I strongly disagree with Pope Benedict’s intention of sanctifying Pope Pius XII. He deserves nothing of the sort, where was the church that Pius led in times of the Holocaust?
I was reading the post before yours…Pius XII did A LOT to help the Jews!
Has anyone ever heard of the book “The Assisi Underground”? It’s the account of how the Bishop, priests, religious, and laity of Assisi hid Jews in their city between October 1943 and August 1945. The ‘narrator’ of this book is Father Rufino Nicacci, the Father ‘Guardian’ of San Damiano. He was given the task by the Bishop of Assisi, Placido Niccolini (I’m pretty sure that was his first name), to hide Jews from Nazi persecution-mostly Italians.
When the Germans took over Assisi on October 3, 1944 [while the citizens were commemorating St. Francis’ death!], the city was used as a convalescent center for their wounded. The Commandant was Colonel Robert Mueller, a Catholic officer from Bavaria who was a doctor by profession (not a Nazi party member!). He and Fr. Rufino became friends; the friar took the colonel to the various holy sites, which he appreciated, being a Catholic.
All the while, there were operations behind closed doors to get forged identifications to get the Jewish refugees out of Italy. There were some close calls, which resulted in the refugees being hidden in some of the nuns’ cloisters.
One of the young male Jews got a job with the German army, and he managed to forge the signature of Field Marshal Kesselring (Commandant of Northern Italy) on a document that declared Assisi an ‘open city’–just as the Gestapo was placing mines on the important buildings to be blown up in the face of the advancing British forces! Colonel Mueller received this document and, not knowing it was a forgery, ORDERED ALL GERMAN TROOPS TO LEAVE THE CITY, THUS SAVING ASSISI FROM DESTRUCTION! He got a lot of grief from the Gestapo because of that!
And not one Jew who was protected in Assisi was ever caught! One woman, who was a diabetic, did die, and was buried in the Assisi cemetery under her assumed ‘Catholic’ name. After the war, her Jewish name and the Star of David appeared on her headstone. All the refugees joined Father Rufino and the citizens of Assisi in celebrating the liberation of the city-one elderly refugee, a music professor, played "God Save the King’ on the organ in the Upper Basilica of St. Francis!
After the war, most of the Jews who were hidden in Assisi emigrated to Israel; but one young couple stayed, and they became the only Jewish family living in Assisi! Padre Rufino left Assisi for his hometown of Deruta [nearby, famous for its ceramics] and founded a center for Catholic/Jewish relations. He, Bishop Nicolini (posthumously), and Don Aldo Brunacci of San Rufino Cathedral (still living as far as I know) were named among the “Righteous Gentiles” by the state of Israel, and trees were planted with their names in the “Garden of the Righteous” at Yad Vashem. Padre Rufino went to Israel for the ceremony. He died in November 1977-a month after my first pilgrimage to Assisi! Oh, I forgot-Colonel Mueller came back to Assisi with his family in the 1950’s. The people welcomed him as a hero (with the exception of the Communists who ran the city then), and Padre Rufino showed them around the holy sites. Sadly, after the Muellers returned to their hometown of Eichstatt, Colonel Mueller died of a brain tumor at the age of 60. His tomb in Eichstatt shows an outline map of Assisi.
A movie was made in 1983, filmed on location in Assisi. It starred Ben Cross of ‘Chariots of Fire’ as Padre Rufino, James Mason as Bishop Nicolini, and Maxmilian Schell as Colonel Mueller.
Sorry if this post is long-but this is a story that should be told and made better known!
