Abstract

Little evidence supports the notion that Pius XII delivered a directive to members of the Catholic Church to help Jews during the German occupation of Italy, argues the author of this article. That many such men and women did open their doors is well known, and several thousand Jews in Italy were saved as a result. The pope and his advisers knew that many Jews, along with many more non-Jewish fugitives from the Nazis and Fascists, were hiding in religious institutions outside Vatican City, and being sheltered individually in prelates' residences in Vatican City itself. However, they seem not to have been aware of the full extent of the rescue effort, nor to have ordered it initially.

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