Again about a certain historical lie...

[fpb]

This is a passage from the introduction to Notes on the Diplomatic History of the
Jewish Question, by Lucien Wolf, written in 1919 for the use of the Versailles Peace Conference:

Besides helping to indicate the lines on which Jewish action should travel in this matter, the State Papers here quoted may also serve to remind the Plenipotentiaries themselves that the Jewish Question is far from being a subsidiary issue in the Reconstruction of Europe, that they have a great tradition of effort and achievement in regard to it, and that this tradition, apart from the high merits of the task itself, imposes upon them the solemn obligation of solving the Question completely and finally now that the opportunity of doing so presents itself free from all restraints of a selfish and calculating diplomacy. It is not only that the edifice of Religious Liberty in Europe has to be completed, but also that some six millions of human beings have to be freed from political and civil disabilities and social and economic restrictions which for calculated cruelty have no parallels outside the Dark Ages. The Peace Conference will have accomplished relatively little if a shred of this blackest of all European scandals is allowed to survive its deliberations.

[vi]This collection does not pretend to be complete. The aim has been only to illustrate adequately the main lines of the theme with a view to practical questions which may arise in connection with the Peace Conference. American documents have been only sparely quoted, for the reason that the American Jewish Historical Society has already published a very full collection of such documents. (Cyrus Adler: "Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States.") The many generous interventions of the Vatican on behalf of persecuted Jews have also been omitted partly for a similar reason (see Stern: "Urkundliche Beiträge über die Stellung der Päpste zu den Juden") and partly because they have very little direct bearing on the diplomatic activities of the Great Powers during the period under discussion.


Guess what? There really does seem to be a tradition of "Hitler's Popes". I for one had never even heard that the Vatican had ever intervened in favour of Jews before and during the First World War (when the main butcher was Russia, not Germany). Guess there are things that are not mentioned in polite society.

Comments

Roman Jews

[joetexx.livejournal.com]

Will Durant was quite emphatic on the degree to which the Popes protected the Jewish comminities, particaularly that in Rome, which had the oldest continuimg Jewish presence in the West for a very good reason. I believe out host, Mr Barbierei, had touched on the subject more than once.

"Ghetto" comes from the borgetto district in old Rome which was to Jews to live in under their own laws, IIRC.

Re: Roman Jews

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Um, in Italy it is held that it comes from the "dump" (Ghetto, from gettare - to dump, to throw away) to which the Jews were restricted in Venice. Anyway, I have posted about the common history of Popes and Jews in Rome: http://community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/1203.html