The Foreign Ministry has instructed its ambassador to the Vatican, Shmuel Hadas, to ask the Holy See for a clarification of reports that it awarded a papal knighthood to former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim.
In a July 6 ceremony in Vienna, Waldheim was made a member of the Ordine Piano, an order of knights named directly by the pope.
Waldheim, the former president of Austria and secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, was a Nazi intelligence officer stationed in the Balkans during World War II. He has been implicated in the deportations of Jews and reprisal killings of anti-Nazi partisans in the region.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Rafi Gamzu said Israel was “shocked” by the award.
“If it happened, then it is a bad, tasteless joke,” Gamzu said, “Whoever honors Waldheim for safeguarding human rights ignores his wartime record, which his U.N. term does not compensate for.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
