However, historian Susan Zuccotti researched the matter in detail and states that there is "considerable evidence of papal disapproval of the hiding of Jews and other fugitives in Vatican properties.
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.
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.
[6] 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 [writer Ronald] Rychlak 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).
"[8] 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.
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!
On 3 September 1943 the new government decided to capitulate 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.
[10] 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.
[19] 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.
[11] 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.
[26] That same day, Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione requested that von Weizsäcker meet with him to discuss the action and sent a telegram of protest to Berlin.
[23] The letter requested a suspension of the arrests, stating "otherwise I fear the Pope will take a position in public as being against this action, one which would undoubtedly be used by the anti-German propagandists as a weapon against us Germans.
Chadwick quotes a letter from D'Arcy Osborne to the Foreign Office from the last day of the month:As soon as he heard of the arrests of the Jews in Rome the Cardinal Secretary of State sent for the German ambassador and formulated some sort [undecyphered word] of protest.
[30]Phayer wrote in 2008 that "nearly all" historians agree that Maglione did not protest the seize of that morning in his meeting with von Weizsäcker,[28] nor did Pius XII ever speak publicly of the razzia.
[28] However, on October 25 (by which time most of the Jews who had been rounded up were probably already dead or soon to enter the gas chamber), L'Osservatore Romano ran an article saying that "the Holy Father's charity was universal, extending to all races.
"[31] According to Phayer, "historians—as opposed to writers whose sole objective is to defend Pius XII—are not in agreement with the editors of the Actes et Documents, who maintained that Maglione succeeded in registering a papal protest of the roundup of the Jews.
But Burleigh adds that "at the time [Pius' and Weizsäcker's diplomacy] served the more urgent end of diverting Berlin's malign attentions away from the thousands of Jews hidden in Catholic churches and private homes in Rome....
Even historians otherwise critical of Pius concede that the Germans would have had no hesitation in responding to an overt protest by invading the hundreds of Church properties where, in Rome alone, five thousand Jews were sheltered.
[35] Il Collegio San Giuseppe - Istituto De Merode, like other Roman Catholic schools, hid numerous Jewish children and adults among its students and brothers.
[36][37] Pietro Palazzini, who was later appointed a cardinal and recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, endangered his life in his efforts to save the Jews of Rome.
"[11] In Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy, Zuccotti argued that the pope "did not give orders to the various Roman Catholic institutions of Rome to open their doors to the Jews".
This is especially true with regard to institutions within the confines of Rome and the Vatican... No one has denied the significant scale of Catholic rescue activity, and gratitude was indeed expressed by leading Jews after the war.