they were trying to save from the Nazis.

* * *

Wiktoria i Józef Ulma: testimony of love to the point of martyrdom 

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself." Luke 10:27

“But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him." Luke 10:33-34

"The Commandment of Love – The Good Samaritan” – under such a title these very words can be found in the Bible which Józef and Wiktoria Ulma owned. It’s one of the two fragments to be found in the Bible marked in red – most probably by Józef Ulma himself (the other one regards loving enemies). With their own life and death they proved these words did not remain an empty slogan for them. Both, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, together with their six children and eight Jews of the Szall and Goldman families they were hiding, were executed by the Germans on March 24, 1944.

The village of Markowa, where the tragic turn of events took place, is located in South-Eastern Poland, in the diocese of Przemyśl- about 300 km South from the capital city of Warsaw and about 200 km East from Krakow. The village dates back to the 2nd half of the 14th c. when it was founded. During the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) Markowa was among the biggest villages in Poland. In 1931 it had 931 houses inhabited by nearly 4.500 inhabitants. The Markowa community in majority was Catholic, however about 120 citizens (nearly 30 families) were Jewish. The relations between Poles and Jews were satisfactory, they were living side by side and cooperated. The peasant movement had an important impact on a local community and thanks to its influence a local elite emerged: open-minded peasants, running their farms modernly, remaining – on the other hand – due  to the Catholic faith, attached to the evangelical values. In such political and social atmosphere Józef Ulma and Wiktoria Niemczek were raised. 

Józef, born in 1900, was well know in the village. Even though he graduated only from a four-grade elementary school and then an agricultural course, as a person of many talents, he was the first in Markowa to set up a fruit tree nursery. Soon he became a propagator of vegetable and fruit growing, which at that time was still not so popular. Yet, his innovative farming methods were known not only in that field. He was given awards during the County Agricultural Exhibition in Przeworsk in 1933 for the “ingenious beehives and apiarian tools of own construction and design”  and for the “exemplary silkworm raising and their lifetime charts,” still being preserved with the family. Especially the latter had been arousing an interest not only of the fellow villagers, but also of Prince Andrzej Lubomirski, the entailer from Przeworsk, who paid a visit to the Ulma farm in order to  examine silkworms and mulberry trees.

Józef didn’t shun social activities either. While still a teenager, at the age of 17, he was already a member of the Mass Union of the Przemyśl Diocese, which aimed at joint prayers and collecting funds for the construction and reconstruction of local churches and chapels.

He was also an active member of the Catholic Youth Association and then the Peasant Youth Union “Wici”, where he acted as a librarian and photographer, since photography with no doubts was his greatest passion. He made thousands of photos, in majority preserved until today in the family collection. Among the most appealing are the photos of his wife and children, however several self-portraits remain as well. 

His chosen one was Wiktoria - twelve years his junior. Quite likely, they met during the rehearsals of the  Amateur Theatre Company in Markowa, since both Wiktoria and Józef performed there; in one of the nativity plays Wiktoria performed a role of Mother of God. They got married in July 1935, in the Markowa parish church of St. Dorothy. The couple was well-matched and both husband and wife felt affection for each other. In one of the photos one can see Wiktoria sitting on Józef’s lap, cuddling each other closely. Soon, they had numerous offspring. In seven years Wiktoria gave birth to six children: Stasia, Basia, Władzio, Franuś, Antoś and Marysia and only the tragedy of spring 1944 prevented them from having a seventh child. We know very little about the spirituality of the Ulmas. Yet, for sure one can claim they enjoyed a wide recognition of the local community as virtuous and righteous people. They were practicing Catholics. The living member of the Ulma family – Stanisława Kuźniar – godmother of one of the Ulmas’ sons – Władzio, who was helping Wiktoria to take care of her children, testified seeing Józef kneeling to say his evening prayer, before going to sleep. Wiktoria kept house – one of the photos shows her writing or drawing in the children’s notebook, on the other – she’s portrayed standing encircled with quite a cluster of neat and trim children, holding the youngest child in her arms. Most probably, this very family would had developed wonderfully, if the outbreak of World War II didn’t take place on September 1, 1939. Since that moment, the tragedy of  the Poles and especially the Jews living in Poland, had begun.

In the German-occupied Poland massacres of Poles and Jews had increased, synagogues and prayer houses had been destroyed. To be able to fully understand how spectacular the Ulmas heroism was, we have to get a little bit more acquainted with the kind of fate people hiding Jews had to face.

