Jesuit Organ Reports on Efforts Made by Vatican to Save Jews in Rumania

Efforts by Pope Pius XII and papal diplomats did much to save the Jews of Rumania from extermination during World War II, according to an article written by Father Angelo Martini, S.J. in Civilta Cattolica, official organ of the Jesuits.

Father Martini writes that although half of the Jews in Rumania were victims of persecution because of Nazi racial laws, it cannot be doubted that “the continuous, disinterested and universal” action of the Vatican brought to them assistance. He notes that the Apostolic Nuncio in Rumania during the war years, Archbishop Andrea Cassulo, was in constant communication with Rumanian authorities in trying to protect the rights of Catholics of Jewish origin.

While his post required him primarily to work in the interests of Catholics, Archbishop Cassulo exercised his influence repeatedly in behalf of other Jews as well, urging the Rumanian Government against transporting Jews to concentration camps and to respect the rights and dignity of man, Father Martini reports. In 1941-42. Rumanian officials became suspicious of the number of Jews becoming Catholics and ruled that while they changed their religion they did not change their legal status as Jews. The Vatican Secretariat of State and the Nuncio protested this policy and were able to have its application held off, although they were unsuccessful in having the law changed, the Jesuit priest stresses.

From 1942 through 1944 the plight of the Jews of Romania worsened, Father Martini states, and at least 300,000 or half of the entire Jewish population, suffered under the persecution. Throughout this period Archbishop Cassulo worked to alleviate their plight. In February, 1943, he wrote to the Secretary of State that the president of the Rumanian Jewish community had visited him to thank him for the efforts of the Vatican, and to ask him to convey to Pius XII the thanks of the Jewish people.

Father Martini says that the Nuncio, at the urging of the Pope, visited the concentration camps beyond the Dnieper River, where most of the Jews were being held. The effect of these visits was to improve the conditions in them. The Nuncio worked particularly hard to win the permission of government authorities to send Jewish orphans to Palestine, despite efforts of the German secret police to block this.

In April 1944, the Grand Rabbi of Bucharest, Dr. A. Saffran, paid tribute to the efforts made in behalf of Rumanian Jews by writing to the Nuncio as follows: “In the most difficult hours which we, the Jews of Rumania, have undergone, the generous assistance of the Holy See, carried out by means of your high person, was decisive and saving. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the tenderness and consolation which the august concern of the Supreme Pontiff has meant to us. The Jews of Rumania will not ever forget these facts of historical importance.”