Vatican Bank Holocaust Litigation

www.vaticanbankclaims.com

info@brimstoneandcompany.com
+1 202-318-2406

For Immediate Release October 16, 2014
Pope Paul VI Beatification Overshadowed by Involvement in Nazi Ratline
Rome: On October 19, 2014, Paul VI (Monsignor Montini) in a solemn ceremony at the Vatican
is to be beatified which is the first step to sainthood A miracle, the curing of an unborn babys
illness, has been attributed to Paul VI. However, Holocaust Victims and their families from
Eastern Europe who are locked in a decades long legal dispute with the Vatican over looted
assets from the Second World War, question the saintliness of the man who as Vatican Secretary
of State supervised the infamous Vatican ratline funded with Holocaust era loot.
The Vatican Ratline was a post war system of escape routes for Nazis fleeing Europe at the end
of the Second World War. The Vatican version was centered at the Croatian Confraternity of
Saint Jerome located in Rome at Via Tomacelli 132 just a block away from the Tiber River
bridge and next to the sprawling Tomb of Augustus.

The so called Golden Priest Fr. Krunoslav Draganovic, the Apostolic Vistator for Croatian
matters, was the chief conductor of the Vatican ratline whose beneficiaries included major war
criminals like Croatian mass murderer Ante Pavelic who escaped to Argentina in 1947 despite
being responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Other ratline escapees
included the Nazi war criminals Klaus Barbie, Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichman.
The funds that ran the Vatican ratline were obtained from the treasuries of defeated Axis allies
like Croatia, Hungary, and Romania and often contained victim loot transformed into Church
property through a complex scheme involving deposits at the Vatican Bank. Since 1998, the
Holocaust victims have been seeking an accounting from the Vatican which has so far
successfully resisted on grounds of sovereign immunity a long running lawsuit in the United
States, a more recent EU Commission inquiry and direct claims lodged with the Vatican
Secretariat for the Economy.
Declassified documents obtained by Holocaust Victims attorneys link Paul VI, then Vatican
Secretary of State, to Draganovic and Pavelic. Former US Special Agent, William Gowen, who
investigated the Vatican ratline in Rome 1946-1947, testified that Draganovic was supervised by
Montini and that Draganovic boasted of a clandestine ten truck convoy of looted gold and
valuables that pulled into St. Peters Square in 1946 right under the nose of the Allied authorities.
The Holocaust Victim group is seeking an accounting and restitution of the looted assets used to
fund the ratline.
The Holocaust Victims lawyers have now released the transcripts of the entire Gowen
deposition in hopes of bringing attention to the case. According to lead counsel, Dr. Jonathan
Levy: The real miracle is how the Vatican made countless millions in victim loot and major
Nazi war criminals disappear with apparent impunity. The Vatican must open its archives once
for all.
William Gowen who as a young Army CIC Special Agent fluent in Italian infiltrated the ratline
and almost captured Pavelic at San Girolamo in 1947, endured four days of cross examination by
Vatican attorneys in 2005 and 2006 and never wavered from his position. The deposition in its
entirety is now available.
William E W Gowen, Deposition December 12, 2005 Volume I Alperin v. Vatican Bank
http://tinyurl.com/Gowen-Vol-1

William E W Gowen, Deposition December 13, 2005 Volume II Alperin v. Vatican Bank
http://tinyurl.com/Gowen-Vol-2

William E W Gowen, Deposition December 14, 2005 Volume III Alperin v. Vatican Bank
http://tinyurl.com/Gowen-Vol-3

William E W Gowen, Deposition March 9, 2006 Volume IV Alperin v. Vatican Bank
http://tinyurl.com/Gowen-Vol-4

William E W Gowen, Deposition Exhibits
http://tinyurl.com/Gowen-Exhibits

Declassified Document on Montinis Meetings with Pavelic
http://tinyurl.com/Montini-Pavelic

Appeal to the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy for Restitution of Roma Property
http://tinyurl.com/Cardinal-Pell-Letter

For more information contact:

Dr. Jonathan Levy, Legal Representative for Holocaust Victims Group
info@brimstoneandcompany.com
+1 202-318-2406