Everywhere, John made a point of meeting and befriending non-Catholics. While in Turkey he helped rescue and provide for Jews escaping from Nazi Germany, and in France after the war he recoiled in horror when he saw films of Jewish bodies piled high at Buchenwald and Auschwitz: “How could this be? The mystical body of Christ!” When a group of Jews visited him after he became Pope he walked up to them and simply repeated the biblical greeting: “I am Joseph, your brother.”
