Holocaust victims want UN probe of Vatican

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Holocaust victims want UN probe of Vatican

Thursday, June 29, 2000

WORLD | Already under fire over its permanent observer status at the United Nations, the Vatican is facing new challenges from Serb and Jewish survivors of Nazi atrocities committed during World War II.

The survivors, mostly from Croatia – whose government was under Nazi control during the war – are asking UN officials to investigate claims that the Vatican and a Roman Catholic monastic order collaborated with the Nazi-installed regime.

An open letter, issued through the group’s lawyers, said the alleged victims are filing a class-action lawsuit against the Vatican Bank and the Franciscan Order. The group has appealed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to insist the Vatican open its wartime archives or face "appropriate action" to encourage compliance.

The Vatican enjoys permanent observer status at the UN while Franciscans International is a recognized non-governmental organization at the world body, reports said Thursday.

Reports today said that papers have been served on Vatican Bank and the Franciscans, and would soon be served on the Croatian Liberation Movement, which, sources said, was understood to be the "direct successors to the Ustashe" - the wartime fascist organization which ruled Croatia.

The suit alleges that gold and other valuables – worth about $170 million today – was looted from Croatia by the Ustashe and protected by the Vatican during World War II.

The Vatican has consistently denied it had anything to do with governing regimes imposed by the Nazis during the war, especially in a collaborative sense. Defenders of the Vatican say that Pope Pius XII spoke out in Christmas Eve homilies during 1941 and 1942 against the extermination of Jews, and point out that thousands of Catholic – and Protestant – clergy were murdered by Nazis. ***