WEBVTT - Pope Pius the Silent 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:14.560 and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. Hi, this 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.000 is Danish Wartz, host of the podcast. Just a little 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.000 bit of housekeeping. If you want to support the show, 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.920 you can do that on our Patreon. There's a link 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.760 in the episode description. We also have merch and that 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.680 link is in the episode description. Oh and I wrote 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.000 I have two books, Anatomy a love story, and it's 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.440 Equel Immortality, a love story. And if you like history 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.640 or the characters that I've covered in this podcast, not characters, 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.800 historical figures, then I think you would really like those books. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.199 Check them out. And that's about it. Thank you so 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.240 much for listening. Oh one more quick note before we begin. 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:59.280 This episode centers around the Holocaust, and so it contains 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:12.759 some very dark and disturbing themes in details. October sixteenth, 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.600 nineteen forty three, was a cold, damp morning in Rome. 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.640 It was a Saturday, the Sabbath, the holiest day of 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:26.120 the Jewish week, but the twelve thousand Jewish families in 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.959 the city hadn't gone to Rome's a great synagogue, the 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.160 Tempio Majore, in a long time They had been living 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:39.399 under Nazi occupation since September of that year. They had 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:44.160 been subject to Italy's own racial laws for five years prior. 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.280 Many Jews were living in the Jewish Ghetto. Perhaps a 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:53.760 few brave souls had lit Sabbath candles at sundown the 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:58.760 previous night, furtively hiding the small flicker of the flames 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.960 from any passers by. Perhaps the wax of those candles 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:09.920 still hung dried from the candlesticks. Suddenly there was a 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:15.240 loud banging on the door, the curled hard fists of 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:22.200 the Nazi occupiers. Some Jewish mothers hushed their babies, collected 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:28.040 themselves and opened their doors. Some cowered or hid and 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:33.440 saw their doors forced down. A number of Jewish men 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.400 had already gone into hiding, suspecting that they might be targeted, 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.799 so it was mostly women and children whom the Nazis 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:48.920 rounded up that October day. The Roman Jews were marched 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.960 through the streets, corralled by German speaking soldiers who didn't 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:59.080 know Italian. One thousand, two hundred and fifty nine Jewish 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.639 Italians wound up in a military compound, one that just 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.840 happened to be located very near to the seat of 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:13.680 the Catholic Church the Vatican City. Pope Pious the Twelfth 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.440 found out within hours he was the leading moral figure 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.520 of the Catholic world, and the Jewish people in his 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:27.960 Italy were being rounded up essentially outside his window. He 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:33.600 made a decision. He deputized his officials to help rescue 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:38.120 two hundred and fifty people slated for a near certain 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:43.520 brutal death at the concentration camp Auschwitz. He was a hero, 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:49.680 a moral champion, and a defender of Jews during the Holocaust? 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:59.360 Or was he? Certainly The heroic morality of Pope Pious 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.800 the Twelfth during the Holocaust is the story that the 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:07.080 Catholic Church and its defenders have told over the decades. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.400 It is the story that justifies calls for his canonization 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:18.040 as a saint, But it isn't the whole story, because 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.040 the subset of people that the Pope helped to save 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:27.520 that October were carefully selected. Those rescued were those who 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:32.520 were married to Christians or who had been baptized, who were, 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:37.400 in the Church's eyes, not Jewish at all, but Catholic. 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:43.280 One thousand and seven souls were not spared because they 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:49.080 had the temerity to remain Jewish. Those one thousand and 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.840 seven knew their home city well, they knew they were 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:58.599 being detained so near the Vatican, they must have hoped 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.360 that the Pope would in proceed to save them, they 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:08.680 too were people of Rome. Instead, they were deported to Auschwitz. 