1964 Awake! - Theocratic Collector.com

point. Riccardo exclaims: "In Poland one
million eight hundred thousand Jews have
been slaughtered! ... God cannot wish
Your Holiness to ignore it!" To which Pius
indignantly replies: "'Ignore!' We do not
intend to account for our actions to Riccardo
Fontana .... "
During this heated discussion an abbot
enters from whom Pius learns the source
of the rumor that he would protest. "Herr
von Kessel at the German Embassy called
on me secretly at dawn and asked that His
Excellency, the Bishop [Hudal], threaten
the German commandant
with a forthcoming
protest from Your Holiness."
Pius is relieved to
find that it was a Ger­
,man official and not one
of his bishops that suggested
or originated the
rumor.
Pius then dictates a
proclamation, ostensibly
protesting against
the deportation of the
Jews but dealing only in
generalities. This causes
Riccardo to say to him:
"Your Holiness, what
you have set your name
to grants Hitler unrestricted
license to go on
treating the Jews as he
has always done."
In righteous indignation
Riccardo had
pinned upon himself the
yellow Star of David,
shocking the pope. But
Riccardo tells him: "I
shall wear this star un­
til Your Holiness proclaims, before the
world a curse upon the man who slaughters
EW'ope's Jews like cattle!" The pope is
made speechless by this outburst, causing a
14
Hitler leaving Catholic Cathedral in
Munich, as published in "The Catholic
Herald" of England, May 5,1939
cardinal to reply for him: "Criminal folly!
Get out!" But Riccardo repljes: "Folly?
No, Your Holiness. The King of Denmark,
a defenseless man, threatened Hitler that
he would wear this star, along with every
member of his house, if the Jews in Denmark
were forced to wear it. They were
not forced. When will the Vatican at last
act so that we priests can once again own
without shame that we are servants of that
Church which holds brotherly love as its
first commandment!" With that he leaves
to join the Jews being shipped to Auschwitz.
In the closing moments
of this Act Four,
Pius XII is heard declaiming:
"As the flowers
in the countryside
wait beneath winter's
mantle of snow for the
warm breezes of spring,
so the Jews must wait,
praying and trusting
that the hour of heavenly
comfort will come."
Act Five, "Auschwitz"
Scene One of Act
Five consists of soliloquies
by several Jews
en route to Auschwitz
on their fate and their
doubting God because
of it. Scene Two shows
Jews arriving in Auschwitz
with Catholic
priest Riccardo among
them. In this scene he
has a lengthy discussion
with an atheistic, onetime
Catholic priest.
the camp doctor, who
determines the fate of the Jews coming
to Auschwitz, whether at once to
the gas chambers or first a period of
slavery, and who boasts because God
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