Jewish groups threaten legal action against Vatican

[emad]

Haaretz
By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - U.S. Jewish groups threatened legal action against the Vatican on Thursday, saying the Roman Catholic church has stonewalled their requests for information about Jewish children placed in convents during World War II to protect them from the Nazis.

David Schoen, an Alabama-based attorney, said Thursday that if the church does not agree to open up the records within a week, the Coalition of Jewish Concerns-Amcha would turn to the legal system for help in identifying the missing children.

Speaking to a news conference outside the Vatican's embassy, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld noted the commemoration ceremony taking place in Poland to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

But, he said, "as long as the children of all those murdered at Auschwitz do not know their true identity, and as long as the murdered at Auschwitz have descendants who do know their true lineage, how can we truly say that Auschwitz has been liberated. We want our chidren back."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/533017.html

[Ian David]

1. Ahh, The Vatican... always so concerned about protecting families n/t

nominate for home page

[arwalden]

2. Their ResistenceTo These Reasonable Requests...

... make no sense at all. Why wouldn't they want to cooperate?

[yellowcanine]

22. Because they raised them as Catholics. A different kind of "ethnic

cleansing."

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[jdj]

4. I love this, a Jewish Attorney from Alabama.

That's awesome to read.

I wonder why they won't come clean about this...what would they have done with these children?

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[jdj]

6. why won't they come clean then?

*earnestness still on*

[emad]

7. Not in Karl Rove's epic blockbuster script????

Or maybe because the last reworking of an old fave, Mel Gibson's The Passion, made enough $$$$$$$$$$$$$s...

[Ian David]

11. OK, I'm curious now: What's with all the deleted posts?

I don't want details. There's no point in repeating things that were deleted becausen they were certainly deleted for a reason.

I'm just curious to know in general terms if they were anti-catholic, anti-jewish, or simply personal?

[sabra]

13. I am guessing all of the above and more...

[Ian David]

12. Of course there are Jewish attorneys in Alabama. I know both of them.

:)

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

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[Ian David]

14. More information re: Jewish Children kidnapped by The Vatican

First, I'll point out that this isn't unique to the vatican.

We did the same thing here in American to the Indians. And the Australians did the same thing to the Aboroginese.

(On edit: I think it happened in Canada, too).

On the other hand, in early Jewish cultrure (pre-Christian) there was a law that if you accidentally killed the parents of a non-Jewish child, then you had to raise that child yourself in the religion of his or her parents.

And I'm not sure, but I think Islam might have had a similar law.

Vatican had policy on Jewish kids
Pioneer Press (subscription), MN - Jan 9, 2005
... The document underscores the sanctity with which the Vatican treated the ... had limited success in recovering Jewish children who had been adopted by non-Jews ...
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/10599981.htm

Letter Reveals Vatican Policy on Children of Holocaust
... XII, denied that the letter came from the Vatican. ... The letter stated that Jewish
children whose parents were killed during the Holocaust "should not be ...
http://www.isurvived.org/InTheNews/letter-Vatican_Policy.html

Letter Reveals Vatican Policy on Children of Holocaust
... XII, denied that the letter came from the Vatican. ... The letter stated that Jewish
children whose parents were killed during the Holocaust "should not be ...
http://www.isurvived.org/InTheNews/letter-Vatican_Policy.html

Pope Pius IX
... the pleas of Edgardo's parents, Pio Nono adopted the child ... WW II, which purported
to represent the Vatican's official view that Jewish children who were ...
http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/pio_nono.html

[Ian David]

15. Related thread in Archive

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1106326

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[sherilocks]

18. Will there ever be a DU discussion about

Jews or Judaism where someone doesn't feel compelled to inject some comment about Israel and Palestine? Gee thee to the I/P forum.

[Behind the Aegis]

20. Makes no sense

Your post makes NO sense. These are AMERICAN Jews, not Israelis nor Israeli Jews. It is nothing more than subterfuge!

