ROME: A letter found among the private papers of Pope Pius XII suggests that the Holy See was told in 1942 that up to 6,000 people, “above all Poles and Jews”, were being killed in furnaces every day at Belzec, a Nazi death camp in Poland. Although news of the atrocities being perpetrated by Adolf Hitler was already reaching Pius’ ears, this information was especially important because it came from a trusted church source based in Germany, said Giovanni Coco, a Vatican archivist who discovered the letter. The source was “in the heart of the enemy territory,” Coco said.
The document, which was made public this weekend by Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, adds to the evidence that some scholars say shows Pius knew about the Holocaust as it happened. Some scholars say Pius didn’t want to confront or offend Hitler because he feared communism, believed that the Axis powers would win the war and wanted to avoid alienating millions of German and Nazi-sympathizing Catholics.
Other historians insist that Pius remained silent publicly because he was surreptitiously arranging for – or at least allowing – local Catholics to aid and save Jews from the Nazis, and he also feared that the Nazis might come after Catholics.
It is one of the most revealing documents to have emerged since Pope Francis ordered the archives of Pius opened in 2019, saying that “the church is not afraid of history.” Coco said he could not be 100% sure that Pius saw the letter, but he was “99% sure” because it was given to the pope’s personal secretary, his “right-hand man”. The secretary would have referred the information to the pope, “if he didn’t show him the documents directly,” Coco said.
Since 2020, scholars have been mining the documents covering Pius’ papacy, which lasted from 1939 to 1958, seeking to better understand the Vatican’s response to Nazism and the Holocaust, as well as the controversial legacy of Pius, who was publicly silent as millions of Jews were killed.
Addressed to Pius’ secretary, the Rev. Robert Leiber, the letter was written by a German Jesuit priest, the Rev. Lothar Koenig, who was a member of a German resistance movement.
In the letter, which was dated Dec. 14, 1942, Koenig sought to tell the Vatican about “the state of the persecution of the church in Germany, above all,” said Coco, who has been cataloging Pius’ personal papers at the Vatican. The letter included an appendix with the number of priests imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp near Munich; mentioned the Auschwitz death camp in Poland; and told of the thousands of Poles and Jews being murdered by the Nazis at Belzec.
The document, which was made public this weekend by Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, adds to the evidence that some scholars say shows Pius knew about the Holocaust as it happened. Some scholars say Pius didn’t want to confront or offend Hitler because he feared communism, believed that the Axis powers would win the war and wanted to avoid alienating millions of German and Nazi-sympathizing Catholics.
Other historians insist that Pius remained silent publicly because he was surreptitiously arranging for – or at least allowing – local Catholics to aid and save Jews from the Nazis, and he also feared that the Nazis might come after Catholics.
It is one of the most revealing documents to have emerged since Pope Francis ordered the archives of Pius opened in 2019, saying that “the church is not afraid of history.” Coco said he could not be 100% sure that Pius saw the letter, but he was “99% sure” because it was given to the pope’s personal secretary, his “right-hand man”. The secretary would have referred the information to the pope, “if he didn’t show him the documents directly,” Coco said.
Since 2020, scholars have been mining the documents covering Pius’ papacy, which lasted from 1939 to 1958, seeking to better understand the Vatican’s response to Nazism and the Holocaust, as well as the controversial legacy of Pius, who was publicly silent as millions of Jews were killed.
Addressed to Pius’ secretary, the Rev. Robert Leiber, the letter was written by a German Jesuit priest, the Rev. Lothar Koenig, who was a member of a German resistance movement.
In the letter, which was dated Dec. 14, 1942, Koenig sought to tell the Vatican about “the state of the persecution of the church in Germany, above all,” said Coco, who has been cataloging Pius’ personal papers at the Vatican. The letter included an appendix with the number of priests imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp near Munich; mentioned the Auschwitz death camp in Poland; and told of the thousands of Poles and Jews being murdered by the Nazis at Belzec.