ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how Catholic circles have remembered the Second World War and, in particular, how they have interpreted Pius XII’s neutral stance and his silence over the plight of the Jews during and after the war. It demonstrates how, post-war, some circles actively urged the Church to abandon its traditional anti-Judaism which, according to them, had contributed to weakening the Church’s reaction to Nazi anti-Semitism before and during the Second World War. It is argued that it is because this change was already initiated and gaining momentum that it was not derailed by the controversy that followed the play Der Stellvertreter (1963; The Deputy) by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as being indifferent to the Holocaust.
