Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy

by Susan Zuccotti

Book Overview

Pope Pius XII has often been criticized for his silence during the extermination of European Jewry during World War II. In his defense, some have alleged that the pope was doing a great deal to help... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300084870
• ISBN13: 9780300084870
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Read this book first: best review of the subject so far!

Having read several recent books on this subject, I find that an author's bias is reflected in his/her writing more on this issue than perhaps on any other. This is particularly striking in the recent Rychlak book ("Hitler, the War, and the Pope") which is unabashed propaganda, veiled thinly or not at all. Even the more objective Cornwell book ("Hitler's Pope"), although it supports the opposite side of the debate, has occasional undertones of prejudice.In contrast to these and some other authors, Zuccotti presents her arguments by giving fair consideration to both sides of the issue. Her fine scholarship is evident throughout this entire study, which is meticulously annotated and documented, but her writing is directed to general readers of history, rather than to her professional peers. The book makes for very enjoyable reading on this painfully tragic subject.Anyone who is interested in reading about Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and his efforts--or lack thereof--to reduce or even address the persecution of European Jews before and during World War II should begin with this book.

A meticulously-researched and balanced account

Pope Pius XII has often been criticized for his silence during the extermination of European Jewry during World War II. In his defense, some have alleged that the pope was doing a great deal to help the Jews but that his efforts were necessarily behind the scenes. This meticulously researched and balanced book examines exactly what the pope, his advisers, and his assistants at the Vatican Secretariat of State did to help the Jews of Italy. It finds that they did very little.The book begins by discussing prewar Vatican and Jesuit publications, in which Zuccotti uncovers a hitherto little-known prevalence of anti-Jewish sentiment. These publications, along with archival documents, indicate that Vatican protests against Italian anti-Jewish laws were limited to measures affecting converts and Jews in mixed marriages with Catholics, as was help with emigration; the papal nuncio's visits to foreign Jews in Italian internment camps did not differ from those to non-Jews and in no way eased their material discomfort; and interventions by diplomats of the Holy See for Jews threatened with deportation were rare, always polite, and seldom decisive. Above all, Zuccotti finds no evidence of a papal directive to church institutions to shelter Jews and much evidence to suggest that the pope remained uninvolved. The notion that Pius XII was outstandingly benevolent and helpful to Jews behind the scenes proves to be a myth.

The best scholarly account so far

For years there has been controversy over the role of Pius XII and his conduct during the Holocaust. A couple of years ago John Cornwall came out with a book called Hitler's Pope. This book is clearly superior to this one in many ways. Zuccotti is an expert in both Italian history and the Holocaust and she has fully researched both the available dioscean archives and the twelve volume series of Vatican documents in the second world war. She is noticeably fair, giving the pope credit where credit is due, and is careful about the risks a firmer anti-Nazi policy would have achieved. What is her conclusion? "As some 6,746 Jews from Italy were being shipped north to share the fate of the others, the pope's own countrymen similarly looked to him for guidance. They found little or nothing."Pius XII has many defenders, but Zuccotti is good in showing where they are wrong. She points out that there was a certain degree of hostility or coolness in pre-war Catholic newspapers. These were not parochial or insignificant papers: they were leading papers of either the Vatican or the Jesuits. She points out that while Pius XI did say "Spiritually, we are all Semites" in 1938, the L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican paper, did not. There was some support in the Vatican, if not for the racist 1938 Italian laws, for measures that reduced the Jews to second- class citizenship. She also points out that for several years the Vatican concentrated what attention it did give to Jewish converts to Catholicism. Zuccotti is good at dismantling other myths. In defense of his shameful silence about the deportation of Roman Jews, defenders said he donated money when the Nazis imposed a forced loan on the Jewish Community. In point of fact he merely offered to loan them money, and only after he had been asked by the Jewish community when they incorrectly thought they might not be able to raise the money themselves. Papal defenders like Father Robert Leiber, Joseph Lichten and Pinchas Lapide claim that the Vatican helped arrange 3,000 visas to Jews and converts, when in fact less than a thousand went to converts, with most of the Vatican money was actually a contribution from Jewish agencies. Pius XII has benefited from the belief that what good things the Church did do must have been an expression of his will. It is a key value of this book that Zuccotti shows that was not the case. Italian foreign ministry officials actually took the initiative in making sure Jews were not deported from occupied Croatia, while the rather mild-mannered protests and interventions at most bucked up their confidence. Pius XII's own criticisms of the Nazis and Nazi racism were vague. "Jews" were never mentioned, "descent" (as opposed to race) was only mentioned a handful of times. Those who were already sympathetic to Jews could read support for their own activities, those who were not could ignore the Jews with a clear conscience. Much of the Catholic initiative came fro

