VATICAN CITY
inSerbia
VATICAN CITY – An appeal by Holocaust survivors and their heirs from former Yugoslavia and Ukraine has been sent to Cardinal-Prefect George Pell.
Cardinal Pell was recently appointed by Pope Francis to head up the new Vatican Secretariat of the Economy with unprecedented power over secretive Vatican finances including the troublesome Vatican Bank.
Since 1999 the Holocaust survivors have been requesting the scandal plagued Vatican Bank audit accounts alleged to contain Holocaust era assets looted from the Balkans and Ukraine. About 30 current and former Vatican Bank accounts have been identified as suspect including accounts controlled by the Franciscan Order and various Dioceses.
The appeal also includes declassified documents from the US National Archives requested in 2000 but only produced 12 years later which establish both the British and Americans were certain the Vatican was harboring a major Nazi war criminal, Ante Pavelic, the brutal ruler of World War Two era Croatia.
Pavelic was the source of the Ustasha Treasury which consisted of funds looted from Serbs, Jews, Roma, and Ukrainians during the genocide of over 500,000 people in wartime Yugoslavia.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.