Vatican newspaper says US and UK knew about Holocaust early on

The official Vatican newspaper ‘L’Osservatore Romano’ said the United States and Britain knew about the Holocaust, but did nothing to stop it. The paper quotes from the diary of then US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. According to the report British and American governments ignored, downplayed or suppressed intelligence reports about the Nazis’ extermination plans. Both governments could have ordered the bombin of Nazi concentration camps and the railway lines that supplied them, but instead chose not to, the paper claims.

Meanwhile, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said that an apology from Bishop Richard Williamson, who last year in a TV interview denied the Holocaust, was not good enough. Lombardi said Williamson, a senior member of the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X, had to repudiate his views if he wants to be a Catholic clergyman. The dissident bishop’s statement “does not appear to respect the conditions” the Vatican set out for him in February 2009.