Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Appendix E: The Role of the Vatican
Among the numerous authors in the controversy, the various positions are well
represented by two recent books: The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators by Anthony
Rhodes (London, 1973), a defender of the Vatican, and The Pope’s Jews by
Sam Waagenaar (London, 1974), a critic of the Pope.
The official Vatican position, as set forth in the Introduction to the eighth volume
of Actes et documents, is as follows:
“During his brief visit to the Vatican on 26 September [1942], the personal
representative of President Roosevelt, Myron Taylor, renewed an official request
for information. They had received, from the Geneva office of the Jewish
agency for Palestine, information on the desperate situation of the Polish Jews
and the Jews deported to Poland. The report, dated 30 August, described the
liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, executions in a camp called Belick, in Lwow,
and in Warsaw. The destination of the deportations was death: ‘The Jews deported
from Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, and Slovakia,’ said the report,
‘were sent to the slaughterhouse, while the aryans deported to the East
from Holland and France were actually used for labor.’ The memorandum
from Taylor to Cardinal Maglione [Vatican Secretary of State] said: ‘I would
be very grateful to Your Eminence if it were possible to tell me if the Vatican
has any information which tends to confirm the report contained in this memorandum.
If so, I would like to know if the Holy Father has some suggestions
touching on some practical means of using the forces of public opinion of the
civilized world in order to prevent the continuation of this barbarism.’
Cardinal Maglione had to reply, on 10 October, that he had on his part no
particular information confirming the Geneva report. In effect, the most detailed
information, received those days by the Vatican, was the same as that
received by the United States. The sources were the Polish Ambassador to the
Vatican and the Jewish organizations themselves. ‘The reports on severe
measures adopted against non-aryans have also come to the Holy See from
other sources, but at present it has not been possible to verify their accuracy.’
Under these conditions, the second question on practical means to put into operation
did not call for a reply.
Very significant are the notes set down by Maglione after having received
the Taylor document: ‘I do not believe that we have any information which
confers these grave tidings. Right’ For his part the ‘minutante’ [recorder or
archivist] wrote: ‘There is Mr. Malvezzi’s.’ The information of Malvezzi, official
of an Italian firm, recently returned from Poland, was grave but general
and did not harmonize with the Geneva report.
That which the Cardinal Secretary of State heard as ‘severe measures’ can
be interpreted in the light of the documents of these two years. The information
received in the Vatican consisted of second or third hand reports, taken seriously
however, concerning the brutal treatment imposed on the Jews of Hungary,
Croatia, Slovakia, France, and other countries. What was the ultimate
destination of the deportees, what was the plan of the Nazis, then remained an
enigma. When, for example, in the month of March, Msgr. Burzio, the Chargé
d’affaires in Slovakia, spoke of the deportees as going to ‘a certain death,’ it is
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