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and children." The commandant could scarcely beli e it. He hesitat . '1⁄2Jl rig ht. Go with em."
Father Maximilian and the other nine were rown into the star tion bunker. F m at moment on they we allowed no ing to eat or drink. But ins ad of the cries of anguish at usually came m the bunkers, the guards heard singing- mns led by Father Maximilian. Fi nally, on the eve of the Assumption, only ur prisoners we le . A guard entered, to inject the survi rs with ca olic acid kill them make room r more victims. er Maximilian stretched out his es ess a . He died in peace, his ce shining with l e r Christ. The man he saved lived to retu to his family.
The Nazi exte ination of Jews and o ers (sometimes re rred as the Holocaust) has given rise an a ck on e Ca olic Church in general and Pope Pius XII in particular. The Pope is a acked r not plicitly condemning e Holocaust and ereby being in a way responsible r the deaths of millions of Jews.
But the cts of history show that e Pope was rking against e Nazis and r e bene t of e Jews and that his decisions were bene cial to Christians and Jews al e, more bene cial in ct that an outright condem nation of the Holocaust.
Pope Pius XII was an experienced diplomat and did every ing he could to res ll e war. A er the invasion of Poland and the institution of persecution there, Pius XII w te Summi Pont catus, denouncing e dei cation of e sta and course to a s. Heydrich rbade publica on of e en clical in Nazi-held terri ries. Pius X so permi d Vatican dio and L'Osse tore Romano ( e o cial Va can n spaper) in rm the world of Nazi atrocities in Poland. The persecution of the Church re
e
was much worse than in Germany, and the Nazis wouldn't let Vatican o cials conduct relief work in Poland.
In Germany, co ents and monasteries were bei closed, Catholic publications and organizations supp ssed. The Nuncio in Be in was rbidden permission to visit POW camps.
Thus we can clearly see at e Va can d the Nazis were to lly opposed one another and that the Vatican made its assessment of Hitler clear. No explicit condemnation of persecution of Jews as such had been issued, but no objective observer could have any doubts as to where the C rch stood.
But Pius X was to do more than that. In his Christmas 1942 message,
