Carl Bernstein Quotes
John Paul was the first modern pope to grow up in a secular culture: He attended public schools, danced with girls - indeed, as a teenager he had a crush on a beautiful Jewish girl who fled his hometown just ahead of the arrival of the Germans.
Bernstein, Carl, and Marco Politi. His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time. Doubleday, 1996, p. 22.
Some bigots blamed the Jews for the Black Plague, then rampant. This is documentation of the Pope’s intercession to protect Jews. Pope Benedict XII, ?-1342, was an enlightened and moral leader who did not share the superstitions of many and realized that something was transmitting the disease. See {611790} for his behavior. The graphic is of the Pope.
The historical record that is available shows that while the Pope did not, actively or aggressively oppose Hitler, and he did not discipline Catholic prelates who were Nazi supporters, there is no specific evidence that shows the Pope conspired with Hitler, about the extermination of Jews or anything else. However, most of the relevant documents of the era are in the Vatican and the records have been sealed and have not been visible to historians. Apologists for the Pope’s passivity point out that a large percentage of Germans were Catholic and he had a duty to not antagonize Hitler who would retaliate against German Catholics and the German Catholic clergy and church property. Further, Fascist Italy was under Hitler’s control, and the Vatican itself could have closed and its property seized. The historical record is still very vague.
Auschwitz was the worst of the German Nazi WWII Death Camps where over 2 million people were murdered.
Schindler was a very wealthy industrialist who risked his own life and kept over 1000 Jews from being sent to the gas chambers during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem’s, Israel’s Memorial of the Holocaust has a duty to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. This mission was defined by the law establishing Yad Vashem, and in 1963 the Remembrance Authority embarked upon a worldwide project to grant the title of Righteous Among the Nations to the few who helped Jews in the darkest time in their history.
Adolf Eichmann was a German Nazi war criminal who had been responsible for the murder of millions of people. At the end of WWII, he had escaped Germany and was living in South America. Israeli agents found him, kidnapped him, and brought him to Israel. There he received a very public trial, was found guilt, and executed. In the War on Terror at the beginning of the 21st century, the key terrorists that were captured in Afghanistan were sent to a special prison base in the American part of Cuba. They were held there but at first received no trials or hearings. They were not prisoners of war, and not criminals where there were legal procedures for handling them. This was a new area. Some argued that they should all get trials. The Supreme court ruled that they at least had to get hearings. The correct handling was a major debate.
It is amazing what explanations religious and biased fanatics can come up with to explain history.
The Nazis had started vicious persecution of Jews in Germany. In the early days of irrational anti-Semitism and Nazism he preached against the irrational Nazi propaganda – See {638920}. However, when it became clear that the Nazis had the upper hand, he publicly recognized the Nazi government as legitimate, required Catholic clergy to remain loyal to the Nazi government, and maintained bridges between fascism and the Church He then became silent on the terrible, inhuman, un-Christian treatment of the Jews concentrating his efforts on negotiating the best for the Catholics that he could get. See {639129}.
Earlier in the Nazi movement he had criticized some of the more absurd anti-Semitic positions of Hitler and his henchmen. However, when it became clear that the Nazis had the upper hand he publicly recognized the Nazi government as legitimate, required Catholic clergy to remain loyal to the Nazi government, and maintained bridges between fascism and the Church while over 6 million Jews, Gypsies, and handicapped were murdered—many by his faithful.
He was a viscious anti-Semite who attracted to his party extreme right wingers, Nazi Sympathers and apologists for the Vichey Franch government. The party was rejected by the majority of French voters, but when his daughter took over the party, she was not an anti Semite but foudn it hard to shake the party's image which was alaysa associated with her name even when she actually kicked her father out of the party.
Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist and author.
