Catholic Church hid Jews from Nazis in Rome, research shows

New documentation shows that Catholic institutions in Rome gave shelter to thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazis, a Thursday statement said.

The statement was issued jointly by the Pontifical Biblica Institute in Rome, Rome's Jewish Community and Israel's official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem.

Researchers from the three institutions presented the findings at a conference held at the Museum of the Shoah, which is near the Great Synagogue of Rome.

What the research on Jews taking shelter in Rome shows

The documents provide the names of at least 3,200 Jews that had been corroborated by Rome's Jewish Community.

According to the text, 100 women's and 55 men's congregations gave refuge to Jews.

The joint statement said that the list of Catholic institutions that sheltered Jews had already been published by Italian historian Renzo de Felice in 1961, but full documentation had been thought to have been lost.

"The newly rediscovered lists refer to more than 4,300 persons, of whom 3,600 are identified by name," the statement said. "Comparison with the documents kept in the archive of the Jewish Community of Rome indicates that 3,200 certainly were Jews."

"Of the latter it is known where they were hidden and, in certain circumstances, where they lived before the persecution," it said. "The documentation thus significantly increases the information on the history of the rescue of Jews in the context of the Catholic institutions of Rome."

The documentation was originally compiled by the Jesuit cleric Gozzolino Birolo in 1944-1945, after Rome was liberated by the Allies.

The Holocaust in Italy

Rome was occupied by the Nazis for nine months in 1943-1944. During this time, around 2,000 Jews were deported and murdered, out of a population of 10,000-15,000 Jews in Rome, the statement said.

A total of nearly 8,000 Italian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

In 1938, before the Nazi occupation, Italy's fascist regime under Benito Mussolini enacted anti-Semitic racial laws that enforced the segregation of the country's Jewish population.

The role of the Catholic Church in World War II remains controversial. In 2020, researchers gained access to the Vatican's archives on Pope Pius XII, who headed the Church when the war broke out and has been accused of showing indifference to the Holocaust and failing to speak out against Hitler and Mussolini.

sdi/msh (AP, epd)