Two Men Two Faiths
One Catholic One Jew
One Mission
The Unknown Story 

By Laurene A. Sherlock, excerpted from the memoirs of Dulcie-Ann Steinhardt Sherlock

for the forthcoming book Steinhardt, a biography

When the doorbell rang that evening in early 1943 at the Ambassador’s residence in Istanbul, the Ambassador answered it himself. Ladened with an armload of red roses and a box of chocolates, there stood Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the Vatican Apostolic Delegate Papal Nuncio to the Turkish government. At the directive of Rome, he had taken up this diplomatic post in 1934.

His dinner host that night was the United States Ambassador, Laurence A. Steinhardt, who had taken up his post in early 1942 at the behest of FDR, having just completed his Ambassadorship to Moscow from 1939 to the end of 1941. Turkey was his fourth of what would be six ambassadorships.

  In this diplomatic world Roncalli and Steinhardt had become close personal friends on first name basis while keeping their respective governments’ wartime neutrality with Turkey. That was their public mission.

But this particular night would birth another mission, one unknown to the world from that evening to this day. Only two other people were present that night and all the further nights of these covert meetings, my grandmother, and my mother. This is my mother’s first-hand account.

 How in the middle of wartime did His Excellency find red roses for mother and chocolates for me? Such a kind face, an easy smile, and a warm countenance. There was nothing intimidating about his Excellency other than his title of course. In fact, he was entirely approachable. He radiated a quiet humility for a man of such stature. Little did anyone know then that God was preparing him for greater destiny. This simple man inherited the throne of St. Peter in 1958 and sainthood in 2014. He is known to history now as Saint John XXIII, Pope. 

Neutral Turkey was being overwhelmed by refugees surging across the Greek, Yugoslav and Bulgarian borders. Masses of displaced humanity swelled to escape persecution and death at the hands of the Nazi juggernaut.

We sat many evenings over wine and dinner, hatching up baptismal visa schemes to get Jewish children out of Transnistria, Bulgaria and Romania, figuring out how to find leaky boats of any type to get these children and other refugees to Turkey and onward to Palestine. On one occasion with $10,000 provided by the United Jewish Agency in New York, father and Roncalli got 10,000 refugees from Varna rescued to Palestine. Father worked tirelessly with his Turkish colleagues to obtain the Turkish government turning a blind eye and permitting these transit endeavors in order to allow these subterranean plans to become reality, while His Excellency did the same with the British. Dangerous diplomacy. A secret complicity was necessary to accomplish their life saving missions. These men in high position did not stand still. They did unto others what they would have had done unto them. Humanity in action. This is Faith. No one ever knew. Heroism and quiet humility often go hand in hand. But they never saw this as heroism as so often the case by those who do the right thing regardless of the consequences.

Two men of Faith, one Catholic and one Jew, united in making history together without anyone ever knowing. They could not speak for themselves then or now, not that either man was of the type that would at any time.

 So, we who come after are heralded to Remember.

Both men risked their diplomatic positions, their careers, their respective governments’ policies their own lives, and the lives of thousands of refugees were any of their unknown actions ever revealed.

 For this and more unknowns father was inscribed into The Golden Book of Israel, joining the only other American at that time so inscribed, his boss President Roosevelt.  And Cardinal Roncalli was called by The Almighty, his boss, to assume the Vicar’s chair.

Two men, two faiths, one Catholic, One Jew, One mission.

   In other quarters in 1944, Steinhardt and Ira Hirschmann, representative of The U.S. War Refugee Board, operated in coordination to secure leaky boats wherever possible to transit the refugees with no assurance of the safety of such vessels but the hope that anything might succeed if tried. While there were successes, sadly there were also tragedies and losses. Such was the risk to all.

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