BooksBarbecue
Back The One from the Other Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. EPILOGUE
  49. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  50. Teaser chapter

We stayed in a safe house in Genoa, where we met yet another Catholic priest, Father Eduardo Dömöter. I think he was a Franciscan. It was Dömöter who gave us our Red Cross passports. Refugee passports he called them. Then we set about applying for immigration to Argentina. The president of Argentina, Juan Perón, who was an admirer of Hitler and a Nazi sympathizer, had set up an organization in Italy known as the DAIE, the Delegation for Argentine Immigration in Europe. The DAIE enjoyed semidiplomatic status and had offices in Rome, where applications were processed, and Genoa, where prospective immigrants to Argentina underwent a medical examination. But all of this was little more than a formality. Not least because the DAIE was run by Monsignor Karlo Petranovic, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest who was himself a wanted war criminal, and who was protected by Bishop Alois Hudal, who was the spiritual director of the German Catholic community in Italy. Two other Roman Catholic priests assisted our escape. One was the Archbishop of Genoa himself, Giuseppe Siri; and the other was Monsignor Karl Bayer. But it was Father Dömöter we saw most of all at the safe house. A Hungarian, he had a church in the parish of Sant’Antonio, not very far from the DAIE offices.

I often asked myself how it was that so many Roman Catholic priests should have been Nazi sympathizers. But more pertinently, I also asked Father Dömöter, who told me that the pope himself was fully aware of the help being given to escaping Nazi war criminals. Indeed, said Father Dömöter, the pope had encouraged it.

“None of us would help in this way if it wasn’t for the Holy Father,” he explained. “But there’s something important you must understand about this. It’s not that the pope hates Jews, or loves the Nazis. Indeed, there are many Catholic priests who were persecuted by the Nazis. No, this is political. The Vatican shares America’s fear and loathing of communism. Really, it’s nothing more sinister than that.”

So that was all right then.

All applications for a landing permit from the DAIE had to be approved by the Immigration Office in Buenos Aires. And this meant that we were in Genoa for almost six weeks, during which time I got to know the city quite well, and liked it enormously. Especially the old town and the harbor. Eichmann did not venture out of doors for fear of being recognized. But Pedro Geller became my regular companion, and together we explored Genoa’s many churches and museums.