: Says Jewish Man Who Hated Pacelli But Now Calls Him a Hero

Gary Krupp, founder, along with his wife Meredith, founders and directors of the Pave the Way Foundation, which has tirelessly worked to reveal the truth of the action of the Vatican during World War II.

On March 4th, Pope Francis announced that in a year’s time, the Vatican Archives of Pius XII’s pontificate (1939-1958) will be open for consultation to any researchers and academics who wish to consult it. How did you receive this news?
We were extremely excited to hear the news! The Vatican archives will be opened eight years earlier than Canon Law dictates, as we have been urging all the Vatican officials over the last several years. We also acted to reveal the documentation unearthed by our team of scholars, Dr Michael Hesemann, Pave the Way Foundation Director for Germany, Johan Ickx, Ronald Rychlak, William Doino, Martin Gilbert, Limore Yagil, Edouard Husson, Dimitri Cavalli, Mark Riebling, Deacon Dominiek Oversteyne, all made incredible discoveries of documents from many archives that have been open for decades disproving the false narrative disseminated of Pius XII.

Your view of Pope Pius XII is not the same as of some time ago. How has it evolved?
Pius XII was Pope when I was a child. My uncle met him twice in 1948 and he received a medal from him when he was in Rome with the US Navy. At that time my recollections of Pope Pius XII were always very positive. Then when I went to high school the world opinion completely changed. After reading some books dealing with this subject, I was convinced that he was not a friend of the Jewish people and at worst a collaborator with Nazi Germany against communism.

Then? What happened?
A long time later, in 2006, through what I consider divine intervention, I was gradually exposed to some incredible documentation and testimony that brought me to a conclusion: I had been lied to! My emotions went from being shocked to being extremely angry.

Armed with documents, I travelled to Jerusalem to meet with the chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger and revealed what I had discovered. He told me: “I want you to find everything you possibly can on this subject and bless you for this work.” In Judaism, the worst character flaw a Jew can have is ingratitude. The defamation and character assassination of Pacelli, robbed the Jewish people of the dignity of expressing a measure of thanks to the one religious leader who acted to save more Jews than all the religious and political leaders of the era. This is to me a Jewish responsibility.

What did you do after that meeting?
I submitted this potentially explosive international project to the board of PTWF to consider. Since our mission is to identify and eliminate obstacles between religions this project fit into my mission statement. The board approved it almost universally. So, we proceeded to contact International Scholars on the subject. Meredith, my wife, and I travelled throughout Europe to explore every possible path towards revealing the truth of the actions of the Holy See, towards Jewish people, under the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.

As a Jewish man, I suppose this issue is particularly meaningful…
As a Jewish man I thought that utilizing my positive relationship with the Vatican to identify and reveal these documents to the world would be praised and heralded. I was shocked when I was simply attacked and criticized by many of the “historians” internationally. The good news is that the critical comments made about our work at PTWF remains on the Internet. Our vindication will come when the world’s opinion returns to where it was in 1958. One day Pius the XII will be recognized as righteous among nations at Yad Vashem.

There a lot of people who do not agree with this last statement. What would you reply?
According to Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide and sustained by Sir Martin Gilbert, the Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII acted to save the lives of an estimated 847,000 Jews, almost a million. The difference is that Lapide and all the Jewish leaders who unreservedly praised Pius XII, lived through the war years and witnessed these actions. The modern historical revisionists simply read the false demonizing books to push their negative agendas.

You and your wife Meredith are the founders of the Pave the Way Foundation. Please, make us understand a little better what the Foundation has done, in cooperation with the Vatican, related to Pius XII.
Since 2006, with the help of our international scholar partners, we have unearthed and posted online over 76,000 pages of primary source documents, along with eyewitness interviews, thanks to the cooperation with the Vatican, too. Two very dear and close friends of mine, Cardinal Tauran and the Archbishop Pietro Sambi both said to me that “Gary this is going to be your life’s work.” Cardinal Bertone, the former Vatican Secretary of State, personally gave us a set of the volumes of Acts and Documents of the Holy See during the Second World War so that we could digitize the 5000 pages and make them available for international scholarly study, on the Vatican website, the website of the Holy See Mission to the United Nations and Pave the Way’s Pius XII resource website page.