[Name removed]

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[sherilocks]

19. No the Jews are not interested in the souls

of these children, their families are interested in finding out what happened to them and if they are still alive. The grown children also have a right to know who their biological families are.

[VegasWolf]

21. So why does the Vatican not simply release this info? n/t

[sherilocks]

23. That's my question also n/t

[moobu2]

24. It could have something to do with other possible crimes

Like WWll art theft, Vatican banking and tax crimes during and after WWll, the issuing of Vatican passports to Nazi leaders after World War
II so that they could escape to south America, state treasurey theft after WWll, sexual abuse by priests (that didn't all of a sudden begin recently) and many other issues they've been accused of over the years.

It has to be that they don't want other information to come out else they would open the Vatican records to help these people find out who they were and where they came from.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[mutus_frutex]

33. And you keep deleting them..

Are you going to delete this one too? That has no content? What was wrong with the other one?

[Book Lover]

26. Good and good luck

Though the RC church doesn't seem to be afraid of going into the courtroom, the courts are the only recourse to the stonewalling. With lots of skill and luck, the information will be extracted out of the grip of the archives sometime this century.

[jmc777]

27. Have these Jewish groups ever thanked the RC church...

....for saving the children in question? :shrug:

[henrik larssonisking]

29. good point

i have no idea of the motives for witholding the info, it could be that they have incomplete records, or they may have sworn to the adopying families that the info would never be released.

[fryguy]

31. Not to start a flame war or anything, but....

My understanding of Jewish law is that when a Jew converts or otherwise turns away from his/her faith it is as if they died. Therefore in a sense the children were not "saved". They're bodies might have continued to live, but with the loss of their Jewish identities they are just as dead to the Jewish history and their ancestry as if they had perished in the camps. (You might remember the scenes in movies where a son tells his father he's marrying a non-Jew, at which point the family sits Shivah for him. Same idea.)

Keep in mind, I don't necesarily support this point of view and I'm digging way way back in my Jewish studies, so please correct me if I'm off-base.

[fryguy]

28. the world hates us jews already......

now we're gonna piss them off more by suing the pope - well at least we got enough lawyers in our ranks....

/sarcasm

[happyslug]

30. How fast can you recover the records requested?

Remember the Records are in countries like France, Poland, Hungary, Belgium etc. Italy was late at shipping the Jews to the Camps so you have few records in Italy (Through some).

Thus almost all of the records will be in the local Parishes. Most have NOT computerized their lists. This is further complicated by the fact that the parties to the action made an effort to cover up the Jewish background of the children (Remember Nazi antisemitism was NOT religious in nature but on Blood lines thus the mere fact that you had a Jewish Grandfather was enough to send you to the camp, for example Senator Kerry had he been captured by the Nazi would have been sent to the camp for he is a "Jew" as the Nazi's defined "Jew").

Thus you have dispersed records, hand written parish books (Which were NOT Cross referenced) AND a deliberate policy of covering up any evidence the Jewish background of a child (To protect the Child from the Nazis) two months to get the "Records" is insufficient time. It may take years for any records to be found.

My point is it is simply unreasonable to ask the Church for these records and than two months later say the Church is slow at providing the records. I suspect Grandstanding for the better approach would be to set up a committee to look at the records at the Parish level and once the Committee is set up and adopted a methodology on the search contact the Vatican on assistance on looking at the Church's Records from 1940-1946. If the Church than refuses to co-operate than the critics of the Church could show the Church is the one being unreasonable. Two months is not even enough time to start the process on HOW to look at the Records, What records one has to look at (and what records one does NOT get to look at), get co-operation not only of the Vatican but the Various Bishops of the Countries where most of such adoptions occurred etc.

If these speakers really wanted to address this issue that is what they be doing instead of grandstanding about how bad is the Vatican. The Vatican may be bad but at least give the Vatican a Chance to show its refusal is based on fear instead of impossibility.

[henrik larssonisking]

32. thats what i said

but unlike yourself, after i write ten words my brain just shuts off, thanks :)