Holocaust Kidnapping – Pope Pius XII Implicated.
“Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.” Confucius
Thanks to all who reached out after my last blog post about my injuries. I was deeply moved by everyone’s care and concern.
But now, back to the Holocaust.
[image error]
Fritz and Anni Finaly were a Jewish family from Austria. Fritz was a medical doctor; Anni a housemaker. When the German Anschluss occurred in 1938, they escaped to southeastern France. In 1941 and 1942, they gave birth to two sons, Robert and Gérald. Though it was dangerous, both sons were circumcised according to Jewish law on the 8th day. In February of 1944, when the Nazis began rounding up Jews in that area, Fritz and Anni placed their boys in a nursery in a nearby town and asked a friend to look after them. Four days later, Fritz and Anni were taken to Auschwitz and murdered.
The story of what happened to their two sons sounds a bit like the Davinci Code. A recent article in the Atlantic by David Kertzer tells the tale.
The friend was terrified, and she took the boys to the convent of Notre-Dame de Sion, in Grenoble, France, hoping that the nuns would hide them. “Deeming the children too young to care for,” Kertzer explains, “the sisters took them to the local municipal nursery school, whose director, Antoinette Brun, middle-aged and unmarried, agreed to look after them.”
After the war, in 1945, one of Fritz’s surviving sisters wrote to Brun, thanking her for her help and informing her that she had secured immigration permits to New Zealand for her two nephews, now ages 3 and 4. Brun was evasive and did not transfer the children.
A year later, one of Fritz’s other sisters, traveled to Grenoble to attempt to retrieve her nephews. Confronted in person, Brun refused to release the boys. “‘The Jews are not grateful,’” she said. She indicated that she had no intention to ever give the boys back.
In early 1948, Brun pulled a fast one – without permission by the family, she had the boys baptized. This meant, Kertzer writes, that “under canon law they would now be considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be Catholics, and under longtime Church doctrine could not be returned to their Jewish relatives.” This was not going well.
The sisters went to court. One of the sisters was appointed guardian of Robert and Gérald and court orders were issued for their return. Brun ignored the orders and enlisted some Nuns to keep the boys hidden from the French authorities. They gave them fake names and put them in Catholic boarding school in Marseille. By this time, the boys were 10 and 11. Faced with the authorities searching France for the boys, the Nuns with the help of some Monks, secreted the boys to a Catholic Boarding school in Spain. The boys later reported that in Catholic school they were taught that “Jews are destined for damnation.”
The Nun and Monks involved were arrested and put in jail.
The story of the kidnapped Finaly boys was huge in France in 1953. One hundred and seventy-eight newspaper articles were written about it. Pressure grew.
Negotiations between Rabbis in France and the Catholic church ensued. It took some time, but ultimately, Robert and Gérald were released and flew with their Aunt to Israel. Gérald, who changed his name to Gad, pursued a career in the Israeli military and later as an engineer. Robert became a doctor.
So, what’s new about the Finaly boys’ story? What’s new is that Vatican archives were recently made public and the documentation shows that the authorization to keep these boys from their family was approved by Cardinals, Archbishops, and extended all the way to the Pope. The archbishop reached out to the Pope with the following question:
“’In these conditions, should one be advised to refuse, come what may, to return the children, who belong to the Church by their baptism and whose faith, in all likelihood, would scarcely be able to resist the influence of the Jewish milieu were they to come back?’ The matter, the archbishop concluded, is “extremely urgent.”
Though the Pope’s involvement was ordered to be kept a secret, a memo, bearing a “purple stamp marking an official papal decision,” is part of the archives and reads that “positive approval cannot be given.” The Atlantic Article explains that the “Pope felt that the agreement did not offer sufficient assurances that the boys would not come under Jewish influence and revert to their parents’ religion.” The same memo also recognized the “public-relations disaster that the Church faced if no agreement were to be reached.”
After reaching an impasse in the final negotiations, the Pope “reluctantly” gave his approval to release the boys. Kertzer writes that the Pope decided that “prolonging the concealment of the Finaly boys would prove disastrous for the Catholic Church in France.” The date was March 23, 1956, the boys were 11 and 12 years old.
This story makes me wonder how many Jewish children had no one left after the war to come and find them. A sad thought.