Once the military actions had stopped, numerous legal restrictions were introduced, regarding in particular people recognized as being of Jewish origins. The most tragic chapter of the mass murder of Jews started with the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in June 1941. The Third Reich resolved to implement a solution which denoted the murder of the entire population of the European Jews (the same solution was to be applied in future in regard of the ethnic Poles).  In order to discourage Poles from bringing help to Jews, Hans Frank – the General Governor of the occupied Polish territories - issued in October 1941 a regulation, according to which any citizen accused or suspected of supporting Jews was executed. Any similar regulation had never been introduced in any of the German-occupied West European countries. As a result of the realization of the mass murder plan, 6 million European Jews were killed, mostly in the extermination camps. Half of them were Polish citizens. During World War II approximately three million Poles were murdered as well. 

The most tragic events in occupied Markowa took place in the second half of 1942. At that time, the majority of the Markowa Jews was exterminated. Most probably about the same time two Jewish families asked the Ulmas to hide them. These were the Goldmans – Gołda and Layka with their little daughter – who lived in proximity of the Jozef Ulma family house, and five men from Łańcut named Szall – a cattle merchant, well known in the pre-war period, with four grown-up sons. It’s rather hard to determine today by what kind of  motives the Ulmas were driven to make a decision to hide them. Józef was well-known for his friendliness toward Jews.  Some time before, he helped another Jewish family to build a ravine hideaway. Undoubtedly, the reasons included a (moral) obligation to love one’s neighbour, compassion as well as the awareness that refusing help would condemn these people to death. Through the window of the Ulmas house, one could see the place of execution, where in 1942 the Germans shot at least several dozen Jews from Markowa and around.

It remains rather uncertain how the hiding was discovered. Some of the Markowa citizens suspect that one of the villagers denounced the Ulmas to the Germans. Documents collected by the underground  movement bring light to another trail and emphasizes that probably the scenario was the following: the Szall family hiding with the Ulmas,  lived in Łańcut before the war. Conscious of the looming “final solution of the Jewish question” they started to seek for a hiding place. Initially, they were promised shelter by Włodzimierz Leś, a “Blue” Police constable in Łańcut, coming from Biała near Rzeszów. Włodzimierz Leś lived in the suburbs of Łańcut, near the Szalls, with whom he maintained close relations before the war. He also was helping them hide away from the Germans. Once the situation got worse, the Szalls had to seek safety elsewhere. They turned then to the Ulmas – farmers from Markowa they knew, who hid them. Even so, the Szalls insisted that Leś continue helping them, since most probably in return  for his help, they left a considerable part of their possessions with him. Since for quite some time he refused to comply with their demand, they tried to recover their property or to take over goods belonging to Leś.  Several signs reveal that at that point Leś gave away the hiding place of the Jewish family to his colleagues from the German gendarmerie.

The course of this brutal crime can be determined with a considerable accuracy based upon the records preserved from the trial against one of the perpetrators – Joseph Kokott. Lieutenant Eilert Dieken, the commander of the gendarmerie outpost Łańcut was given the command of the expeditionary troop.  Three other police functionaries participating were: Joseph Kokott, Michael Dziewulski and Erich Wilde. Two other names of the Polish “Blue” Police officers have been identified as well: Eustachy Kolman and Włodzimierz Leś.  Shortly before sunrise on March 24, 1944 functionaries arrived to the Józef Ulma household situated at the end of the village. The Germans left cart drivers and horses on the sidelines, and escorted by the police approached the house. Soon several shots could be heard – the first victims where Jews. The rest of the execution was eye witnessed by the cart drivers, summoned by an order to watch the punishment to be meted to every Pole for hiding Jews. One of the cart drivers – Edward Nawojski – testified that he saw Józef and Wiktora Ulma let out of their house and shot in front of it. As he recalls: “During the execution we could hear terrible shouts, wailing, children calling out for their parents who had been already killed. All this made a shocking sight”. After having killed parents, amid crying and shouting children, functionaries started to deliberate what to do with them. After conferring it with his colleagues, Dieken decided to shoot them. Nawojski saw Kokkot killing three of four children himself. The words this Germanized Czech addressed in Polish to the drivers, left a deep imprint on his memory: “Look, how Polish swines die – who hide the Jews”. The victims were: Stasia, Basia, Władzio, Franuś, Antoś and Marysia and the seventh child in the mother’s womb, few days before birth. In several minutes seventeen people died. After killing the last child, the leader of Markowa village arrived, called by the Germans. He brought over few persons to bury the bodies. He asked the commander whom he knew from the frequent inspections of Markowa why the children were killed. Dieken gave him a cynical answer” “not to trouble the village with them”.

