Time: Sun Jul 27 08:46:28 1997
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Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 08:43:58 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Holocaust gold taints the Vatican (fwd)
<snip>
>
> Electronic Telegraph
> Sunday 27 July 1997 Issue 793
>
>Holocaust gold taints the Vatican
>
>by Bruce Johnston
>
> THE Vatican stands accused of using gold plundered
> from Holocaust victims in Yugoslavia during the
> Second World War to smuggle war criminals into Latin
> America and the Middle East.
>
> The allegations, made by an international team of
> Holocaust experts, follow last week's publication of
> a recently declassified US Treasury document which,
> for the first time, drags the Vatican's name into
> the Holocaust gold scandal. The document surfaced at
> the same time as Swiss banks published names of
> holders of unclaimed wartime accounts which they had
> concealed for decades.
>
> The allegations relate to a US Treasury memo of
> October 1946 by Emerson Bigelow, who worked for the
> Treasury's monetary research unit and who received
> reliable information from the OSS, precursor of the
> CIA, on Nazi wealth held in specific Swiss accounts.
>
> Bigelow's memo claims that the Ustashas, the Nazi
> puppet regime of Croatia, used the Vatican to look
> after part of the millions of dollars' worth of gold
> and jewellery which they plundered from 900,000
> Jews, Serbs, Croat moderates and gipsies they had
> put to death. The Vatican has denied the allegation.
>
> Citing "reliable sources in Italy" - understood to
> mean US intelligence - the memo says that one third
> of the estimated 350 million Swiss francs which the
> Ustashas tried to remove from Yugoslavia was
> impounded by the British at the Austrian-Yugoslav
> border. The remaining 200 million "was originally
> held in the Vatican for safe-keeping," to keep the
> gold from falling into the hands of the Allies.
>
> While stating this as fact, the document also quotes
> rumours saying a large portion of the Vatican-held
> money was sent through its "pipeline" to Spain and
> Argentina. But it adds that this could also be a
> "smokescreen to cover the fact that the treasure
> remains in its original repository" - namely, the
> Vatican.
>
> A number of Ustashas, including the secret armed
> organisation's founder Ante Pavelic, found refuge in
> Spain and Argentina after the Nazi defeat.
>
> It is well documented that the Ustashas had strong
> ties with the Church in Rome. It is also known that
> after sending the gold abroad in 48 containers as
> Tito's army advanced on Zagreb, Pavelic made his way
> to Salzburg, and that in August 1946 he reached
> Rome. In 1948, he arrived in Argentina.
>
> The Bigelow memo is being investigated by the US
> authorities, who have now promised to comb state
> archives for evidence that may cast light on the
> claims.
>
> It has also attracted considerable interest at the
> Simon Wiesenthal Centre, leading the international
> inquiry into Nazi gold. Shimon Samuels, the centre's
> director, said last week that the memo supports
> claims that Nazi gold received by the Vatican was
> later used to pay for war criminals to be smuggled
> out of Europe.
>
> According to Mr Samuels, the "gold-line", or
> channels that were used to smuggle looted Nazi gold,
> was linked to the "rat-line", the mechanism by which
> war criminals were spirited out of Europe.
>
> A connection between the Catholic Church and Nazi
> gold was very feasible, Mr Samuels said, since he is
> convinced that the Vatican played a crucial role in
> smuggling war criminals to South America .
>
> "We know that a number of monasteries helped Nazis
> to escape to South America," said Mr Samuels. He
> said that the monastery south of Rome where Erich
> Priebke, the former SS captain, is under house
> arrest for his role in Italy's worst wartime
> atrocity, had had other war criminals staying there
> awaiting escape. "I have been told by two sources
> that Adolf Eichmann was among them," Mr Samuels
> said.
>
> Mr Samuels said the gold-line and the rat-line often
> coincided, and mentioned declassified US documents
> which talked of how the late Baron Thyssen "and
> other Nazi industrialists" after the war ploughed
> huge sums of money into Argentina.
>
> The looted Nazi gold from Yugoslavia could have gone
> to the Vatican to finance the rat-line, Mr Samuels
> suggested.
>
> Priebke's admission to the Bonaventura monastery in
> the Frascati hills of Rome, was arranged by a
> Right-wing activist called Paolo Giachini, who
> during the trial of the SS captain distributed smear
> leaflets against the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
>
> Priebke, who was Rome SS commandant Herbert
> Kappler's deputy, escaped from a British PoW camp
> near the Adriatic after the war. Shortly afterwards,
> he and his family sailed from Genoa to South
> America, travelling on a Red Cross passport. So,
> incidentally, did the Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic -
> disguised as a priest.
>
> Padre Andre, at the Frascati monastery, will not
> comment readily on rumours that his institution's
> monastic peace is only skin-deep. Having Priebke did
> not bother him. "Our policy," he said, "is one of
> pardon." What Priebke may have done 50 years ago was
> one thing. But in the last 50 years he had done only
> good.
>
> The accusations will put added pressure on the
> Vatican to open its archives - something so far done
> only in part - to give a more detailed account of
> its activities during and just after the last war.
> In the run-up to the millennium, Vatican officials
> have already agreed to undertake an "examination of
> conscience".
>
> Vatican officials have already embarked upon a
> thorough review of the Church's wartime record. In
> particular the Vatican is anxious to avoid becoming
> embroiled in the kind of international controversy
> that has recently erupted over Switzerland's wartime
> record in relation to gold taken from Jews by the
> Nazis.
>
>
> c Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.
>
<snip>
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Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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