Ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to Israel, Yad L’Achim has issued a call to the leader of the international Christian community to work towards identifying the children who were entrusted in the homes of many Catholic families during WWII, and have since been raised as Catholics R”L.

Yad L’Achim stresses that the Vatican’s refusal to “break the silence will perpetuate the pain and suffering of the Jewish People and contribute to success of the Nazi’s plan of wiping out the Jewish nation”.

“The Church must assist the ‘Shoah orphans’ and contact them and inform them of their Jewish roots and provide information pertaining to the natural families”.

Yad L’Achim a number of years ago set out to track down over 2,000 such orphans, who as children, were handed over to Christian families in Europe. Following the war, Pope Pius XII refused to cooperate, stating children who were baptized may not be returned to their Jewish past.

Yad L’Achim’s focus is currently in Holland, where they report there are some 1,000 of these lost Shoah Jews who were turned over to goyim as their parents HY”D, in an act of desperation, hoped to spare their lives. There is another estimated 600 Jews in Italy, France and Belgium.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)