Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Appendix E: The Role of the Vatican
Rome was first bombed on July 19, 1943 (by the Americans), the targets being
the rail center that German and Italian troops had started passing through after the
Allied landings in Sicily on July 9th. In subsequent raids, bombs occasionally fell
on the Vatican, but the damage to historical and religious monuments in the Vatican
and elsewhere in Rome was slight.
The only other point of some interest in regard to the role of the Vatican is that
its efforts in extending aid to Jews were fairly extensive, as discussed by Rhodes.
However, Waagenaar should also be read in this connection, on account of Rhodes’
failure to make some points. However, from the point of view of analyzing
the extermination legend, the only significant inference to draw from such activities
of the Vatican is that they offer further data showing that the exterminations
could not possibly have happened without the Vatican knowing of them, because
the Vatican was somewhat involved in Jewish affairs in Europe at the time.
While the significant points regarding the role of the Vatican are not many and
have been covered, there are a few odd matters that we may as well set forth while
we are on this subject.
A strange character appearing in the Vatican’s wartime documents is Pirro
Scavizzi, a very ordinary priest who rode Italian military hospital trains that shuttled
back and forth between Italy and the eastern front. He was called an “almoner,”
and he administered to the wounded Italian soldiers, whatever incantations
are delivered in such circumstances. Since he did so much traveling, however, he
was frequently used as a courier, and his frequent near contact with, and regular
delivery of messages to, high ranking prelates seems to have fired his imagination.
The first oddity we run into was in February-March 1942. Scavizzi produced a
letter, allegedly from Adam Sapieha, Archbishop of Cracow, on the subject of the
sufferings of Catholic priests under the brutal Germans. As related in Actes et
documents, however, the circumstances were most peculiar: 461
“[…] the Archbishop renounced all precaution and described […] the
rigor of the Nazi oppression and the tragedy of the concentration camps. But
after having deposited this testimony with […] Scavizzi, he grew fearful and
sent Scavizzi a message asking him to burn the document ‘for fear that it fall
into the hands of the Germans, who would have shot all the Bishops and perhaps
others.’ The Abbé Scavizzi destroyed the note in question, but not without
first having made a copy in his own hand and having added at the same time
his own testimony on the tragedy and the despair which constituted the daily
course of existence of the Catholics of Poland.”
Scavizzi’s producing of a letter which he had burned, in honoring the request
of the author of the letter, necessarily makes one a bit uneasy about him, but let us
bear with him a bit. He next appears in connection with a letter he wrote to Pope
Pius from Bologna on May 12, 1942: 462
“In regard to the present Nuncio [Orsenigo in Berlin], the Cardinal [Innitzer
in Vienna] deplored the silence about it [the persecution of the Jews]
461
462
Actes et documents, vol. 3. 15f. Rhodes, 288.
Actes et documents, vol. 8, 534.
355