Pope Pius the Silent

Equel Immortality, a love story. And if you like history or the characters that I've covered in this podcast, not characters, historical figures, then I think you would really like those books. Check them out. And that's about it. Thank you so much for listening. Oh one more quick note before we begin. This episode centers around the Holocaust, and so it contains some very dark and disturbing themes in details. October sixteenth, nineteen forty three, was a cold, damp morning in Rome.

It was a Saturday, the Sabbath, the holiest day of the Jewish week, but the twelve thousand Jewish families in the city hadn't gone to Rome's a great synagogue, the Tempio Majore, in a long time They had been living under Nazi occupation since September of that year. They had been subject to Italy's own racial laws for five years prior.

Many Jews were living in the Jewish Ghetto. Perhaps a few brave souls had lit Sabbath candles at sundown the previous night, furtively hiding the small flicker of the flames from any passers by. Perhaps the wax of those candles still hung dried from the candlesticks. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door, the curled hard fists of the Nazi occupiers. Some Jewish mothers hushed their babies, collected themselves and opened their doors. Some cowered or hid and

saw their doors forced down. A number of Jewish men had already gone into hiding, suspecting that they might be targeted, so it was mostly women and children whom the Nazis rounded up that October day. The Roman Jews were marched through the streets, corralled by German speaking soldiers who didn't know Italian. One thousand, two hundred and fifty nine Jewish Italians wound up in a military compound, one that just happened to be located very near to the seat of

the Catholic Church the Vatican City. Pope Pious the Twelfth found out within hours he was the leading moral figure of the Catholic world, and the Jewish people in his Italy were being rounded up essentially outside his window. He made a decision. He deputized his officials to help rescue two hundred and fifty people slated for a near certain brutal death at the concentration camp Auschwitz. He was a hero, a moral champion, and a defender of Jews during the Holocaust?

Or was he? Certainly The heroic morality of Pope Pious the Twelfth during the Holocaust is the story that the Catholic Church and its defenders have told over the decades. It is the story that justifies calls for his canonization as a saint, But it isn't the whole story, because the subset of people that the Pope helped to save

that October were carefully selected. Those rescued were those who were married to Christians or who had been baptized, who were, in the Church's eyes, not Jewish at all, but Catholic. One thousand and seven souls were not spared because they had the temerity to remain Jewish. Those one thousand and seven knew their home city well, they knew they were being detained so near the Vatican, they must have hoped that the Pope would in proceed to save them, they

too were people of Rome. Instead, they were deported to Auschwitz. Of those one thousand and seven Jews, only sixteen survived. Pope Pious the Twelfth never said a word condemning the roundup. As six million Jewish people were murdered in Europe over the course of the Holocaust, Pope Pious the Twelfth never said a word explicitly defending them. He never said a

word explicitly condemning Hitler, or Nazism or anti Semitism. He gave one vague Christmas address that didn't specify any particular victims in its general call to the moral duties of mankind. He was the moral center of Catholicism, the man who should have upheld precious God given life with the utmost clarity. So why didn't he. It's a question that has haunted historians, Catholics, Jews,

and students of humanity for eighty years. It is a charged question in a passionate debate, a debate whose answer has changed over time, especially with the opening of previously sealed Vatican documents in twenty twenty. Was the Pope during the Holocaust a hero, if a quiet one, working tirelessly behind the scenes to bring peace and protect human life.

Did he do all he could to protect imprisoned Catholic priests, to allow his wide network of Catholic clergy and laypeople to help rescue their Jewish neighbors, to ensure the ultimate survival of the Catholic Church? Or was Pope Pious the twelfth passive observer who chose not to use his power, his voice, or his moral authority to stop the advance of Nazism, the imprisonment of Catholic popes, or the slaughter of six million Jews sixty three percent of the Jewish

population of Europe. Is he rightly known to some by the nickname he's been given Hitler's Pope. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The story of the relationship between Jews and the papacy begins long before Hitler's occupying forces came to Rome. Four hundred years prior to the events of nineteen forty three. Pope Paul the Fourth decreed that the Jews of Rome were to be locked inside their ghetto every night. In fact, the word ghetto is Italian.

