Independent Online: Pius XII barred Jewish children returning home

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By Peter Popham in Rome

29 December 2004

The bitter, long-running controversy over the attitude of Pope Pius XII to the Holocaust has taken a new turn with the publication of diaries that prove he opposed the return of Jewish children to their parents after the Nazis' defeat.

The diaries were kept by Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, from 1945 to 1948 when Pius XII was on the Vatican throne and Cardinal Roncalli was papal nuncio to Paris.

The diaries document the efforts by Cardinal Roncalli to reunite Jewish families torn apart by the war and whose children had been taken under the wing of the Catholic Church. The future pope's role in helping Jews escape from Nazi persecution has long been acknowledged. But the diaries show Pius XII was hostile to such efforts.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=596610