Foundation Hails Myth-Debunking Book on Pius XII
Says Rabbi Reveals "Other Side of the Coin"

BUENOS AIRES, AUG. 29, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The founder of the Raoul Wallenberg
Foundation said a new book written by an American Rabbi on Pope Pius XII reveals
another side of the debate surrounding the Pontiff.

Baruj Tenembaum, speaking at an interconfessional meeting in Buenos Aires, said that
David Dalin's "The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis"
demonstrates that how the Holy Father rescued many Jews from the Holocaust.

The Argentine-born Jew who established the Wallenberg Foundation and the Angelo
Roncalli Committee, said that this book reveals "the other side of the coin" of the
Pope's relationship with Jews at the height of World War II.

Dalin, professor at Ave Maria University in Florida, analyzes and documents in his
book the deportation of Rome's Jews to Auschwitz in 1943.

He includes in his book the Pope's protest made to Ernst von Weizsacker, the German
ambassador to the Vatican, through his secretary of state, Cardinal Luigi Maglione.

The cardinal asked the ambassador that they "try to rescue the innocent who suffer
for belonging to a specific race."

In response to the cardinal's request, the German ambassador gave orders for the
deportation to be halted; and the Pope instructed that the Vatican be opened to hide
Rome's Jews, who installed themselves in convents and monasteries of the Vatican,
according Dalin's sources.

Of Rome's 5,715 Jews registered by Germany for deportation, 4,715 were sheltered in
150 Catholic institutions, and of the total, 477 were in Vatican sanctuaries. The
British ambassador to the Vatican confirmed this fact.

Servant of peace

Dalin also mentions in his book the message sent by Golda Meir, Israel's minister of
foreign affairs, on the occasion of the death of Pius XII: "We mourn. We have lost a
servant of peace. The Pope's voice during Nazism was clear and in defense of the
victims."

Tenembaum clarified that he assumes no role whatsoever in this discussion, but
"calls everyone to seek and proclaim the truth, with no prejudices: Only the truth,
not sticking to preconceptions or spreading slander! Let us follow the path of
reconciliation with open minds!"

He added: "The rhetorical reiteration does not certify conjectures or guarantee
truths; we Jews wish to recall and defend the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth."