ROME (AFP)---Pope Pius XII, who the Catholic Church may beatify, tried to save European Jews from Nazi extermination during World War II, according to a conference on the pontiff in Rome that concluded Wednesday.
The symposium, organised by a US-based group on inter-religious dialogue called the Pave the Way Foundation, brought together Catholics and Jews to defend Pius XII.
The foundation claims the former leader of the Roman Catholic Church was
the victim of a sinister "myth" to the effect that he was insensitive to the fate of Jews terrorised by Germany's Nazi regime and its death camps.
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Pius XII served as pope from 1939-1958 and his role during the war is viewed as controversial. Many historians accuse him of staying silent and doing little to intervene during the Holocaust, when the Nazis killed some six million Jews in Europe.
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The group collected documentation aiming to prove Pius XII intervened publicly as well as in secret to save Jews and to encourage Catholic institutions to shelter them.
These documents include diplomatic telegrams and testimony of people saved thanks to his intervention, according to the symposium.
The foundation is asking that Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, withdraw from its permanent exhibition a text that the group considers defamatory towards Pius XII.
The symposium was held on the 50th anniversary of the death of Pius XII. The current pope, Benedict XVI, will celebrate a mass on October 5 in the Vatican's Saint Peter's Basilica to mark the event.
During his visit to Paris last week, Pope Benedict XVI reminded representatives from France's Jewish community that Pius XII had called Nazism a period of "darkness".
In February, the Vatican said it would not block steps under way for the beatification of Pius XII, despite criticism from many historians and numerous Jewish associations about the former pontiff's attitude towards the Holocaust and the killing of six million Jews during World War II.