I
FAST COPIER REPAIR
OPINION
I
,
--..
YOUR PROFESSIONAL
COPIER SERVICE CONNECTION FOR .. .
Canon
9!PitAtIlltf:
NP
APECO
Panasonic ,.
sawn 0
afred
MINOLTA
...AND MANY MORE!
31800 Northwestern Hwy, Suite 140
Farmington Hills, MI 48018
--:- . ----7-
- :--
.... = ...- =-
...:-_,
raja
Continued from Page 7
CALL NOW & ASK ABOUT
OUR 30 DAY SERVICE
GUARANTEE 855-8499
THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND OF DETROIT
Invites you to attend the
Keter Shem Toy Award Dinner
honoring
SENATOR JACK FAXON
In Recognition of his leadership, many services and con-
tributions to the community, the State of Michigan, the
Nation and the State of Israel.
MONDAY, JUNE 13, 1988
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
27375 Bell Road, Southfield
Cocktails: 6 p.m.
Dinner: 7 p.m.
Couvert $175
General Chairman:
Leon Cohan
Richard Doerer
Sam Frank
David Handleman
HAROLD DERRY
Dinner Co-Chairpersons:
Bob Jacobs
Ira Jaffe
William Kahn
Dr. Charles Kessler
SUE ELLEN EISENBERG
President
JNF Council of Greater Detroit
William Kessler
Harold & Barbara Marko
Milton J. Miller
Joseph Nederlander
Joel Nosanchuk
Spencer M. Partrich
EDWARD ROSENTHAL
Executive Director
JNF Council of Greater Detroit
For further information and reservations, please call
JEWISH NATIONAL FUND
(313) 557.7016 or (313) 557-7059
12
FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1988
Silence
rang loud and clear. In Den-
mark and Bulgaria, lay and
religious leadership spoke out
against the passage of anti-
Jewish laws and against SS
violence.
Yet, the most potentially in-
fluential voice remained
silent.
In October 1943, after Ita-
ly was occupied by the Ger-
mans, the SS began the first
round-ups of the Jews of
Rome. The Germans schedul-
ed more than 8,000 Italian
Jews for deportation to
Auschwitz; but by the end of
October they had caught on-
ly 1,007. Unlike other na-
tionalities, Italians were not
so willing to collaborate with
their German conquerors.
Many Italian Jews found
refuge in Catholic churches
and monasteries, with
Catholic priests and higher
ranking clergy. On October
16, the day the round-ups
began, Bishop Hudal, director
of the German church of
Rome, sent a plea to the Ger-
man General in charge of the
arrests. He argued that this
Aktion would necessarily
force the pope to declare
himself publicly opposed to
German policy, and in the
long run would damage the
German presence in Italy. In
vain, Bishop Hudal tried to
halt the deportations.
Yet, while recognizing the
relative failure of this initial
round-up, the German am-
bassador to the Vatican, von
Weiszaecker, found what he
considered a crucial ray of
hope: as the Gestapo hunted
Jews "under the Vatican's
window," the pope had "done
everything in order not to
burden relations with the
German government and
German agencies in Rome."
Papal silence was deafening.
As Sheehan concedes, "the
one point on which both his
critics and defenders agree is
that Pope Pius did not public-
ly and explicitly condemn
Hitler's genocidal campaign
against the Jews." Raul
Hilberg's trenchant comment
on that silence reveals the
flaw in any further attempts
to reconstruct the image of
Pius XII: "The Germans .. .
were relieved that their
greatest fear had not been
realized, for to them the elu-
sion of a few thousand victims
was not nearly so important
as a fact which was to have
tremendous significance for
the bureaucracy, not only
then, but in years to come:
the silence of the Pope."
There seems to be some con-
fusion in Sheehan's report
regarding the deportation of
the Italian Jews. Mussolini's
government was overthrown
when the Germans occupied
Italy. It was then, not earlier,
that Italian Jews faced the
death camps. "Comparative-
ly few Jews were deported
from Italy" because they were
rescued or hidden by Italian
non-Jews; some of those
rescuers were officials in the
Vatican; some were priests
and nuns, and one may have
been the pope.
But if Pius XII, like his
predecessor, Pius XI, did not
speak out against Mussolini
and fascism, it was not for
fear of harming the Jews, but
for support of fascist anti-
Communism. Initial papal
support of that anti-
Communism lingered in the
minds of Catholics and was
never rescinded by the
Vatican. Thus, subsequent
measures taken against the
The Pope had
done everything in
order not to
burden relations
with the German
government.
Jews were in a sense legaliz-
ed by the formal approval of
the Nazi government granted
in 1933 in the Concordat sign-
ed by Pope Pius XI.
Historians (Catholic and
other) have examined a
wealth of Vatican documents
in the last 15 years. They
have not revealed a lot of in-
formation never before
publicized but, rather, a
repetitious consistency of
Vatican policy that focused on
diplomacy. Those documents
do not show strong pro-fascist
sentiments; nor do they
reveal strong anti-Jewish con-
victions. Instead, they portray
a rather timid Pius XII pur-
suing a form of diplomacy
established by generations of
his predecessors: neutrality
at all costs, persisting in
public pronouncements call-
ing upon unnamed govern-
ments to display "justice and
charity" to unnamed groups
or races, and, above all, pro-
tection of the Church.
In time of such un-
precedented murder, silence
becomes complicity; silence of
a recognized world moral
leader becomes tantamount
to criminal behavior.
Whether Pius XII felt
remorse over the plight of the
Jews or felt it was their
legacy, whether he felt
religious justification or
religious pain, seems an-
cillary if not irrelevant to his
behavior.
At issue in Sheehan's essay
is the responsibility of Pope
Pius XII. It proves little to