Having committed the crime, the Germans began to plunder. One of the villagers brought over to dig a grave was ordered by Kokott to search precisely the murdered Jews. Himself, shining a torch, he was supervising it. Noticing a box containing valuables concealed on Gołda Goldman’s chest he declared: “This is what I needed” and put it into his pocket. After the burial Kokott assembled the Poles and announced: “No one dares to know how many people were shot, only you and I”. Despite a rigorous ban, in a week, under the cover of the night, five men opened the Ulmas grave, laid the bodied into coffins and reburied them. One of them testified: “Placing a body of Wiktoria Ulma to a coffin, I have realized that she was pregnant. I base my statement on the fact that half of the baby’s body with head was protruding from the mother’s genitals”. In January 1945 the Ulmas bodies were transferred to the local cemetery where they rest until nowadays.

These terrible and tragic moments, the citizens of Markowa were behaving different ways toward the Jews. It’s worthwhile to stress that at least twenty Jews survived hidden in the peasants houses in Markowa. Despite the tragic news of the Ulma family they could enjoy the hospitality of the local population until the end of the German occupation. For almost two years, Józef and Julia Bar together with their daughter Janina, were hiding a five-person Riesenbach family. The same did Antoni and Dorota Szylar living with their five children. Their barn gave refuge to the Weltz family escaping from the Germans. They begged the farmer to let them stay for few days. Subsequently, they didn’t move out but begged Antoni to let them stay longer. The whole family of seven members survived the war. Michał Bar gave shelter to the three-persons of the Lorbenfeld family. Jan and Weronika Przybylak rescued Jakub Einhorn and a three-person family of his friends. Young boy from Radymno, Abraham Segal, survived the war in hiding, staying with Helena and Jan Cwynar, pretending to be a cattleman.  Today, he lives in the suburbs of Haifa in Israel, having three sons and a dozen grandchildren. He maintains relations with the citizens of Markowa and remains interested in the life of the village. Thanks to his engagement, numerous youth tours from Israel visit Markowa.

After the war, on September 10, 1944, the Underground forces carried out a death sentence on Włodzimierz Leś - an eager “Blue” policeman – he was shot dead in Łańcut. Lieutenant Eilert Dieken – the commander of the expedition evaded the punishment. In the 1960s, once the evidence against him had been collected in the Federal Republic of Germany, it turned out that he died shortly before the investigation was completed. As for the others, it’s rather hard to establish what happened to Dziewulski and Wilde. The only criminal to be tracked down and judged was Joseph Kokott. In 1957 he was captured in Czechoslovakia. In 1958 the court in Rzeszów adjudged him being guilty of numerous murders and sentenced him.

Upon the condemned’s appeal, the Council of State of the People’s Republic of Poland pardoned Kokott and changed sentence first to life imprisonment and then to 25 years detention. He died in prison in 1980.

Despite the fact that the capital punishment had been exercised by the Germans, several thousand Jews survived rescued by the Poles. Yet, it has to be clearly stated that in the occupied Poland lived also those who dishonoured themselves by getting adapted to the inhuman “law” introduced by the occupying forces and denounced or even murdered the Jews (no precise data how numerous they were is available so far – a detailed research on that issue is being currently carried out). The Polish Underground authorities attempted, as far as it was possible, to punish such deeds, going even that far as the capital punishment. The Polish Government in Exile based in London was trying in vain to alarm the member states of the anti-German coalition about the tragic fate of Jews. Since December 1942, the Council for Aid to Jews “Żegota” (Rada Pomocy Żydom “Żegota”) was operating as part of the Underground authority, depending on the above mentioned Polish Government in Exile. Enough to say that it was the only organization of this kind in the whole German-occupied Europe. Applying different means and ways, Żegota helped to rescue several thousands of Jews.

The Ulma family along with the Szylar and Bar families were awarded  the Righteous Among the Nations medal. Let me stress at this point that the Yad Vashem Institute awarded over six thousand Poles, which constitutes the biggest national group among over twenty thousand Righteous awarded so far. 

In August 2003 a beatification process of the Ulma family was launched in the Diocese of Przemyśl and has already been completed. The required document will be delivered to Vatican on May 24, 2011. So far, two Catholic associations were created, choosing the Ulmas for their patron. The aim of both these organizations is to support the needful families. In Rzeszow there is the Ulmas Center for the Life of Family and in the parish church in Brzezinka near Oświęcim (known during the war as Auschwitz) one of the stained glass windows depicts the Ulma family. Their images are also placed among the Polish servants of God in the Licheń basilica, as well as on the front door of  the Przemyśl cathedral.

