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| The year: 1933. In that year, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Over the next 12 years in Europe, he conducted one of the fiercest racial persecutions in human history against the Jews of Europe. Many of the leaders in
Europe were silent as this persecution unfolded. But in Rome, in the
eternal city, one voice was not silenced. Elected Pope in 1939, the
year that the Second World War began, Pope Pius XII, who often has been
accused of silence and inaction, spoke and acted. And he ordered that
Catholic convents and churches and schools throughout Europe be opened
to provide sanctuary for Europe’s Jews. This is the story of that
action… the story of an untold love. |
From 1933 to 1945,
the persecution of the Jews of Europe enfolded. Millions were arrested deported, imprisoned and executed. But nearly a million Jews found refuge in the convents and monasteries of Europe, including dozens inside the Vatican itself. In some parts of Italy, more than 80 percent of the Jews were able to escape arrest and survived war…thanks to the monks and nuns who sheltered them, risking their own lives… |
The Oral History Project
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