The Anti-Defamation League called the announcement by Archbishop Antonio Franco, the Vatican’s ambassador to Israel, that he would not take part in a Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem “inappropriate and insulting.” Franco said he would avoid the memorial on Monday due to a photo caption in one exhibit, which he says accuses Pope Pius XII of ignoring the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust.
ADL head Abe Foxman called Franco’s response to the caption “unnecessarily insulting and unbecoming.” Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, called on the Vatican to release material documenting the period of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. If the records are made public, he said, historians will be able to determine what Pope Pius did or did not do to help Jews during the Holocaust.
ADL head Abe Foxman called Franco’s response to the caption “unnecessarily insulting and unbecoming.” Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, called on the Vatican to release material documenting the period of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. If the records are made public, he said, historians will be able to determine what Pope Pius did or did not do to help Jews during the Holocaust.