Giuseppe Marcone

Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone, OSB (1882, San Pietro Infine, Italy – 1952, Montevergine) was an Italian Benedictine abbot. He was ordained in 1906 and appointed Abbot of Montevergine in 1918.^[1] He served an apostolic visitor to Croatia during World War II, in which capacity he worked on behalf of the Holy See for the protection of Croatian Jews.^{[citation needed]}

In 1941, Pope Pius XII dispatched Marcone as apostolic visitor to Nazi-aligned Croatia, in order to assist Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac and the Croatian Episcopate in "combating the evil influence of neo-pagan propaganda which could be exercised in the organization of the new state".^[2] Marcone served as nuncio in all but name.^[3] He reported to Rome on the deteriorating conditions for Croatian Jews, made representations on behalf of the Jews to Croatian officials, and transported Jewish children to safety in neutral Turkey. ^[2] However, he made no efforts on behalf of Serb victims of the Ustaše.

When deportation of Croatian Jews began, Stepinac and Marcone protested to Andrija Artuković.^[3] In his study of rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, Martin Gilbert wrote, "In the Croatian capital of Zagreb, as a result of intervention by [Marcone] on behalf of Jewish partners in mixed marriages, a thousand Croat Jews survived the war.^[4]

Marcone died in 1952.

• Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
• Foreign relations of Pope Pius XII
• Rescue of Jews by Catholics during the Holocaust

• Holy See's apostolic visitor intervened on behalf of Croatian Jews in WWII; CatholicCulture.Org; 10 August 2011.