Pope Pius XII 's response to the Roman '' razzia '' ( Italian for '' roundup '' ) or mass deportation of Jews on October 16 , 1943 is a significant issue relating to Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust . Under Mussolini , no policy of abduction of Jews had been implemented in Italy . Following the capitulation of Italy in 1943 , Nazi forces invaded and occupied much of the country , and began deportations of Jews to extermination camps . Pius XII protested at diplomatic levels , while several thousand Jews found refuge in Catholic networks , institutions and homes across Italy - including in the Vatican City and Pope Pius ' Summer Residence . The Catholic Church and some historians have credited this rescue in large part to the direction of Pope Pius XII , however , Susan Zuccotti researched the matter in detail and discovered that although the pope was aware of The Holocaust , he did not issue a rescue order . Zuccotti states that there is , in fact , " considerable evidence of papal disapproval of the hiding of Jews and other fugitives in Vatican properties . " Various historians have given different emphases to accounts of Pius ' actions . According to 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 " . The term " under his very windows " was used as the title of a book on the subject by Zuccotti . The phrase is based on an actual quotation from the report of Ernst von Weizsäcker , the German ambassador to the Vatican , who reported to Berlin that the '' razzia '' had taken place " under the Pope 's windows " . It also echoes the reported words of the protest made to von Weizsäcker by the pope 's Secretary of State on the morning of the round up : " It is sad for the Holy Father , sad beyond imagination , that here in Rome , under the very eyes of the Common Father , that so many people should suffer only because they belong to a specific race . " Phayer and Zuccotti 's emphasis on " papal silence " can be contrasted with Jewish historian of the Holocaust , Sir Martin Gilbert 's , emphasis on " papal action " in relation to the roundup . By Gilbert 's account , when the Nazis came to Rome in search of Jews , Pius had already " A few days earlier ... personally ordered the Vatican clergy to open the sanctuaries of the Vatican City to all ' non-Aryans ' in need of refuge . " Susan Zucotti points out that there is no written evidence of this supposed papal directive . She further asserts that claims of its existence only began to be made after the 1963 production of a play critical of Pius ' failure to protest the Holocaust . 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 ) . " According to Phayer , there is no doubt that " Pius XII knew of the plan to murder Roman Jews " . Phayer writes that Pius XII 's under-secretaries of state Giovanni Montini and Domenico Tardini first learned of the planned deporations in mid-September 1943 . Specifically , the Vatican learned of a " telegram from Berlin instructing the SS in Rome to seize the city 's Jews " several weeks before the '' razzia '' began
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Pope Pius XII and the raid on the Roman ghetto