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:15.279 Of those one thousand and seven Jews, only sixteen survived. 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:21.359 Pope Pious the Twelfth never said a word condemning the roundup. 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.240 As six million Jewish people were murdered in Europe over 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.279 the course of the Holocaust, Pope Pious the Twelfth never 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:34.599 said a word explicitly defending them. He never said a 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:40.919 word explicitly condemning Hitler, or Nazism or anti Semitism. He 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:46.680 gave one vague Christmas address that didn't specify any particular 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:52.320 victims in its general call to the moral duties of mankind. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:58.240 He was the moral center of Catholicism, the man who 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:04.000 should have upheld precious God given life with the utmost clarity. 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:12.440 So why didn't he. It's a question that has haunted historians, Catholics, Jews, 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:17.440 and students of humanity for eighty years. It is a 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.440 charged question in a passionate debate, a debate whose answer 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:27.160 has changed over time, especially with the opening of previously 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:32.120 sealed Vatican documents in twenty twenty. Was the Pope during 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:36.640 the Holocaust a hero, if a quiet one, working tirelessly 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.159 behind the scenes to bring peace and protect human life. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:45.440 Did he do all he could to protect imprisoned Catholic priests, 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:50.160 to allow his wide network of Catholic clergy and laypeople 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.720 to help rescue their Jewish neighbors, to ensure the ultimate 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:59.200 survival of the Catholic Church? Or was Pope Pious the 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.760 twelfth passive observer who chose not to use his power, 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.599 his voice, or his moral authority to stop the advance 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.280 of Nazism, the imprisonment of Catholic popes, or the slaughter 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.840 of six million Jews sixty three percent of the Jewish 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:23.560 population of Europe. Is he rightly known to some by 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:29.800 the nickname he's been given Hitler's Pope. I'm Dana Schwartz, 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:42.000 and this is noble blood. The story of the relationship 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.600 between Jews and the papacy begins long before Hitler's occupying 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.800 forces came to Rome. Four hundred years prior to the 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:55.360 events of nineteen forty three. Pope Paul the Fourth decreed 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.360 that the Jews of Rome were to be locked inside 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:03.360 their ghetto every night. In fact, the word ghetto is Italian. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.160 It refers to the area in Venice in which Venetian 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:12.240 Jews life was restricted. Over the centuries, the Vatican and 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.600 Catholic clergy played a role in contributing to anti Semitic 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:23.400 sentiment by describing Jews as dangerous to Christianity and Christendom. 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:28.720 By nineteen thirty three, the Jewish population of Italy numbered 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:33.280 between forty and fifty thousand, and Pope Pious the Eleventh, 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:38.720 the guy before our Guy, was Pope. As Italy passed 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:43.400 its racial laws in nineteen thirty eight, stripping Italian Jews 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:48.240 of civil rights, Pope Pious the Eleventh clearly stated his 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:53.000 opposition to anti Semitic racism. He did so two visitors 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.640 in his Christmas address to the public, even to Italy's 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:02.400 fascist Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. When Hitler visited Rome in 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:07.120 nineteen thirty eight, Pious the Eleventh left the Vatican so 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:12.559 Hitler couldn't visit up until his dying day. His dying moment, 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.079 Pious the Eleventh was working to publish a document known 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:23.200 as the LeFarge Encyclical, which denounced anti Semitism in forthright terms. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.200 To the day of his death, he was writing a 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:34.200 speech he planned to deliver against fascism. In fiction, a 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:40.120 foil is a character whose circumstances are similar to our protagonists, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.920 but who behaves differently. The purpose of a literary foil 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.280 is to show that there are other options for how 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:53.280 our main character might act. History could not have given 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.040 us a better foil for Pope Pious the twelfth than 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:02.280 his predecessor, Pious the Eleventh, proved that a Pope of 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.400 Rome could have chosen to speak out clearly against Nazis. 