The Vatican on Monday opened up its archives on Pius XII and an expert said the documents show that World War II pontiff acted to help Jews during the Holocaust. Pius XII, who was the head of the Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, has been accused of failing to try to stop Nazi Germany murdering Jews.
Johan Ickx, the director of the historical archive of the Section for Relations with States of the Holy See's Secretariat of State, said the Church's role under Pius XII is shown by a folders with requests for help from around 4,000 people.
He said the documents included evidence of Vatican officials providing false documents to Jews and taking in persecuted people in extraterritorial Vatican buildings.
Rome's Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, however, said that he does not think the archives will show the World War II pope was actually working behind the scenes to help Jews. "This sensationalism is highly suspicious, with files that are ready and easy conclusions laid out on a tray," Di Segni told ANSA.
"But it does not take much to realise that the scarcity of revelations will become a boomerang for the apologists at all costs.
"It can be clearly seen that there was no desire to stop the train of October 16 (1943 that took Jews detained in Rome to Nazi death camps) and that the help was targeted to protect people who'd been baptized."
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