It refers to the area in Venice in which Venetian Jews life was restricted. Over the centuries, the Vatican and Catholic clergy played a role in contributing to anti Semitic sentiment by describing Jews as dangerous to Christianity and Christendom. By nineteen thirty three, the Jewish population of Italy numbered between forty and fifty thousand, and Pope Pious the Eleventh,

the guy before our Guy, was Pope. As Italy passed its racial laws in nineteen thirty eight, stripping Italian Jews of civil rights, Pope Pious the Eleventh clearly stated his opposition to anti Semitic racism. He did so two visitors in his Christmas address to the public, even to Italy's fascist Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. When Hitler visited Rome in nineteen thirty eight, Pious the Eleventh left the Vatican so

Hitler couldn't visit up until his dying day. His dying moment, Pious the Eleventh was working to publish a document known as the LeFarge Encyclical, which denounced anti Semitism in forthright terms. To the day of his death, he was writing a speech he planned to deliver against fascism. In fiction, a foil is a character whose circumstances are similar to our protagonists, but who behaves differently. The purpose of a literary foil is to show that there are other options for how

our main character might act. History could not have given us a better foil for Pope Pious the twelfth than his predecessor, Pious the Eleventh, proved that a Pope of Rome could have chosen to speak out clearly against Nazis. There is a question would Pious the twelfth speaking out have made things worse for both Jews and Catholics, two groups who were prosecuted under the Nazi regime, although obviously

not with equal vigor. If Pious the eleventh had continued speaking out, would he have created a rift with Mussolini or with Hitler that would have led to even worse mistreatment for the Jews and a target on the heads of Catholics. That certainly what the next Pope's defenders would have us believe. Pious the Eleventh died in February nineteen

thirty nine, before he could deliver his speech against Fascist. Incidentally, the Pope's doctor was the father of Mussolini's mistress, Clara, who was so devoted to Mussolini that she would later be executed at his side and hanged upside down from a gas station beside his corpse. Though it probably wasn't anything the doctor did, the Pope's death could not have

been more conveniently timed for Mussolini. The man who succeeded the Pope was Eugenio Pachelli, who became Pope Pious the Twelfth on March second, nineteen thirty nine, the day of his sixty third birthday. He was a thin man with round glasses, known to have a canary fluttering off and at his fingertips, but the papal affinity for small winged things did not mean a lightness of spirit. One of his first decisions as Pope was to ensure the destruction

of the evidence of his predecessor's anti fascist speech. It was a telling choice, foreshadowing his choices throughout the war not to upset Mussolini or Hitler. With help from the recently unsealed Vatican archives, historian David Kurtzer catalogs the deeds that seem inexplicable for the Holy See or inexcusable. The Pope congratulated Hitler on surviving an assassination attempt. He used funds from the American United Jewish Appeal to only help

Jews that had taken baptism as Catholics. He said nothing against the Italian racial laws. He even failed to speak out on behalf of Catholics. He didn't condemn Nazi action in Poland, where more than half of the priests in the West wound up in concentration camps. Many parties, Catholic and Jewish alike, asked the Pope to speak out. They believed his words would be a powerful blow against anti Jewish Nazism, and the Pope knew what Nazism looked like

in practice. It's sickening to recall what he didn't condemn. In November nineteen forty one, Italian Catholic Father Scavizi met with the Pope and described what he had seen in Ukraine, including quote the massacre of hundreds of Jews forced first to dig a ditch, then machine gunned and throne inside. In December nineteen forty two, the British envoy gave the Pope a report that said, quote, we are witnessing the

deliberate massacre of a nation. The envoy described quote the unspeakable cruelty involved in Hitler's war of Annihilation against the jew Jews of Europe. Entire communities in Poland were massacred to a man to make the arrangements for wholesale extermination end quote. In September nineteen forty two, the American envoy told the Pope that quote all Jews, irrespective of age or sex, are being removed from the Warsaw ghetto in

groups and shot. Their corpses are utilized for making fats, and their bones for the manufacture of fertilizer end quote. This was no small sin. By the early nineteen forties, the Pope was well informed nations around the world had begun denouncing the persecution of the Jewish people, and still the Pope did not explicitly speak out. Finally, it was Christmas nineteen forty two, cold wind blue through the Italian

air outside. The war in Europe was raging on the camp's puffed smoke of burning bodies into the air and Pope Pius the twelfth had the ear of the world. He was to give a wartime radio address. He had the chance, he knew, to accept the mantle that he was being asked to take on by so many, to take a stand, to speak on behalf of God in favor of the souls of Catholics and non Catholics alike.