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.040 There is a question would Pious the twelfth speaking out 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.360 have made things worse for both Jews and Catholics, two 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.199 groups who were prosecuted under the Nazi regime, although obviously 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:27.079 not with equal vigor. If Pious the eleventh had continued 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.400 speaking out, would he have created a rift with Mussolini 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.520 or with Hitler that would have led to even worse 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.000 mistreatment for the Jews and a target on the heads 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:43.280 of Catholics. That certainly what the next Pope's defenders would 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:55.880 have us believe. Pious the Eleventh died in February nineteen 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:01.640 thirty nine, before he could deliver his speech against Fascist. Incidentally, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:06.760 the Pope's doctor was the father of Mussolini's mistress, Clara, 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.680 who was so devoted to Mussolini that she would later 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.680 be executed at his side and hanged upside down from 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:19.439 a gas station beside his corpse. Though it probably wasn't 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.120 anything the doctor did, the Pope's death could not have 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:28.839 been more conveniently timed for Mussolini. The man who succeeded 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.960 the Pope was Eugenio Pachelli, who became Pope Pious the 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:37.360 Twelfth on March second, nineteen thirty nine, the day of 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.719 his sixty third birthday. He was a thin man with 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.959 round glasses, known to have a canary fluttering off and 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.360 at his fingertips, but the papal affinity for small winged 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:55.120 things did not mean a lightness of spirit. One of 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:59.439 his first decisions as Pope was to ensure the destruction 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:05.240 of the evidence of his predecessor's anti fascist speech. It 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.960 was a telling choice, foreshadowing his choices throughout the war 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:15.280 not to upset Mussolini or Hitler. With help from the 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:22.000 recently unsealed Vatican archives, historian David Kurtzer catalogs the deeds 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:29.199 that seem inexplicable for the Holy See or inexcusable. The 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:34.280 Pope congratulated Hitler on surviving an assassination attempt. He used 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.560 funds from the American United Jewish Appeal to only help 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.840 Jews that had taken baptism as Catholics. He said nothing 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.080 against the Italian racial laws. He even failed to speak 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.839 out on behalf of Catholics. He didn't condemn Nazi action 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.960 in Poland, where more than half of the priests in 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:59.920 the West wound up in concentration camps. Many parties, Catholic 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.400 and Jewish alike, asked the Pope to speak out. They 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.360 believed his words would be a powerful blow against anti 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:13.560 Jewish Nazism, and the Pope knew what Nazism looked like 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:18.440 in practice. It's sickening to recall what he didn't condemn. 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:25.320 In November nineteen forty one, Italian Catholic Father Scavizi met 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:29.360 with the Pope and described what he had seen in Ukraine, 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:34.880 including quote the massacre of hundreds of Jews forced first 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.880 to dig a ditch, then machine gunned and throne inside. 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.760 In December nineteen forty two, the British envoy gave the 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:49.160 Pope a report that said, quote, we are witnessing the 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:54.560 deliberate massacre of a nation. The envoy described quote the 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:59.760 unspeakable cruelty involved in Hitler's war of Annihilation against the 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.920 jew Jews of Europe. Entire communities in Poland were massacred 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:09.600 to a man to make the arrangements for wholesale extermination 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:16.200 end quote. In September nineteen forty two, the American envoy 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:21.440 told the Pope that quote all Jews, irrespective of age 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.920 or sex, are being removed from the Warsaw ghetto in 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:30.960 groups and shot. Their corpses are utilized for making fats, 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:35.400 and their bones for the manufacture of fertilizer end quote. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:42.280 This was no small sin. By the early nineteen forties, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:47.840 the Pope was well informed nations around the world had 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:52.440 begun denouncing the persecution of the Jewish people, and still 0:14:52.840 --> 0:15:04.360 the Pope did not explicitly speak out. Finally, it was 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:09.600 Christmas nineteen forty two, cold wind blue through the Italian 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.720 air outside. The war in Europe was raging on the 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.240 camp's puffed smoke of burning bodies into the air and 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.200 Pope Pius the twelfth had the ear of the world. 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.440 He was to give a wartime radio address. He had 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.800 the chance, he knew, to accept the mantle that he 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.240 was being asked to take on by so many, to 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.480 take a stand, to speak on behalf of God in 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.400 favor of the souls of Catholics and non Catholics alike. 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:48.200 He also risked provoking the anger of the fascists. If 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:54.240 he chose two explicit attack, it could mean retaliation, an 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:59.080 even greater bloodbath against the most vulnerable, a target on 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.320 the backs of Catholics in Germany and elsewhere, and even 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:08.680 more brutality against the Jewish people. And so the Pope 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.960 chose his words carefully. He included one line that might 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:17.800 have alluded to the extermination of the Jews. At the time, 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.720 his words were analyzed by governments and editors and intelligence 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:27.680 officers on all sides, heard by the hopeful and the 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:33.000 hateful alike. In the six decades since, his words have 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:38.520 been analyzed by historians, the faithful and the lapsed. Listener, 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:43.560 See what you think here? Did the Pope say enough? 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.240 Pious was speaking of the vow to restore civil society. 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:58.200 What he said translated into English was quote Mankind owes 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.400 that vow to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.840 without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:11.639 their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:18.399 to a slow decline. A second translation, option humanity owes 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:23.240 this vow the vow to restore civil society to hundreds 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.960 of thousands of people who, through no fault of their own, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:32.480 sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:40.040 marked down for death or gradual extinction. I'll be honest, 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:45.800 given the extremity and specific threat of the situation, that 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:52.000 line sounds vague to me. Which persons, which nationality and race? 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.200 Did he mean? So many people were dying as World 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.159 War two raged, It seems a bit of a stretch 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.679 to assume that at these generic terms specifically referred to 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:08.399 Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But I'm not living in 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.520 the context of the veiled language of war. And though 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.800 that's the only line from the twenty six page speech 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:22.640 that might make reference to the Nazis' final solution, exerpting 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:27.440 the line all by itself actually strips away its rhetorical character. 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:32.760 In the speech, the Pope used repetition in a linguistically 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:37.720 moving way to lead up to that statement. This speech 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.600 has the rhetorical tenor of a sermon. It used poetic words, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:50.040 unusual usages, lyrical turns of phrase. It's stirring, it's uplifting. 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:57.120 Was it enough well? The Nazi Reich Central Security Office 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.439 viewed the line as a clear rebuke. They determined that 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.000 the Pope had clearly spoken for the Jews, who were, 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:10.040 obviously the quote, persons consigned to death as a result 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:14.520 of their race. The New York Times essentially agreed, though 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.120 with a more positive spin than the Nazis, referring to 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:22.639 the speech as quote a lonely voice crying out of 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.560 the silence of a continent. The Pope himself seemed to 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:32.720 believe that he had plainly condemned the Germans, but Mussolini 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:38.200 thought the speech was pure platitude. The Polish ambassador thought 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:43.800 its abstraction went right over the average Catholic's head. Whatever 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:49.200 our interpretation, what certain is that Pious did not name 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.679 the Nazis as the oppressors, nor the Jews as the oppressed. 