On May 13, the man who smeared Pope Pius XII died. Rolf Hochhuth’s 1963 play, The Deputy, is what started the lie that the pope did nothing to save Jews during the Holocaust. It was this fictional account that poisoned the minds of millions.
We learned in 2007 from a senior defector from Soviet intelligence that the play was created by communists working in the Kremlin.
After World War II, Jews from all over the United States, Europe, and Israel praised Pius for his incredible efforts to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Indeed, he did more to help Jews than any other religious or secular leader.
Those who praised the pope, before the Hochhuth Soviet-crafted disinformation campaign, included Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, the ADL, the Synagogue Council of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, the American Jewish Committee, the World Jewish Congress, and many others. Leonard Bernstein of the New York Philharmonic was so moved that he called for a moment of silence during one of his performances when he learned the pope died in 1958.
Hochhuth is dead. We hope his lies die with him.
