Making it official: Pius XII personally saved about 15,000 Jews through his own personal efforts.
Pope Pacelli’s support for the Jews went so far that the Papal Palatine Guard, a kind of bodyguard for the Pope – like today’s Swiss Guard – was involved in fights with the Waffen-SS, with Wehrmacht soldiers, to hide Jews in the Roman Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
Oskar Schindler is credited with saving 1200 Jews.
I read a book written by two priests? with access to the archives so no surprise to me (written quite a few years ago) .
I spent this afternoon at the deportation museum in Marseilles including watching a 55 minutes of film of the personal testimony by people who had survived Auschwitz and other horrors as well as another short film of the deportation of the inhabitants of Quartier Saint Jean, some of whom were also sent to extermination camps.
Ordinary men and women in late middle age telling extraordinary stories of unbearable horror, suffering and loss.