Sister Rose Thering did the pioneer investigation of the most widely used Catholic religion teaching materials to see how the church taught about other faith, ethnic, and racial groups. As a consequence of her work, a new attitude toward Jews was officially adopted in Catholic texts, sermons, and in other pronouncements of the church, and dialogues between the church and Israel and between Catholics and Jews were elevated to a more respectful plane.

A basic summary of Sister Rose’s study was taken to Vatican II during the deliberations before the issuance of the Vatican document Nostra Aetate: Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions in 1965. As Sister Rose recalled later, “They were 15 lines in Latin, but they changed everything” as they had a deep and lasting effect on how Jews are viewed by the Catholic Church and remain strongly fixed in church teachings to this day.

Sister Rose devoted her life to building bridges between Jews and Christians. When asked why she did this, her immediate response was: “Because an understanding and an appreciation of Jews and Judaism and the State of Israel helps me personally. I hope and pray to become a better person, a better Christian.”

Three Papal Nuncios of the Catholic Church stand out for their continuous efforts to save Jews during WWII. Phillippe Bernardini in Switzerland was involved in most of the organized efforts to pull Jews out of the holocaust. Angelo Rotta managed to save Jewish lives in Sofia, Bulgaria and then Budapest Hungary. He was recognized in 1997 as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli worked hard in Turkey to save Jews and would eventually become Pope John XXIII.

(Picture above is of the Apostolic Nunciature in Bern Switzerland of the Holy See – taken in 2009)

Sempo Sugihara saved about 6-10,000 Jews during the Holocaust. He was guided by his sense of morals and did what he thought what was right. Even when his country's government said otherwise, Sugihara continued to help send Jews far away from the Nazis of World War II Europe. Sugihara acted on his own account. There is no proof that any economic incentive was given or that he took pleasure in danger. Chiune, his nickname, means a thousand lives.

The Sternbuchs began their rescue activities with the arrival of a stream of refugees from Austria and Germany in 1938. Recha made contact with people in Vienna who directed the refugees in selecting the right means of escape. Then she operated a network of individual citizens, farmers, cab drivers and policemen who led the refugees by secure routes until they made it past the border to San Galen.

Yitzchak Sternbuch was a businessman in Montreux, Switzerland. His wife Recha, though a religious woman with children, and even when pregnant, between the years 1938 and 1942 would spend nights in the forest by the Austrian and French borders to assist thousand of Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany to enter Switzerland illegally. Besides the couple’s direct efforts to save Jewish refugees, they also made their home into the center of activities to save Jews in Europe during WWII.