A well researched and clearly articulated point of view

This book is extremely useful as a contribution to the ongoing debate as to the moral imperatives, which existed upon Pope Pius XII to speak out against what remains the most catastrophic occurrence in human memory namely the holocaust. The book primarily focuses on the Italian situation and the relationship between the Vatican and the Italian State during the 1930's as well as the war. Again and again the author points out her view of the Vatican's distinction between racial and religious policies introduced against the Jewish people in Italy. The Fascist government introduced racial laws, which striped the Jewish people of their civil and human rights while the church, in the author's view at least acquiesced these provisions on the basis that they believed that the Jewish People were traditional opponents of Christianity.Throughout the book the author quotes examples of how the Vatican could have been more forceful in its condemnation not simply of the Holocaust but of the ever-worsening conditions of the Jewish people in Europe from 1935 onwards. The crescendo of criticism reaches its high point in the chapter dealing with the round up of roman Jews in October 1943. The silence of Pius in this instance is the very essence of the authors thesis that the Pope for what ever reason failed the moral test not simply in terms of speaking out but of personally intervening to stop the barbarity Under His Very Windows as it were. The author does of course place papal defences like for example, the possibility that speaking out would have made the suffering of others worse alongside her own criticisms. However I have to say that the book is quite scathing of Pope Pius's role and attitude throughout the war. This is not to say that the book is biased or of no value it certainly is both in its content and ease of understanding, its just that with any emotive subject of this magnitude those for and against make their own case more strongly and on this subject its difficult not to have or develop a view based on what we believe are moral imperatives.

Hard Truth, Hard Words

This is a tough book. Zuccotti presents tough arguments and asks equally tough questions about the role of the Vatican in Italy during the Holocaust. Her research work and her piecing together the intricate jigsaw puzzle of doucuments has created a text that is difficult to refute and damning in its conclusions. Zuccotti demonstrates convincingly that Pope Pius XII and many within the heirarchy of the Catholic Church were, at best, passive in the face of the rescue work done by so many Italian Catholics, or, at worst, hostile to rescue work. At the same time she suggests, again, with considerable force of documentation and testimony, that the Vatican was quite content to be seen as the inspiration of rescue when in fact the historical record demonstrates otherwise. Trawling through the Vatican's published archival material and linking it up with diocesean archives, Jewish communal sources as well as memoirs and published testimonies of the persecuted, the perpetrators and the rescuers, Zuccotti has given historians a valuable guide to understand some of the complex "why's" of the Vatican's silence and lack of activity during the Holocaust. It is precisely her dispassionate narrative and allowing the sources to speak for themselves that gives this book so much power. The defenders of Pius XII and the Vatican bureaucracy need to either demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt their claims that Pius did all he could or end what has become a re-hashing of old and tired chestnuts that rely on innuendo, suggestion and a mish-mash of attributed quotes. If Pius, or one of his subordinates directed the convents and monasteries of Rome to lift cloister, please show us. If he instructed bishops, even verbally, to assist efforts in rescuing Jews, please provide the references - surely someone must remember them. Zuccotti has done the academic world a great service in this fine scholarly work. For Catholics, and indeed for all Christians, this work is another challenge to seek the truth - even if that truth is unpalatable. Only then can the present Pope's words about reconciliation between Jews and Christians have the full force they deserve. (For the record the reviewer is a believing and practicing Catholic.)