The Pope and Abe Foxman

Haaretz got Abe Foxman, head of the ADL, to speak about his childhood and the tug of war between his parents, Holocaust survivors who had given him up to a Catholic woman (their housekeeper) before being transported to the camps, and this caretaker who had him baptized and adamantly refused to return him to them when the war was over.

He outlines how they tried to take him back and how fiercely she resisted. The recent exposure of Pope Pius’s post-war letter instructing that Jewish children who had been baptized must remain in Catholic hands and not given up has finally given Foxman an answer to this perplexing question that had plagued his parents, and apparently him as well, throughout their lives as to why this woman who had treated him so well (and probably saved his life) would then act so horribly.