Constantine's Sword Page #7

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While it may be unfair

to call him Hitler's Pope...

it's not too much to call him

Hitler's cardinal.

The New Pope is revising this history.

While he was here In Cologne...

Benedict invoked the memory

of Edith Stein as a catholic hero...

but fell far short of telling her real story.

Edith Stein was a brilliant young

German Jewish philosopher.

She studied the problems

of despair and empathy.

In 1922,

she converted to Catholicism.

Eleven years later, she entered

the Carmelite Convent here in Cologne...

and took the name Sister Benedicta

of the Cross.

Edith Stein was said to have written

a letter of warning...

to Pope Pious the 11th,

right after Hitler took power.

There is one nun still alive

who might know if this is true.

Sister Amata came to the convent here,

just as Sister Benedicta was leaving.

I ask her if she knew anything

about the letter.

I would be very grateful to see it.

Sister Amata told me as I was leaving...

that the Vatican had released

the letter only a year ago.

She said I was the first person

to ask to see it.

Edith Stein fled from Cologne

to another convent in the Netherlands.

But in August 1942,

she was arrested there anyway...

and put on a train to the east...

nine years after she wrote

to the Pope.

Holy Father!

As a child of the Jewish people

who by the grace of God

has been for the last eleven years

a child of the Roman Catholic Church,

I take the liberty to spell out

what oppresses millions of Germans.

For years on end Nazi leaders

have preached anti-Semitism.

Now that they have put their hands

on the powers of government,

the seeds of hate have sprouted.

For weeks now...

not only Jews, but thousands

of faithful Roman Catholics,

have been waiting for the Church

to raise its voice.

Isn't the extermination campaign

pursued against those of Jewish blood...

an insult of the most holy humanity

of our redeemer?

All of us who are faithful children

of the Church...

and who face events in Germany

with open eyes...

fear the worst for the standing of the church

should the silence wear on

Asking at your Holiness's feet.

Dr. Edith Stein.

So Edith Stein could be buried there.

As I was leaving,

I saw a nun in the distance.

She was joined by more of her sisters.

They were coming to remember Edith Stein

at the place where she had died.

When the church named her

a saint in 1998...

her letter to the Pope was not mentioned.

Nor was the entry about it in her diary.

"December 18th 1938

I know that my letter was delivered

to the Holy Father.

I never received a reply.

I have often wondered

whether this letter...

might have come to his mind

once in a while.

For in the years that followed...

that which I had predicted

for the future in Germany

came true step by step."

In the course of my journey...

I realised I couldn't help

but trace the story back to Rome.

That's where I found the episode that made

me as a Christian feel most ashamed.

Italy's fascists leaders instituted

racist laws in 1938.

The restrictions on Rome's Jews...

were a haunting reminder

of Pope Carafe's edict in 1555.

Jews are forbidden to attend

or to work in any Italian school.

Jews cannot own land.

Jews cannot employ Christian servants.

Jews cannot serve in public office.

Jews are forbidden

to marry non-Jews.

In another set of restrictions a year later...

Jews were banned from skilled professions.

To attend services,

they had to do so in secret.

They gathered in a small room,

near the old ghetto.

Jews were scared and worried...

and in '38 my father sensed

that our lives were in danger.

The Nazis pretended they were

bargaining with Jews here.

They collected, I don't remember

exactly how many kilos of gold.

It is a day that I remembered perfectly.

16th October 1943.

It was Saturday morning and raining.

I went to the smoke shop by myself...

but suddenly my father showed up.

He run over and when he reached me,

he told me to come away with him.

He said the Germans

are rounding up all the Jews.

The trucks came

and they started rounding up people.

People started running away.

They went along the staircases and grabbed

men, women, children, infants

They carried them out on trucks.

This was the end of their lives here...

where they had been living for 2,000 years.

On May 16th, we arrived in Auschwitz.

Right away, they started yelling

and hitting anyone...

who moved slowly with their clubs.

Then we saw my sister and my mother.

We ran towards them.

My mother hugged us all,

she was crying.

Her face was completely wet with tears.

I remembered her hug, mom's hug.

With my face against hers

getting wet from mom's tears.

Then she said,

"I will never see you again."

Which would be my mother's last words.

If on October 16th, when the Jews

were awaiting deportation,

not 300 yards from the Vatican,

if the Pope had only taken the trouble

to step out through those Vatican gates,

even without saying anything,

there was that great gesture

of his in 19th July 1943...

when Rome was bombed...

and he went to the ruins...

and didn't say a word.

He just opened his arms

in the sign of a cross.

If he had done something similar

when the Jews were arrested on 16th October,

I think there would never have been

a deportation.

If the Pope had spoken clearly,

what difference would it have made?

How does this history continue

to live with you?

He was very lucky man

and he always thanks our God,

the God of Abraham...

for the lucky chance that we have.

Nearly two decades

passed after the war...

without the church taking any responsibility

for what had happened.

Then Pope John the 23rd was elected...

just months before I met him,

and he so changed my life.

He was this old guy...

and they chose him as the compromise.

He was just going to be there

for a while and die. That was the plan.

He blew them away...

because the first thing did was he said

he was going to have a new Vatican Counsel.

A reforming counsel to as he said

would open the windows of the Church.

Pope John died...

but the bishops went on and approved

the change that mattered most.

They called it "Nostra Aetate."

Meaning "In our time."

Nostra Aetate went right

to the heart of the problem.

This document said no more saying

the Jews are Christ killers.

You can't say that because now

we understand where that charge led.

But Nostra Aetate is hardly known

in the Christian world.

In our own time...

Pope John Paul the 2nd was still fighting

the battle to wipe away our hatred...

that had become second nature

after 2000 years.

John Paul did what he could...

but in Poland I was shocked to see

what had been erected after the Pope's visit...

Right in front of the wall of Auschwitz.

As if Christians was trying to claim

the Holocaust for themselves.

If Jesus had died here...

it would not have been

as the saviour of the world...

but as an unknown Jew,

with a number on his arm.

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