Book review: Pius XII and the Second World War, According to the Archives of the Vatican

October 13, 2005

EDITOR'S NOTE: This book review is sponsored by the Religious Education Media Center as a service to those interested in developing their own spirituality. Books featured in this column can be borrowed from the diocesan media center.

You may request this or other books by writing Deacon Larry Sitzman, Religious Education Media Center, 1821 Jackson St., Sioux City, IA 51102, e-mail him at larrys@scdiocese.org or phone (712) 255-7933.

Msgr. Richard Zenk, pastor at St. Patrick Church in Akron, has provided the book review for this month. He offers a summary of the book: Pius XII and the Second World War, According to the Archives of the Vatican, by Pierre Plet, S.J. (Paulist Press, Inc. 1999).

Immediately following the end of the Second World War, Pope Pius XII was often thanked by many Jews for his efforts to help them during the Jewish persecution and attempted extermination by the German Nazi regime. However in 1963, with the play titled "The Deputy" written by Rolf Hochuch, and first shown on a Berlin stage, the pope was condemned for his failure to act publicly and vigorously against the murder of the Jews under Hitler.

After the Cardinal Archbishop Montini of Milan, who had worked with Pius XII in the Vatican during the war years, was elected as the successor of Pope John XXIII, he opened the Vatican archives to qualified scholars to do direct research on the years of 1936-1945. Three Jesuit church historians were entrusted with this momentous task. They were Pierre Blet, Angelo Martini and Burkhart Schneider. In 1967, the American Jesuit, Robert A. Graham, joined them in this effort. The result of their work was published in 12 volumes completed between 1965 and 1981.

Obviously many persons were unable to read them when they were finished. As a summary of the volumes was requested, Father Blet, the only member of the four Jesuits still living, wrote a book summarizing their contents in 1997. His book was translated into English in the late 1990s. And this book is the English translation of his summary.

With dedication to the truth, Father Blet quotes many of the dispatches sent from the Vatican to the nuncios and bishops in different countries, encouraging them to do what could be done for Non-Aryans as they were called. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes not. The book gives the reader a good insight of the dilemmas that the pope faced during those years. It is obvious that through the efforts of the pope and his helpers in the Vatican many requests for the protection and the lives of the Jews in many countries of the world were made.

Perhaps the pope summarized the book, in an address that he should have given to nurses in May of 1952, when he asked himself, "What should we have done that we have not done?" It is a good question.