0:19:54.560 --> 0:20:00.359 He never would this speech. These generalities were the most 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.640 that the Holy See of Catholicism offered to the listening 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:09.680 world that Christmas as Catholics marked the birth of the Savior, 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:21.600 and the gas chambers churned on. Ten months later, the 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.439 roundup of one thousand, two hundred and fifty nine of 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:31.920 Rome's Jews commenced on the cold, damp morning of October sixteenth, 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:37.200 nineteen forty three. Upon hearing the news that day, I 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.320 imagine the Pope's heart must have sank. By this time, 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:46.879 Mussolini had been deposed, a new Italian government had surrendered 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.840 to the Allies and was occupied by Germany, and Mussolini 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.919 had a competing government in the north. The Pope felt 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.320 a real and imminent threat from all sides. His solemn 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.400 duty was to protect the Catholic Church, so he did 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.399 what he felt he could. As Jews and Catholics alike 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.639 begged him to save the detained, the Vatican instructed the 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.800 German ambassador to find and free only the two hundred 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.120 and fifty among the captured who had been baptized Catholic 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.400 or were married to Christians. Of course, the selection did 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:29.960 not correctly identify everyone. A few baptized Catholics were caught 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:35.720 in the crosshairs, gassed and then burned at Auschwitz. Even then, 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.879 the most that came from the Vatican was a brief 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.240 and once more completely non specific statement in the Vatican 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:48.280 newspaper that the Pope cared for all people, regardless of 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:54.639 religion and race. But what's most damning to me is 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:58.520 not the lack of public condemnation from the Pope. It 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.880 is the private convers stations he had with the British 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:08.240 and American ambassadors That very day, October sixteenth and seventeenth. 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:13.320 He met with the ambassadors, knowing that one thousand people 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:18.400 sat near by waiting their deaths for the crime of 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.600 nothing more than being Jewish. He knew that he would 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:27.359 not intervene to halt their deportation to the gas chambers. 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:32.680 And the Pope turned to the ambassadors and said that 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.600 when it came to the Germans in his city, he 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:47.640 quote had no grounds for a complaint. World War Two 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.320 ended in nineteen forty five. Nine point five million Jews 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.880 had lived in Europe before the war, three point five 0:22:55.960 --> 0:23:02.280 million survived. Pope Pious served for another thirteen years. After 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.919 the war. He spoke vocally about his concerns about the 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:11.320 spread of Soviet Communism. He died on October ninth, nineteen 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:14.840 fifty eight, at the age of eighty two. In the 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:20.119 years since his death, historians have furiously debated whether or 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:25.679 not he performed virtuously during the Holocaust. His defenders point 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:30.000 out that although he did not direct Catholic priests or 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.320 lay people to save their Jewish neighbors, he allowed them 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:38.680 to do so, and plenty did. He permitted the use 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:44.720 of church properties for this purpose. Before the German occupation, 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:50.920 Italian Jews were largely not deported. His steadfast view that 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:55.600 baptized Jews were indeed Catholics was a rebuke to the 0:23:55.720 --> 0:24:01.080 Nazi racial laws that viewed Jewishness as fundament mentally racial 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:06.560 and ethnic. When he died, Goldmyer, future Prime Minister of Israel, 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:11.840 said that he was a quote voice raised for the victims, 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:17.240 speaking out on the great moral truths end quote. But 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:23.560 he's also been referred to as Hitler's Pope. Nothing is simple. 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:28.320 I can imagine Pious as a man of God genuinely 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:34.280 anguished by reports of unfathomable suffering, genuinely sickened about what 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:38.479 to do. I can imagine a pope willing to speak 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:42.840 softly in the face of immense moral wrong in order 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.840 to ensure the survival of something greater than himself, the 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:52.480 Catholic Church. Perhaps he was a pope who genuinely believed 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:57.040 that speaking out would only antagonize Hitler and caused the 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:02.960 Jewish people even more suffering. We can see that pope clearly. 