The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy
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''Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy'' (2000, Yale University Press) is a book by
Susan Zuccotti Susan Sessions Zuccotti (born November 14, 1940) is an American historian, specializing in studies of the Holocaust. She holds a PhD in Modern European History from Columbia University. She has won a National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studi ...
which examines the role of the Catholic Church in providing aid to Jews in Italy during the Holocaust, and is critical of the actions of the papacy in this regard.


The book

Zuccotti evaluates the actions of the Vatican and Popes Pius XI and Pius XII in Italy from 1938 and on to the Second World War, accusing the Popes of silence and characterising the actions the Vatican took to assist Jews as having been reprehensible. Zuccotti dismisses claims that Pope Pius was personally responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of Jews and argues that whatever help was given by the Church resulted from the personal courage of individual priests, monks and nuns, and prelates, rather than on direction from the Vatican. The book contains a number of chapters dealing with aid provided by Catholics to Italy's Jews, but concludes that these acts were performed spontaneously. Zuccotti writes that Catholics who aided Jews, "invariably believed that they were acting according to the Pope’s will" but that there is no written evidence confirming that this was the case.


Critical reception

According to a '' The New York Times'' book review by Christopher Duggan of Reading University, the book is well researched, though Zuccotti follows the anti- Pius XII tone of ''
Hitler's Pope ''Hitler's Pope'' is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII, before and during the Nazi era, and explores the charge that he assisted i ...
'' by John Cornwell, and builds a case for the Pope having been anti-Semitic at heart – a view which, according to Duggan, available evidence "does not warrant".
Ronald J. Rychlak Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and is holder of the Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government. He is know ...
, author of '' Hitler, the War, and the Pope'' (Genesis) describes the book as controversial for conceding that the church provided aid to Jews and other refugees in Italy, but giving no credit to Pius XII for this, on the basis that she could find no written evidence to confirm his involvement. In his review in '' The Tablet'', historian Owen Chadwick whose work focuses on Christianity and the Papacy, calls ''Under His Very Windows'', "not history but guesswork." Chadwick's review states, "when the Germans occupied Italy she ucottithinks that the Pope could have informed church leaders that he would look favourably on help to the Jewish fugitives, and could have warned the Germans that he would protest forcibly and publicly at any deportations of Jews from Rome. All this is not history but guesswork, and one or two guesses have a more than minuscule improbability. "Faced with the certainty of papal condemnation, the Germans might possibly have postponed anti-Jewish actions in Italy", she suggests. Imagination boggles at what would have been said when such a message from the Pope was read at Hitler's headquarters, if it ever reached that height and if anyone round the table bothered to do more than laugh. Anyone who thinks otherwise should read the devastatingly uncompromising speech which Himmler made to SS leaders at Posen on a vital date for Italy, the beginning of October 1943."


Awards

In 2000, the book won the National Jewish Book Award, in the category of Jewish–Christian Relations, and in 2002, the Sybil Halpern Milton Prize presented by the
German Studies Association The German Studies Association (GSA) is an international organization of scholars in history, literature, economics, cultural studies, and political science who study Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The organization began in 1976 as the Wester ...
.


See also

* Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust


References


External links


''New York Times'' article excerpt''Under His Very Windows'' on the Yale University Press homepage
{{Pope Pius XII Books about Pope Pius XII History books about the Holocaust Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust Yale University Press books 2000 non-fiction books History books about the 20th century History books about World War II