The Vatican, by request of Pope Francis, released the digitized files of more than 2,700 Jews who sought help through Vatican channels to escape Nazi persecution before and during the Holocaust, according to an announcement by the Vatican.
The files are hosted on the website for the Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State’s Section for Relations with States and International Organizations. The archive hosts a photographic reproduction of each document and an analytical inventory that names all those requesting help.
The petitions could be for obtaining visas or passports for expatriation, asylum, reunification with a family member, release from detention, transfers from one concentration camp to another, news about a deported person, food or clothing, financial support, and spiritual support, among other things.
Unfortunately, as can be seen from documentation, many of the requests were not granted "due to various types of problems." The attempts at assistance have been successful in some cases, but in most cases the outcome remains "unknown."
“Making the digitized version of the entire Jews/Jewish people 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," Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, said in a June 23 article for Vatican News.
"At the same time, it will allow scholars and anyone interested, to freely examine this special archival heritage, from a distance,” he added.
“Making the digitized version of the entire Jews/Jewish people 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."
Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher
In 2020, when this archive was first opened to researchers, Vatican officials described the documents as “Pacelli’s List,” using the family name of Pope Pius XII to allude to “Schindler’s List.”
Did they do enough?
Critics of Venerable Pius XII have said he did not do enough to oppose Nazism or to help Jews during the Holocaust. His defenders point to the pope’s record before and during the war, including significant evidence of Vatican assistance for Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis.
The incredibly low amount of approved requests for help seen in the documents say otherwise, however, the Vatican may have received many requests, but receiving and filing a cry for help isn't the same as providing tangible assistance.
Pope denounces Nazis
Pope Francis received an international delegation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights group that counts 400,000 member families in the US on June 22. The delegation presented to the pope a copy of an original report authored and signed by Nazi leader Adolph Hitler in which he called for the destruction of the Jewish people. The document is dated Sept. 16, 1919, long before the Nazis took power.
Pope Francis stressed the importance of “recalling history so it can be of service to the future.” He denounced anti-Semitic attacks. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, he said the 1919 letter from Hitler showed that the Nazi leader did not care about the German people but only about promoting a dangerous ideology.
The list can be found here.