He also risked provoking the anger of the fascists. If he chose two explicit attack, it could mean retaliation, an even greater bloodbath against the most vulnerable, a target on the backs of Catholics in Germany and elsewhere, and even more brutality against the Jewish people. And so the Pope chose his words carefully. He included one line that might

have alluded to the extermination of the Jews. At the time, his words were analyzed by governments and editors and intelligence officers on all sides, heard by the hopeful and the hateful alike. In the six decades since, his words have been analyzed by historians, the faithful and the lapsed. Listener, See what you think here? Did the Pope say enough? Pious was speaking of the vow to restore civil society.

What he said translated into English was quote Mankind owes that vow to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline. A second translation, option humanity owes this vow the vow to restore civil society to hundreds of thousands of people who, through no fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are

marked down for death or gradual extinction. I'll be honest, given the extremity and specific threat of the situation, that line sounds vague to me. Which persons, which nationality and race? Did he mean? So many people were dying as World War two raged, It seems a bit of a stretch to assume that at these generic terms specifically referred to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But I'm not living in

the context of the veiled language of war. And though that's the only line from the twenty six page speech that might make reference to the Nazis' final solution, exerpting the line all by itself actually strips away its rhetorical character. In the speech, the Pope used repetition in a linguistically moving way to lead up to that statement. This speech has the rhetorical tenor of a sermon. It used poetic words, unusual usages, lyrical turns of phrase. It's stirring, it's uplifting.

Was it enough well? The Nazi Reich Central Security Office viewed the line as a clear rebuke. They determined that the Pope had clearly spoken for the Jews, who were, obviously the quote, persons consigned to death as a result of their race. The New York Times essentially agreed, though with a more positive spin than the Nazis, referring to the speech as quote a lonely voice crying out of

the silence of a continent. The Pope himself seemed to believe that he had plainly condemned the Germans, but Mussolini thought the speech was pure platitude. The Polish ambassador thought its abstraction went right over the average Catholic's head. Whatever our interpretation, what certain is that Pious did not name the Nazis as the oppressors, nor the Jews as the oppressed.

He never would this speech. These generalities were the most that the Holy See of Catholicism offered to the listening world that Christmas as Catholics marked the birth of the Savior, and the gas chambers churned on. Ten months later, the roundup of one thousand, two hundred and fifty nine of Rome's Jews commenced on the cold, damp morning of October sixteenth, nineteen forty three. Upon hearing the news that day, I

imagine the Pope's heart must have sank. By this time, Mussolini had been deposed, a new Italian government had surrendered to the Allies and was occupied by Germany, and Mussolini had a competing government in the north. The Pope felt a real and imminent threat from all sides. His solemn duty was to protect the Catholic Church, so he did

what he felt he could. As Jews and Catholics alike begged him to save the detained, the Vatican instructed the German ambassador to find and free only the two hundred and fifty among the captured who had been baptized Catholic or were married to Christians. Of course, the selection did not correctly identify everyone. A few baptized Catholics were caught

in the crosshairs, gassed and then burned at Auschwitz. Even then, the most that came from the Vatican was a brief and once more completely non specific statement in the Vatican newspaper that the Pope cared for all people, regardless of religion and race. But what's most damning to me is not the lack of public condemnation from the Pope. It is the private convers stations he had with the British and American ambassadors That very day, October sixteenth and seventeenth.

