At age 95, Rabbi Alexander Safran passed away recently at his home in Geneva, Switzerland. During World War II he was the Chief Rabbi of Bucharest, Rumania, and tried to prevent the deportation of Jews to the Nazi extermination camps. Thanks to his efforts, about 400,000 Jews were saved. He refused to cooperate with the Soviet forces that entered Rumania in 1944, and was later dismissed from his post. In his 1987 memoirs he recalled the "antipathy, hostility and prejudices" Jews faced during World War II. On April 4, 1944, Rabbi Alexander Safran made the fol-lowing statement to papal nuncio Andrea Cassulo: "In the most difficult hours which we Jews of Rumania have passed through, the generous assistance of the Holy See was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experience because of the concern of the supreme pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews-sufferings which had been pointed out to him by you after your visit to Transnistria. The Jews of Rumania will never forget these facts of historic importance."

Jews firmly believe in justice and truth. They were unanimous in their praise of Pius XII and expressed their gratitude. Yet, below the portrait of Pope Pius XII in Yad Vashem, there is a statement which is contrary to the truth and is unjust. It must be repudiated. I contacted the director of Yad Vashem and asked him to consider the efforts of the Pope who helped save hundreds of thousands of Jews and other victims of the Nazis. But will Yad Vashem correct the errors beneath this photo? My comments follow in italics: "Pius XII's reaction toward the killing of Jews during the period of the Holocaust is controversial. In 1933, as the Vatican Secretary of State, in order to maintain the rights of the Church in Germany, he signed a Concordat with the Nazi regime even at the price of recognizing the racist Nazi regime. When he was elected Pope in 1939, he put aside an encyclical against racism and anti-Semitism prepared by his predecessor." Pius XII wrote his own encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, which did deal with racism. "Although reports about the assassination of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either by speaking out or in writing." This is not true. Whenever Pius XII spoke out, there was immediate retaliation by the Nazis. There were more than 60 protests! "In December of 1942, he did not participate in the condemnation by members of the Allies regarding the killing of Jews. Even when the Jews were being deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the Pope did not intervene." The Pope did indeed intervene. After that first day, the SS were ordered to stop the deportation of the Jews in Rome. "He maintained a neutral position except toward the end of the war when he appealed on behalf of the government of Hungary and of Slovakia. His silence and the absence of directives obliged the clergy in Europe to decide independently how they should behave toward the persecuted Jews." This is not true. Members of the Church were ordered to protect all refugees and Jews.

Recently, after my appeal for information from survivors of the Holocaust, I received a letter (July 27, 2006) from San Diego, California. John F. Armstrong wrote: "In 1944, during World War II, I was a member of the 63rd Signal Battalion United States Army, No. 32200956, and I needed to recuperate. I was sent to the Rome Rest Camp following the Anzio Beach Head campaign in Italy. While there, I learned that the Vatican was issuing citizenship papers to Jews in order to save them from the Nazis. I hope this may be of some value to document the efforts of the Pope to help Jewish people…." Not only were citizenship papers issued to Jews, but visas were obtained for 400 Jews to be accepted in Santo Domingo, and for 800 Jews to travel to the USA. Also false baptismal papers were distributed throughout Europe at the direction of Pius XII. Throughout these years no wonder there were threats to kidnap the Pope, to bring him to Germany, and to sack the Vatican.

Early in the crucial year of 1940 - when Axis victory seemed distinctly likely - Pius XII would cooperate with President Franklin Roosevelt, attempting to persuade Mussolini not to join in Hitler's war. These efforts failed; in June of that year, 1940, Benito Mussolini joined Hitler in the war and escalated his own anti-Semitic policies (first in-troduced in 1938). News services in Italy were censored and reports about German atrocities labeled as propaganda. Still, in a wide array of languages, Vatican Radio on January 21 broadcast a description and de-nunciation of German policy in Poland. Later that week, on January 27, Vatican Radio addressed the persecution of Jews, warning Catholics, "He who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God and in conflict with God's commands."

A grave injustice has been done to the memory of Pope Pius XII, who was a "Righteous Gentile." He risked his own life to save Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome. Kenneth L. Woodward ended an article in Newsweek (March 30, 1998): "No one person, Hitler excepted, was responsible for the Holocaust. And no one person, Pius XII included, could have prevented it. In choosing diplomacy over protest Pius XII had his priorities straight. It's time to lay off this pope."