Last but not least, let me say that personally  I feel particularly happy and honoured to have this very opportunity to contribute towards paying homage to the Ulma family. I am more and more convinced that my vocation of being a historian that God granted me, was -  above all - given me to transmit further, to Poland and the world, the knowledge and to bear testimony to the deeds of heroism of the Ulma family. In 2003 I have initiated building of the monument in Markowa, which finally had been erected among others thanks to the donations of the Markowa inhabitants. Solemn celebration of the 60th anniversary of the tragedy assembled several hundred people. Among others, the Archbishop Józef Michalik – the metropolitan bishop of Przemyśl and chairman of the Conference of the Episcopate of Poland was present. Abraham Segal, one of the Jews rescued in Markowa also attended the unveiling of the monument and thanked for help he was given in this village. The monument, visited by pilgrims, bears a notation: “Saving the lives of others, they sacrificed their own lives: Józef Ulma, his wife Wiktoria and children Stasia, Basia, Władzio, Franuś, Antoś, Marysia, an unborn infant. Concealing eight of our older brothers in faith, Jews of the Szall and Golman families, they  died together with them in Markowa on March 24, 1944, at the hands of the German gendarmerie. May their sacrifice be an appeal for respect and love due to all! They were sons and daughters of this land, and remain in our hearts. Community of the Markowa district”.

I believe that soon we will be celebrating the beatification of the Servants of God the Ulmas, and God willing – the ceremony of the opening of the Ulma Family  Museum of Poles Rescuing Jews in the Subcarpathian Region will mark the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the crime.

Group Gives New Proof of Pius XII's Help for Jews

The Pave the Way Foundation, which works to promote dialogue between religions, publicized this Thursday.

The discoveries were made by the German historian and advisor of the foundation Michael Hesemann, author of the books "The Pope Who Defied Hitler" and "The Truth About Pius XII." Hesemann found a number of documents in the Vatican Secret Archives that certified Pope Pacelli's numerous interventions in favor of Jews.

He noted that Archbishop Pacelli intervened in 1917 while papal nuncio in Bavaria, going through the German government to demand that Palestine Jews be protected from the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Hesemann also shows that in 1917, the future Pius XII used his personal influence to enable the World Zionist Organization representative, Nachum Sokolov, to meet personally with Benedict XV to talk about a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In 1926, Archbishop Pacelli urged German Catholics to support the Committee for Palestine, which supported Jewish settlements in the Holy Land.

The foundation's president, Gary Krupp, added these findings to the evidence he already had complied for a Pius XII symposium last September in Rome. Since this event, 300 new pages of original documents have been uncovered.

These documents, available for downloading from the foundation's Web site, include a nun's manuscript from 1943, detailing the Pope's order to hide Jews in Rome and a list of protected Jews.

Another document is a 1939 report on the "new Pope" by the U.S. Foreign Service, from the American consul in Cologne. The diplomat reported surprise at the "extreme dislike" of Pacelli toward Hitler and the Nazi regime, and his support to the German bishops in their opposition to Nazism, even at the cost of losing German Catholic youth.

The foundation also provides a 1938 document, signed by then Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, in which he opposes the Polish bill outlawing kosher slaughter because he understood that this law would be a "grave persecution" against the Jewish people.

During the war, Pius XII saved 80,000 lives by persuading the Hungarian regent to prevent the deportation of the Jews. He also requested the Brazilian government to receive 3,000 "non-Aryans."

Another document provided by the foundation is an interview with Monsignor Giovanni Ferrofino, secretary of the nuncio in Haiti. The priest said 11,000 Jews were saved by Pius XII's continual requests for visas from General Trujillo, president of the Dominican Republic.

There is also evidence that the Vatican secretly issued baptismal papers to allow Jews to emigrate to many countries as "Catholics."

Personal discovery

The commitment of the Pave the Way foundation reflects that of its president, a Jewish American, who acknowledges that he grew up "despising Pius XII." This changed when he read Dan Kurzman's book, "A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius the XII."

The foundation acknowledged that there were spies in the Vatican and German snipers less than 200 yards from the papal windows.

The foundation stated that the lack of public statements by the Pope, which has been a source of criticism against him, is explained by the increased punishment in concentration camps, witnessed by former prisoners, when Church leaders spoke openly against the Nazi regime.

Krupp also discovered a secret plot of the Communist KGB, revealed by Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa, to manipulate Vatican documents and discredit the Holy See in international public opinion.

Krupp said: "I was surprised when I personally researched archived news stories from the New York Times and the Palestine Post from 1939-1958. I could not find one negative article about Pius XII."

The foundation undertakes the correction of Pius XII's image in order to "eliminate an obstacle" to understanding between Jews and Catholics, "which impacts over one billion people."

Krupp added: "In the interest of Jewish justice we must acknowledge the efforts of one man during a period when as a people we were abandoned by the rest of the world."

"It's time," he said, "to recognize Pope Pius XII for what he really did rather then what he didn't say."