Report: “Vatican Releases Thousands of Holocaust-Era Letters and Requests Online”

Pope Francis orders the online publication of 170 volumes of its Jewish files from the recently opened Pope Pius XII archives, the Vatican announces, amid renewed debate about the legacy of its World War II-era pope.

The documentation contains 2,700 files of requests for Vatican help from Jewish groups and families, many of them baptized Catholics, so not actually practicing Jews anymore. The files were held in the Secretariat of State’s archives and contain requests for papal intervention to avoid Nazi deportation, to obtain liberation from concentration camps, or help finding family members.

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From Vatican News

As of June 2022, the “Ebrei” series will be available for consultation on the internet in its virtual version, freely accessible to all on the website of the Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State – Section for Relations with States and International Organizations.

In addition to the photographic reproduction of each individual document, a file with the analytical inventory of the series, including all the names of the recipients of help reported in the documents, will also be available online. Seventy percent of the material will initially be available online, which will be followed with the latest volumes currently being worked on.

As for the request of Werner Barasch, the majority of the over 2,700 cases that reached the Secretariat of State, which today narrate the many stories of attempts to flee racial persecution, leave us with baited breath, and sources with further information cannot always be found. Making the digitalized version of the entire “Ebrei” series available on the internet will allow the descendants of those who asked for help, to find traces of their loved ones from any part of the world. At the same time, it will allow scholars and anyone interested, to freely examine this special archival heritage, from a distance.