Pius XII received praise from Israeli Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, Israel Zolli, Alexander Safran, and many others. Rabbi André Zaoui expressed gratitude "for the immense good and incomparable charity that Your Holiness extended generously to the Jews of Italy and especially the children, women and elderly of the community of Rome (June 22, 1944)." Rabbi David de Sola Pool, chairman of the National Jewish Welfare Board wrote to the Pope: "We have received reports from our army chaplains in Italy of the aid and protection given... From the bottom of our hearts we send you the assurances of undying gratitude."

There are expressions of gratitude, on the part of Jewish chaplains and Holocaust survivors. Rabbi David Dalin states that "to deny the legitimacy of their collective gratitude to Pius XII is tantamount to denying their memory and experience of the Holocaust itself, as well as to denying the credibility of their personal testimony and judgment about the Pope's role in rescuing hundreds of thousands of Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis." Who can dismiss the personal testimonials by Jewish chaplains? U.S. Army Chaplain Morris Kertzer addressed four thousand Italian Jews in the Rome synagogue and subsequently sent a report to the United States (June 9, 1944). Jewish military chaplains have confirmed that Catholics in Italy, inspired by papal instruction, did much to rescue and shelter the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, even providing false passports for them. The Pope's peace efforts, his denunciation of Nazism, his defense of the Jewish people, has been clearly documented.

It is irresponsible to deprive future generations of these contemporary assessments and judgments, that together comprise part of the historical record of the Holocaust era. On the question of Pope Pius XII's alleged silence, British researcher Sir Martin Gilbert stated, "So the test for Pacelli was when the Gestapo came to Rome in 1943 to round up Jews. And the Catholic Church, on his direct authority, immediately dispersed as many Jews as they could." His book, Never Again: The History of the Holocaust (Universe Publishers, 2000) contains an extraordinary chapter on Pope Pius XII's protection of refugees and victims of persecution. This was one of the finest examples of Christian charity in the whole world.

Pius XII was concerned that a public condemnation would result in retaliation and the loss of more lives. His silence accompanied a powerful action in defense of the Jews: he opened the very doors of the Vatican for thousands of Jews to hide there. In obedience to the Pope's directives, thousands of Jews and other refugees were saved in Rome's 155 ecclesiastical institutions. In an editorial published in 1941, The New York Times praised the Pope for having "put himself squarely against Hitlerism." He explicitly condemned (March 30, 1941) "the wickedness of Hitler."

When the Germans occupied Italy, the grounds of the Vatican as well as the churches in Rome under its jurisdiction, considered neutral territory by international law, were thrown open to the Jews by order of the Pope as a sanctuary. Any Jew from any country who could manage to reach the Vatican was admitted without questions and thereby removed from Nazi jurisdiction. Catholic monasteries and convents in France, Belgium, Italy, and other countries of Europe, opened their doors and became well known as hiding places for entire Jewish families, particularly for children. This was a fundamental policy Pope Pius XII maintained throughout the Nazi occupation of Europe in the face of great dangers.

The protection of Jews was effected through the internationally recognized neutrality of the Vatican used by the Papal Nuncios in other countries who freely issued "protective passports" to Jews threatened by the Nazis, thus placing them under the jurisdiction of the Vatican.

Thousands of Jewish refugees were smuggled out from Nazi-occupied countries by an underground movement organized for that purpose by members of the Catholic clergy with the knowledge and authority of the Vatican. The various encyclicals and many outspoken statements issued by the Pope himself and by many archbishops and bishops throughout Europe denouncing the inhumanity of specific acts of Nazi persecution of the Jews were the only rays of light in the long dark night of Nazism.

After World War II, Leo Longanesi-a renowned twentieth-century Italian journalist and publisher-was indignant over the anticlerical campaigns against the Church. One day he suggested to the Pope that a particular day be designated when all Italian newspapers in Italy would print the full story about the charitable works of the Church during World War II. Pius XII declined. His response: "Only God must be testimony to what is done for our neighbor!" Today this story must be told in order to stop the calumnies against Pius XII and the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Jews throughout the world were unanimous in their praise and expressed their gratitude toward Pius XII. In anticipation of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pius XII, it would be both historically just for Yad Vashem to correct the statements beneath his photo and posthumously honor Pius XII as one of the "Righteous among the Nations."