Newly discovered documents at Vatican City’s Pontifical Biblical Institute may shed some light on what happened to many Roman Jews during the Nazi occupation in WW2. The documents contain the names of 3,200 Jews whose lives Catholics protected during the occupation. Rome’s Jewish community organisation has verified the listed Jews’ identities. Researchers from the Pontifical Read more
Pope Francis says the Vatican archives on Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII will be opened next year. Pius’s role – helping or ignoring the plight of Jews during the holocaust – has been much debated. On the one hand, he has often been criticised by Jews for his apparent silence during the holocaust. On the other, Read more
The Nazis stole thousands of artworks from museums and castles in Poland during World War II. Many have been lost forever. But some of the looted pieces are now being repatriated. One of these has been returned by Ulrich Gauer, whose grandfather was with the occupying German army in Poland during the second world war. Read more
Aborting sick and disabled children reflects a Nazi eugenics mentality, says Pope Francis. Speaking to members of the Forum of Family Associations on Saturday, Francis decried the “fashion” for prenatal testing of an unborn child’s health with a view to aborting those that are sick or disabled. He told the Forum this practice is “the Read more
France has returned three 16th-century oil paintings to the descendants of a German-Jewish couple. The couple sold the artwork to flee the Nazis. On Monday, France’s culture minister, Francoise Nyssen, handed the paintings over to Henrietta Schubert and Chris Bromberg, who are descendants of Herta and Henry Bromberg. The handover was made during an official Read more
A French priest has received a human rights award for research uncovering millions of previously unaccounted-for Nazi genocide victims. Father Patrick Desbois was awarded the Lantos Foundation’s Human Rights Prize last week for being a “vital voice standing up for the values of decency, dignity, freedom, and justice.” The prize is named after a Holocaust Read more
Nazi holocaust plans and executions were hidden from staff of top-ranking Nazis, Joseph Goebbels personal secretary, Brunhild Pomsel says. Pomsel has opened up about her life working for Adolf Hitler’s infamous minister of propaganda — and insists the mass extermination of Jews was carefully hidden from her and her co-workers. “I know no one ever Read more
Let me tell you where I was when I learned about the Iran deal: I was leaving Treblinka. My wife and I have just returned from a journey to Poland for parents of United Synagogue Youth members. We visited Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz and Lublin — with pilgrimages to the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and Treblinka. We visited the Polin Museum of Read more
Wartime Nazi Christmas decorations have sparked outrage after appearing on an online auction site. The four Christmas tree baubles, described as “fancy,” are red with the Nazi Swastika painted in the centre of a white circle. For sale on the Czech Republic website Aukro, the seller – who identifies himself as Anti95 and is from Read more
They left at night, thousands of Jewish families, setting out by car, bicycle, streetcar or train. They left the Danish cities they had long called home and fled to the countryside, which was unfamiliar to many of them. Along the way, they found shelter in the homes of friends or business partners, squatted in abandoned Read more