WWII-era letter suggests Vatican knew of Holocaust atrocities

A newly revealed letter from the Vatican archives suggests that World War II-era Pope Pius XII was aware thousands of Jews were being killed in gas chambers in occupied Poland, undercutting earlier Vatican arguments justifying the pope’s wartime silence on the Holocaust.

Following decades of pressure from Jewish organizations and historians, the Vatican in 2020 opened its secret archives on the wartime pope, who headed the Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958. Pius XII has since become one of the most controversial pontiffs for not publicly condemning the Nazis during the war, with critics dubbing him “Hitler’s Pope.” Others, including the Vatican, have argued his diplomacy saved lives in part by preventing a Nazi backlash.