The letter found in the Vatican archives conflicts with the Holy See's official position at the time that the information it had was vague and unverified.
A man opens a door leading to the shelves where folders containing documents on Pope Pius XII, who reigned from 1939-1958, are stored inside the Vatican archives ahead of the full opening of the secret archives to scholars on March 2, at the Vatican, February 27,2020.
Vatican archivist Giovanni Coco told the Corriere that the importance of the letter was "enormous, a unique case" because it showed the Vatican had information that labour camps were actually death factories. Asked by the Corriere interviewer if the letter showed that Pius knew, Coco said: "Yes, and not only from then."The letter made reference to two other Nazi camps - Auschwitz and Dachau - and suggested that there were other missives between Koenig and Leiber that either have gone missing or have not yet been found.
Suzanne Brown-Fleming, director of International Academic Programs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, told Reuters in an email that the release showed that the Vatican was taking seriously Pope Francis' statement that "the Church is not afraid of history" when he ordered the wartime archives opened in 2019.
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