In addition, we were given permission to publish many Vatican documents with the stipulation that they not be used for commercial purposes. Consequently, when we travelled internationally, we were given access to many of the archives. We have discovered literally hundreds of ‘smoking guns.’

The judgment on the work of Pius XII towards Nazism and the Holocaust still divides the Catholic Church and the Jewish world. What will be the consequences of opening the Vatican archives?
The opening of the six main archives will go a long way towards resolving the misunderstandings of the actions of the Holy See during World War II, even if it will take decades of devoted research to comb through the material.

The problem however is that many of the critics of Pius XII simply have not done any legitimate research on the subject. A recent interview of Robert Ventresca is very revealing. He doesn’t believe that there will be a smoking gun in the Vatican archives. He’s probably correct, because our international scholar partners have already discovered hundreds of “smoking guns” throughout the world. The critics have conveniently chosen not to even look at these documents. In his recent book Church of Spies, Mark Riebling has revealed that Pius XII was aware of every assassination attempt against Hitler. His research was done at the archives of the American CIA and the British archives. Not one word will be in any of the Vatican archives.

Very interesting…
A further example in Susan Zuccotti’s book Under His Very Windows. Here, she at least attempted to interview an eyewitness, Msgr Aldo Brunacci in Assisi. Msgr Brunacci stated that Cardinal Nicolini of Assisi summoned him and held up a letter of the Holy Father asking to do everything possible to save the persecuted Jews. Zuccotti asked Brunacci if he read the letter. He said no. So, she concluded there is no proof this letter really existed. These written requests were given to many of the diocese but ordered to be burned to protect the Holy See neutrality.

There are some Jews – for example the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni – who said that their negative judgment on Pope Pius XII will not change anyway. How do you judge this statement?
In 2008, Meredith and I went to visit the Chief Rabbi of Rome to invite him to attend the symposium for 80 international Jewish scholars we were sponsoring in Rome. He simply said: “You’re paving the way to Pius XII’s Canonization. The Pope remained silent when 1259 Roman Jews with sent to Auschwitz. I studied this issue and you are wrong. No Roman Jews will attend your symposium.” The reality is that Di Segni never lived through the war contrasted by his predecessors, Rabbi Elio Toaff and Rabbi Israel Zolli, eye witnesses of the actions of Pius XII. Ironically, he remains within walking distance from multiple archives, which would’ve proved the truth.

And what is the truth?
Had the chief Rabbi examined the archives of Bishop Hudal as Professor Johan Ickx did in Santa Maria dell’Anima, he would’ve discovered how it was Pius XII who acted directly to end the arrest of the Roman Jews on October 16, 1943. It was Pius XII who sent Fr Pancratius Pfeiffer to try to gain the release of the 1259 Jews arrested; he was unfortunately only successful in rescuing 224 Jews. The documents discovered at Santa Maria dell’Anima also showed how Pius XII used the threat to speak out against Hitler and the Nazis in order to end the arrest of the Roman Jews. He knew that such a public statement would have triggered the planned invasion of the Vatican. Something the German military feared since this could have resulted in massive riots throughout Europe. Pius XII acted while he was mindful that he was to be arrested and assassinated according to the 1972 testimony of General Karl Wolff obtained by Michael Hesemann.

You have quoted Israel Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome during World War II, famous for having decided to convert to Roman Catholicism, after the war…
Even his wife! They both took the name Eugenio and Eugenia, as Eugenio Pacelli, Pius XII. The reality is that the entire Roman Jewish community would have been massacred if Pius XII didn’t act to end the arrest and move to protect the Jews in the hundreds of ecclesiastical facilities and encourage Italian Catholics to give shelter to their Jewish neighbours.