SOURCE: "Was Silence the Only Solution?" in The Saturday Review, New York, Vol. XLIX, No. 21, May 21, 1966, pp. 26-7.

Lewy is a German-born American historian, educator, and nonfiction writer. In the following excerpt, he discusses Pius XII and the Third Reich and the reasons for the Pope's decision not to speak out against Germany when presented with evidence of the Nazi's "Final Solution," the attempt to exterminate European Jewry.

The attitude of Pope Pius XII toward Nazi Germany and the reasons for his silence in the face of the murder of six million Jews have been the subject of extensive and often acrimonious debate ever since the young German playwright Rolf Hochhuth chose this problem as the theme for The Deputy.

In Saul Friedländer's Pius XII and the Third Reich we now have a source of valuable information that generates light rather than heat. The author is associate...