Pope Pius Xll and the October 16th 1943 Round-Up of Roman Jews
Civitas, 29 December 2009
The recent decision by the Vatican to recognise Pius Xll as someone possessed of the three heroic virtues of faith, hope and charity has reignited controversy about the war-time Pope.
Those who contest Pius’ good faith in opposing the Nazi regime and its treatment of the Jews sometimes cite in support of their view a diplomatic dispatch sent in November 1943 by the then British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden to Viscount Halifax, the British Ambassador in Washington.
In this dispatch, Eden notified Halifax of what he had been told by Sir D’Arcy Osborne, British Ambassador to the Holy See, about a meeting he had with Pius on 18 October 1943, two days after the Nazis had rounded-up over a thousand Jews for shipment to Auschwitz.
Eden relayed that Osborne had told him that Pius had said that he had no reason to complain about the German commander in Rome, General Reiner von Stahel.
Some see Pius’ statement as proof of his indifference towards the Jews and their treatment by the Nazis. But the statement admits of an entirely different construction.
Neither Osborne nor hence Eden were likely to have known, in a way in which Pius would have known, that General Stahel had been among influential Germans in Rome at the time who had been opposed to the mass round-up and acted to prevent its recurrence .
Consider what has been written about what went on in Rome that day by Dan Kurzman, former foreign correspondent to the Washington Post and author of the 2007 book, A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Sieze the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius Xll.
In an on-line article posted in June 2007, Kurzman writes:
‘Ernst von Weizsaecker, the German ambassador to the Vatican, another anti-Hitler conspirator, tried to convince Pius that he should remain silent when the Nazis rounded up the Jews of Rome. The Pope, until then, had felt that if he spoke out strongly against the Jewish genocide, Hitler would not only attack the Vatican but would drag out the hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Vatican institutions in which they were hiding throughout occupied Europe, as well as their Christian protectors.
‘But the German diplomats were afraid that he would nevertheless speak out publicly if the Roman Jews, his neighbors, were deported. If he did, they argued, there was virtually no chance that Hitler would cancel his kidnap plan. And on October 16, the Gestapo in Rome began rounding up the Jews.
‘That rainy morning, Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona, a friend of Pius, was awakened by a phone call from a friend, who informed her of the arrests. The princess told me she rushed to the Vatican and, interrupting a papal mass, blurted the news to the pope, crying, “Only you can stop them!”
‘ “But they promised me that they would not touch the Jews in Rome!” Pius exclaimed. He then ordered Cardinal Luigi Maglione, his secretary of state, to summon Ambassador Weizsaecker urgently and protest the action. As the princess departed, the pope promised, “I’ll do all I can.”
‘When Weizsaecker arrived for a meeting with Maglione, he said he would “try to do something for these poor Jews.” But, he asked, “what would the Holy See do if these things were to continue?”
‘”The Holy See would not want to be faced with the need to express its disapproval,” the cardinal answered …”If the Holy See were forced to [protest], it would trust the consequences to Divine Providence.” In other words, he would speak out publicly if the roundup of Jews continued.
‘Shaken, the ambassador responded, “I think of the consequences that a protest by the Holy See might precipitate.”
‘Clearly, the word “kidnap” was on both their minds.
‘Meanwhile, other German diplomats—and, the Vatican would say, the pope’s nephew—urged an eminent priest, whom Berlin trusted, to write an urgent note to a cooperative German commander in Italy that was to be wired to Berlin echoing Cardinal Maglione’s warning.
As has been explained by Michael Phayer in his 2008 book, Pius Xll, the Holocaust and the Cold War, the ‘eminent priest’ in question was Bishop Alois Hudal, rector of the German national church in Rome, and ‘the cooperative German commander’ was none other than the German Commander of Rome, General Reiner Stahel who was the one who telegraphed it to Berlin.
No wonder that, when he met Osborne on the 18th October, Pius Xll told Osborne that he (Pius) had no reason to complain about General Stahel. Stahel had acted exactly as Pius had wanted him to in opposing further mass round-ups of Roman Jews and thereby saving many Jewish lives.