"The Vatican main purpose during the Second World War was to assist the victims of the conflict, the prisoners and the missing soldiers with a network providing humanitarian aid regardless of the race and the creed of the recipients. The help given to Jews was part of this action." This is what the historian Matteo Luigi Napolitano, from the University of Molise, said today at the opening of the Vatican exhibition on "Pius XII: the man and his pontificate (1876-1959)" marking the 50th anniversary of Pope Pacelli’s death. "1,007 of the 1,259 Jews arrested by Kappler on 16 October 1943, were taken to Auschwitz. But 8,500 of the approximately 9,600 Jews who were in Rome at the time (according to the Israeli consul Pinchas Lapide) found refuge in convents, religious institutes, parishes, pontifical universities and in the Papal Apartments themselves." Mr Napolitano added that "the Jerusalem Zionist archives and those of Yad Vashem themselves are giving evidence to the actions taken by the Vatican." The President for the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, Mgr Walter Brandmuller, said the exhibition Pope Benedict XVI requested "can give this great Pope the recognition he deserves", he who was "much loved by his contemporaries, regardless of their religious beliefs." ” ” ” ” ” ” ” “
