The Confessor

square. "The Jews of Rome were rounded up two months earlier. At five-thirty on the morning of October sixteenth, more than three hundred Germans stormed the ghetto in a driving rainstorm--SS field police along with a Waffen SS Death's Head unit. They went house to house, dragging Jews from their beds and loading them into troop trucks. They were taken to a temporary detention facility at the barracks of the Collegio Militare, about a half mile from the Vatican. Despite the horrible nature of their work that night, some of the SS men wanted to see the dome of the great Basilica, so the convoy altered its route accordingly. As it moved past St. Peter's Square, the terrified Jews in the back of the trucks pleaded with the Pope to save them. All evidence suggests he knew full well what was taking place in the ghetto that morning. It was, after all, under his very windows. He did not lift a finger to intervene."
    "How many?"
    "More than a thousand that night. Two days after the roundup,
    the Jews of Rome were loaded onto rail cars at the Tiburtina station for the journey east. Five days after that, one thousand and sixty souls perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau."
    "But many survived, did they not?"
    "Indeed, remarkably, four-fifths of Italian Jewry survived the war. As soon as the Germans occupied Italy, thousands immediately sought and were provided shelter in convents and monasteries, as well as in Catholic hospitals and schools. Thousands more were given shelter by ordinary Italians. Adolf Eichmann testified at his trial that every Italian Jew who survived the war owed his life to an Italian."
    "Was it because of an order from the Vatican? Was Sister Vincenza telling me the truth about the papal directive?"
    "That is what the Church wishes us to believe, but I'm afraid there is no evidence to suggest the Vatican issued instructions to Church institutions to offer shelter and comfort to Jews fleeing the roundup. In fact there is evidence to suggest that the Vatican issued no such order."
    "What sort of evidence?"
    "There are numerous examples of Jews who sought shelter in church properties and were turned away. Others were told they had to convert to Catholicism in order to stay. Had the Pope issued a directive to throw open the doors to Jews, no mere nun or monk would have dared to disobey him. The Italian Catholics who rescued Jews did so out of goodness and compassion--not because they were acting under the orders of their Supreme Pontiff. If they had waited for a papal directive to act, I'm afraid many more Italian Jews would have died at Auschwitz and Birkenau. There was no such directive. Indeed, despite repeated appeals from the Allies and
    Jewish leaders around the world, Pope Pius never found it in his heart even to speak out against the mass murder of Europe's Jews."
    "Why not? Why did he remain silent?"
    The rabbi raised his hands in a helpless gesture. "He claimed that because the Church was universal, he could not be placed in the position of taking sides, even against a force as wicked as Nazi Germany. If he condemned the atrocities of Hitler, Pius said, he would also have to condemn any atrocities committed by the Allies. He claimed that by speaking out, he would only make matters worse for the Jews, though it is hard to imagine what could be worse than the murder of six million. He also saw himself as a statesman and diplomat, an actor in European affairs. He wanted to play a role in bringing about a negotiated settlement that would preserve a strong, anti-Communist Germany in the heart of Europe. I have my own theories as well."
    "What are they?"
    "Despite public professions of love for the Jewish people, I'm afraid His Holiness did not care much for us. Remember, he was raised in a Catholic Church that preached anti-Semitism as a matter of doctrine. He equated Jews with Bolshevism and bought into all the old hatreds that Jews were interested only in the material. Throughout the nineteen thirties, while he was the Secretary of State, the Vatican's official newspapers were filled with the same sort of anti-Semitic filth one might have read in Der Sturmer. One article in the Vatican journal La Civilta Cattolica actually discussed the possibility of eliminating the Jews through annihilation. In my opinion, Pius probably felt the Jews were getting exactly what they deserved. Why should he risk himself, and more importantly his Church, for a people he believed were guilty of history's