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:06.679 We can even maybe imagine the gleam of pain in 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:12.119 his eyes when he privately told Father SKEAVIZI that he 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:18.919 thought of quote, hurling excommunications at Nazism, of denouncing the 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:23.840 beastiality of the extermination of the Jews to the civilized world. 0:25:24.440 --> 0:25:28.240 After many tears and prayers, I came to the conclusion 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:32.920 that a protest from me would arouse the most ferocious 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:38.040 anger against the Jews and multiply acts of cruelty because 0:25:38.200 --> 0:25:43.359 they are undefended. Perhaps my solemn protest would win me 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:47.399 some praise from the civilized world, but would bring down 0:25:47.480 --> 0:25:53.160 on the poor Jews an even more implacable persecution and quote, 0:25:56.640 --> 0:26:01.760 I can absolutely have empathy for and genuinely trying to 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:07.600 reduce suffering in a world gone mad, trying not to 0:26:07.640 --> 0:26:12.159 speak what is popular, nor what is even right, but 0:26:12.400 --> 0:26:16.520 rather what would provoke the fewest and save the most, 0:26:17.760 --> 0:26:21.960 and in some ways I can understand. Anyone who's ever 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:25.399 tiptoed around the edges of the room so as not 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:30.720 to provoke a bully can understand perhaps you've even tiptoed 0:26:30.880 --> 0:26:36.800 toward the victim when you want to help. But maybe Hitler, Mussolini, 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:41.919 and the anti Jewish fascists were more like a black bear. 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:46.119 And when a black bear attacks, what you do is 0:26:46.200 --> 0:26:51.600 get bigger than them, you show strength. We cannot know 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:54.880 what would have happened if the Pope had spoken out. 0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:59.959 Maybe he really would have provoked Hitler to even harsher atrocity. 0:27:01.040 --> 0:27:07.480 But surely many henchmen of Nazism viewed themselves as obedient Catholics. 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:11.120 After all, they weren't doing anything that the Pope had 0:27:11.560 --> 0:27:16.160 unequivocally denounced. It's possible they would have thought twice if 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:21.440 their actions were an obvious opposition to papal doctrine, if 0:27:21.480 --> 0:27:25.960 the Pope had told his Catholics explicitly that it was 0:27:26.040 --> 0:27:32.240 against their religion against God to perform Hitler's work, that 0:27:32.480 --> 0:27:36.520 a murderer of Jews could not be a good Catholic. 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:42.120 In the end, I agree with historian Kevin Madigan, who 0:27:42.200 --> 0:27:48.480 says that Pious was quote a quintessential politician or perhaps 0:27:48.680 --> 0:27:53.280 diplomat at a time when the world and especially the 0:27:53.440 --> 0:27:59.520 Jews of Europe needed a prophet end quote. In nineteen 0:27:59.640 --> 0:28:03.520 ninety eight, the Church under Pope John Paul the Second 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:09.120 published We Remember a reflection on the Show, which did 0:28:09.160 --> 0:28:15.240 not address Pious the Twelfth Silence. In twenty nineteen, Pope 0:28:15.280 --> 0:28:20.280 Francis famously said that the Church is not afraid of history. 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:25.840 He opened Pious the Twelfth archive the following year. The 0:28:25.920 --> 0:28:30.040 work of historians in combing through the trove is ongoing, 0:28:30.840 --> 0:28:35.320 and the question of Pious the Twelfth elevation to sainthood 0:28:36.040 --> 0:28:50.840 still remains. That's the story of Pope Pious the Twelfth 0:28:51.080 --> 0:28:55.200 during the Holocaust. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, 0:28:55.480 --> 0:29:07.920 to hear from wiser perspectives than my own. When it 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:11.640 comes to Silence and the Holocaust, there is no one 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:15.680 who spoke with more lucidity than Ellie Vizelle. He was 0:29:15.720 --> 0:29:19.920 the author of the book Night, perhaps the world's most 0:29:20.120 --> 0:29:23.880 famous book about the Holocaust after the Diary of Anne 0:29:23.880 --> 0:29:29.640 Frank and certainly the most famous account of the camps themselves. 0:29:30.400 --> 0:29:33.960 In his Noble Peace Prize speech in nineteen eighty six, 0:29:34.560 --> 0:29:39.920 he had some thoughts on silence quote the world did 0:29:40.040 --> 0:29:46.080 know and remained silent. Silence encourages the tormentor never the 0:29:46.200 --> 0:29:51.840 tormented end quote. High as the twelfth surely would not 0:29:52.040 --> 0:29:56.640 have thought of himself as encouraging the tormentor. It was 0:29:56.760 --> 0:30:01.160 clearly not his goal. He thought of himself as a 0:30:01.320 --> 0:30:05.840 man of God. But there is a Jewish prayer which 0:30:05.880 --> 0:30:11.320 begins with the lines Eternal God, open my lips. The 0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:26.280 Pope never opened his lips to speak plainly enough. Noble 0:30:26.320 --> 0:30:30.719 Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild 0:30:30.880 --> 0:30:34.960 from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is created and hosted by 0:30:35.080 --> 0:30:40.400 me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, 0:30:40.760 --> 0:30:45.560 hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Laurie Goodman. The 0:30:45.640 --> 0:30:49.920 show is edited and produced by Naimi Griffin and rema 0:30:50.000 --> 0:30:55.880 Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Faine and executive producers 0:30:55.960 --> 0:31:00.760 Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts 0:31:00.800 --> 0:31:06.440 from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:31:06.440 --> 0:31:07.959 you listen to your favorite shows.