A liberal newspaper here, Paese Sera, today criticized the late Pope Pius XII for failing to speak out against mass arrests and deportations to death camps of Jews in this city by the Nazis in 1943.
The newspaper reproduces archives from the files of the Center for Jewish Documentation, in Paris, citing the fact that the Germans were apprehensive lest the Pope denounce their mass arrests of Jews.
“The Germans” declares the newspaper, “were expecting an official reaction from the Holy See on the deportations of Roman Jews. This reaction did not take place. This facilitated the ferocious action of the Nazis.”
The newspaper recalls that on one day, October 16, 1943, the Nazis in Rome arrested 2, 000 Jews who were ultimately exterminated. Later, the newspaper concedes, “the doors of the convents were opened to give hospitality to the persecuted. However, this posthumous charity cannot grant for giveness for an official attitude which practically resulted in the Vatican’s sharing the responsibility of nazism.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