He met with the ambassadors, knowing that one thousand people sat near by waiting their deaths for the crime of nothing more than being Jewish. He knew that he would not intervene to halt their deportation to the gas chambers. And the Pope turned to the ambassadors and said that when it came to the Germans in his city, he quote had no grounds for a complaint. World War Two ended in nineteen forty five. Nine point five million Jews had lived in Europe before the war, three point five

million survived. Pope Pious served for another thirteen years. After the war. He spoke vocally about his concerns about the spread of Soviet Communism. He died on October ninth, nineteen fifty eight, at the age of eighty two. In the years since his death, historians have furiously debated whether or not he performed virtuously during the Holocaust. His defenders point out that although he did not direct Catholic priests or lay people to save their Jewish neighbors, he allowed them

to do so, and plenty did. He permitted the use of church properties for this purpose. Before the German occupation, Italian Jews were largely not deported. His steadfast view that baptized Jews were indeed Catholics was a rebuke to the Nazi racial laws that viewed Jewishness as fundament mentally racial and ethnic. When he died, Goldmyer, future Prime Minister of Israel, said that he was a quote voice raised for the victims, speaking out on the great moral truths end quote. But

he's also been referred to as Hitler's Pope. Nothing is simple. I can imagine Pious as a man of God genuinely anguished by reports of unfathomable suffering, genuinely sickened about what to do. I can imagine a pope willing to speak softly in the face of immense moral wrong in order to ensure the survival of something greater than himself, the Catholic Church. Perhaps he was a pope who genuinely believed that speaking out would only antagonize Hitler and caused the

Jewish people even more suffering. We can see that pope clearly. We can even maybe imagine the gleam of pain in his eyes when he privately told Father SKEAVIZI that he thought of quote, hurling excommunications at Nazism, of denouncing the beastiality of the extermination of the Jews to the civilized world. After many tears and prayers, I came to the conclusion that a protest from me would arouse the most ferocious anger against the Jews and multiply acts of cruelty because

they are undefended. Perhaps my solemn protest would win me some praise from the civilized world, but would bring down on the poor Jews an even more implacable persecution and quote, I can absolutely have empathy for and genuinely trying to reduce suffering in a world gone mad, trying not to speak what is popular, nor what is even right, but rather what would provoke the fewest and save the most,

and in some ways I can understand. Anyone who's ever tiptoed around the edges of the room so as not to provoke a bully can understand perhaps you've even tiptoed toward the victim when you want to help. But maybe Hitler, Mussolini, and the anti Jewish fascists were more like a black bear. And when a black bear attacks, what you do is get bigger than them, you show strength. We cannot know what would have happened if the Pope had spoken out.

Maybe he really would have provoked Hitler to even harsher atrocity. But surely many henchmen of Nazism viewed themselves as obedient Catholics. After all, they weren't doing anything that the Pope had

unequivocally denounced. It's possible they would have thought twice if their actions were an obvious opposition to papal doctrine, if the Pope had told his Catholics explicitly that it was against their religion against God to perform Hitler's work, that a murderer of Jews could not be a good Catholic. In the end, I agree with historian Kevin Madigan, who says that Pious was quote a quintessential politician or perhaps diplomat at a time when the world and especially the

Jews of Europe needed a prophet end quote. In nineteen ninety eight, the Church under Pope John Paul the Second published We Remember a reflection on the Show, which did not address Pious the Twelfth Silence. In twenty nineteen, Pope Francis famously said that the Church is not afraid of history. He opened Pious the Twelfth archive the following year. The work of historians in combing through the trove is ongoing, and the question of Pious the Twelfth elevation to sainthood

still remains. That's the story of Pope Pious the Twelfth during the Holocaust. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear from wiser perspectives than my own. When it comes to Silence and the Holocaust, there is no one who spoke with more lucidity than Ellie Vizelle. He was the author of the book Night, perhaps the world's most famous book about the Holocaust after the Diary of Anne Frank and certainly the most famous account of the camps themselves.

In his Noble Peace Prize speech in nineteen eighty six, he had some thoughts on silence quote the world did know and remained silent. Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented end quote. High as the twelfth surely would not have thought of himself as encouraging the tormentor. It was clearly not his goal. He thought of himself as a man of God. But there is a Jewish prayer which begins with the lines Eternal God, open my lips. The

Pope never opened his lips to speak plainly enough. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Laurie Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Naimi Griffin and rema Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Faine and executive producers

Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.