Pope Pius XII and the Roman razzia

Pope Pius XII's response to the Roman ''razzia'' (Italian for ''roundup''), or mass deportation of Jews, on October 16, 1943 is a significant issue relating to Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Under Mussolini, no policy of abduction of Jews had been implemented in Italy. Following the capitulation of Italy in 1943, Nazi forces invaded and occupied much of the country, and began deportations of Jews to extermination camps. Pius XII protested at diplomatic levels, while several thousand Jews found refuge in Catholic networks, institutions and homes across Italy, including in Vatican City and Pope Pius' Summer Residence. The Catholic Church and some historians have credited this rescue in large part to the direction of Pope Pius XII. However, historian Susan Zuccotti researched the matter in detail and discovered that although the pope was aware of the Holocaust, he did not issue a rescue order. Zuccotti states that there is "considerable evidence of papal disapproval of the hiding of Jews and other fugitives in Vatican properties."

Various historians have given different emphases to accounts of Pius' actions. According to historian Michael Phayer, "the question of the pope's silence has become the focus of intense historical debate and analysis" because the deportations occurred " under his very windows," a phrase that was also used in the title of a book on the subject by Zuccotti.Phayer, 2008, p. 70. The phrase is based on an actual quotation from the report of Ernst von Weizsäcker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, who reported to Berlin that the ''razzia'' had taken place "under the Pope's windows." It also echoes the reported words of the protest made to von Weizsäcker by the pope's secretary of state on the morning of the roundup: "It is sad for the Holy Father, sad beyond imagination, that here in Rome, under the very eyes of the Common Father, that so many people should suffer only because they belong to a specific race."

Phayer's and Zuccotti's emphasis on "papal silence" can be contrasted with that of "papal action" by Jewish Holocaust historian Sir Martin Gilbert. By Gilbert's account, when the Nazis came to Rome in search of Jews, Pius had already "A few days earlier... personally ordered the Vatican clergy to open the sanctuaries of the Vatican City to all 'non-Aryans' in need of refuge." Zucotti argues that there is no written evidence of this supposed papal directive and that claims of its existence only appeared after the 1963 production of a play critical of Pius' failure to protest the Holocaust. However, as Pius defender Gary Krupp writes, "it was not only normal but essential for any incriminating documents, even slips of paper, to be destroyed lest they fall into Nazi hands and endanger the carrier or the referee. In fact, as riter RonaldRychlak points out, Zuccotti had spelt this out herself in an earlier book...: 'Any direct personal order would have had to be kept very quiet to protect those who were actually sheltered' ('The Italians and the Holocaust,' 1987)."

Lead up to roundups

Foreknowledge of Vatican

According to Phayer, there is no doubt that "Pius XII knew of the plan to murder Roman Jews." Phayer writes that Pius XII's under-secretaries of state Giovanni Montini and Domenico Tardini first learned of the planned deportations in mid-September 1943.Phayer, 2008, p. 71. Specifically, the Vatican learned of a "telegram from Berlin instructing the SS in Rome to seize the city's Jews" several weeks before the ''razzia'' began.

However, according to historian and Rabbi David G. Dalin, "A fair reading suggests Pius had heard rumors and raised them with the Nazi occupiers." Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona reported that when she broke in on the pope with the news of the roundup early on the morning of October 16, 1943, his first words were: "But the Germans had promised not to touch the Jews!"David G. Dalin;
Pius XII and the Jews''
The Weekly Standard; 26 February 2001.

Preemptive efforts to protect Jews

in July 1943, following a series of disastrous defeats culminating in the Allied invasion of Sicily, Benito Mussolini was deposed. On 3 September 1943 the new government decided to capitulated to the United States and Great Britain and on 13 October 1943, the Kingdom of Italy officially joined the Allied Powers by declaring war on its former Axis partner Germany. In response, Hitler deployed increasing numbers of German troops into Northern Italy and the areas around Rome starting in early September. Up until this time, the Fascists who had dominated the Italian government had refused to cooperate with the efforts of their German Allies to exterminate the Jews. It was clear to many German military and diplomatic officials that there was nothing to be gained (and much to be lost) by allowing a roundup and deportation of Italy's Jewish population. By October, "various members of the German military and diplomatic corps" were attempting to prevent the planned deportation of Rome's Jews. Ernst von Weizsäcker took over from bishop Alois Hudal the task of compiling a comprehensive list of the properties of the pope in Rome and sending hundreds of "letters of protection" to those properties, guaranteeing them extraterritorial status. However, Weizsäcker delegated the task of actually warning the Roman Jewry to his assistant Albrecht von Kassel, who encountered great difficulty because of prevailing opinion, generated by Jews Dante Almansi and Ugo Foa, that there was "no cause for alarm."Phayer, 2008, p. 73. In any case, according to Phayer, "Pope Pius gave them no warning." In the end, very few Jews "availed themselves of opportunities to hide" before October 16. According to Zuccotti's research, there allegedly exists no evidence that "the populations of convents and monasteries surged before the fateful day", however Zuccotti's findings conflict with those of multiple other sources.

According to Gilbert, the pope had helped the Jews of Rome in September by contributing to the 50 kg of gold demanded by the Nazis. At the same time, wrote Gilbert, the Capuchin Father Benoit had saved large numbers of Jews by providing them with false identification papers, helped by the Swiss, Hungarian, Romanian and French embassies, and a number of Italian officials. A few days before the October 15-16 roundup, Pius XII personally directed Vatican clergy to open the sanctuaries of the Vatican to all "non-Aryans" in need of refuge.

According to Zuccotti, not only did Pius XII not aid the efforts of Father Père Marie-Benoît, he actively discouraged his work,Phayer, 2008, p. 74. providing no aid for his efforts help Jews escape Italian-occupied France in June 1943. With respect to Benoît's actions during the ''razzia'', Zuccotti writes, "far from claiming receipt of material aid from Vatican officials, Benedetto never even wrote that they encouraged him."Zuccotti, 2002, p. 185. According to Zuccotti, Vatican officials actively attempted to "subdue" the efforts of Benoît and others, cautioning them against even meeting with Jews, with "whom it would be better to speak less." When Benoît asked Montini for a letter of recommendation that he needed in order to provide false documents to Jews, "he received little but a reprimand."Zuccotti, 2002, p. 186.

Rabbi Dalin has queried Zuccotti's methodology and conclusions, writing that "There exists testimony from a Good Samaritan priest that Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini of Assisi, holding a letter in his hand, declared that the pope had written to request help for Jews during the German roundup of Italian Jews in 1943. But because the priest did not actually read the letter, Zuccotti speculates that the bishop may have been deceiving him — and thus that this testimony should be rejected. Compare this skeptical approach to evidence with her treatment, for example, of a 1967 interview in which the German diplomat Eitel F. Möllhausen said he had sent information to the Nazis' ambassador to the Vatican, Ernst von Weizsäcker, and "assumed" that Weizsäcker passed it on to Church 'officials'. Zuccotti takes this as unquestionable proof that the pope had direct foreknowledge of the German roundup."

Pius offers loan to Jews

SS Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Kappler is "notorious for holding the Jews of Rome for ransom" due to his demand of 50 kilograms of gold, for which he was convicted of extortion by an Italian court after the war. In fact, it is possible that Kappler's intentions were to "bribe Berlin atherthan to shake down the Jews." The Jews of Rome turned to the pope in an attempt to meet the ransom. Pius XII offered to loan the Jews the gold, with no deadline for repayment and no interest. However, this loan never took place because the Jews came up with the required amount on their own by 28 September. A German cable from 11 October, which does not mention their recent receipt of the extorted gold, ordered Kappler to proceed with the deportation as planned.Phayer, 2008, p. 75.

Actions of the German diplomatic corps

In addition to the opposition from von Weizsäcker and von Kessel, the deportations were opposed by General Reiner Stahel, the commandant of Rome, Field Marshal General Albert Kesselring and Eitel Friedrich Möllhausen, German chargé d'affaires to Italy. Kappler suggested to the foreign ministry on October 6 that the Jews would be "better used as laborers in Italy" and Möllhausen communicated similar sentiments to Stahel. A second telegram the next day from Möllhausen to Berlin said that the field marshal had asked Kappler to postpone the roundup. Knowing that the German officials in Rome were unanimously opposed to the roundup, Adolf Eichmann

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