deportations and thus saved the lives of many converted Jews, and the Orthodox Metropolitan Stefan in Sofia, by tireless public defense of Jewish lives, played a fundamental role in preventing even one Jew from being deported to the Nazi camps from Bulgaria.". Deportations Stepinac again wrote to Pavelić on 21 July 1941 in the wake of mass deportations of Jews and Serbs to concentration camps, stating he was sure that Pavelić was not aware of the atrocities, and that others might not be willing to tell him about them. He wrote that this situation meant there was an even greater obligation on Stepinac to bring them to Pavelić's attention. Referring to Jews as "non-Aryans", Stepinac wrote: "I hear from many quarters that non-Aryans are being treated inhumanely and cruelly during deportations to concentration camps, and in the camps themselves; moreover, that children, the elderly and the sick are not exempt from such treatment." Stepinac urged Pavelić that some things be undertaken "in the direction of easing the procedure: a) that they be sent to the camps in such a way that they be able to prepare the most necessary things, that they can arrange their most urgent obligations to family and service; b) that dispatch is not carried out in overcrowded sealed wagons, especially not to remote places; c) that internees are provided with sufficient food; d) that patients are provided with medical care; e) to allow the dispatch of essential foodstuffs and to facilitate correspondence with families." Having heard that some of the deportees were recent converts to Catholicism, he had a duty to show greater concern regarding them. He asked that "humane and Christian consideration ... be shown especially to weak old people, young and innocent children, and the sick." According to Biondich, it is highly likely that Stepinac shared these concerns with the Vatican. Goldstein, on the other hand, notes that in his letter to Pavelić, Stepinac did not question the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, instead only urged that these be carried out more "humanely". When deportation of Croatian Jews began, Stepinac and the papal envoy Giuseppe Marcone protested to Andrija Artukovic. Pope Pius XII had dispatched Marcone as Apostolic Visitor to Croatia, reportedly in order to assist 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". Marcone served as