Hide and Seek: The Irish Priest in the Vatican who Defied the Nazi Command. The dramatic true story of rivalry and survival during WWII.. Stephen Walker
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not afford to have men tied up in such matters because they were needed to defend Rome. Kappler had found his ally. The new head of the Gestapo in Rome then started to put together his own plan.
Kappler summoned the city’s Jewish leaders. On the last Sunday of September he ordered two of Rome’s leading Jewish representatives to attend a meeting with him. Shortly after 6 p.m. Ugo Foa and Dante Almansi stood outside Kappler’s office in Villa Wolkonsky. They had not been told why he wanted to see them. At first their host was polite and the conversation was pleasant, but Kappler’s mood changed and he told his two visitors, ‘We Germans regard you only as Jews, and thus our enemy.’ He then chillingly warned them that unless the Jewish community handed over 50 kg of gold within the next thirty-six hours, 200 Jews would be deported to Germany. If the gold was handed over no one would be harmed.
Kappler’s plan had no official sanction and he was operating alone in the hope that his actions would delay the deportations.
Angry and worried, Foa and Almansi left their meeting with Kappler knowing they needed advice and help. Foa, a former magistrate, and Almansi, President of the Union of Jewish Communities, were both well connected in Rome. They spoke with contacts in the city’s Fascist police, but there was little the Italian police could do to change Kappler’s mind. The two Jewish leaders knew they had to act.
Word of the Gestapo chief’s ultimatum quickly spread among the city’s 12,000-strong Jewish community. Foa and Almansi felt they could raise the amount demanded but they were concerned that they could not do it within Kappler’s deadline. They set to work immediately. In an office close to the River Tiber, beside the central synagogue, donations were left. As darkness fell, a queue had formed to hand over rings, chains, pendants and bracelets. Even gold fillings were removed from teeth, and slowly the amount collected edged towards 50 kg. Twice Foa and Almansi appealed to Kappler to give them more time, and twice he agreed.
The Vatican had also been informed of the demand Kappler had placed on the Jewish community. Aware of the difficulties in reaching Kappler’s figure, Pope Pius XII offered to loan them gold if there was a shortfall. The Holy See said the loan could be arranged for any amount and could be repaid in instalments without interest. However, the Vatican’s loan was not needed. By early afternoon on Tuesday, 28 September, Kappler’s target was finally reached.
Packed into ten boxes, the gold was taken under police guard across the city to Villa Wolkonsky, where Kappler had issued the demand nearly two days earlier. The Obersturmbannführer was conspicuous by his absence and declined to see Foa and Almansi. The two Jewish leaders were then told to take the gold to Via Tasso, a short distance away. There they were greeted by a young SS captain who in error under-weighed the amount and then, after much delay, correctly measured the gold. The correct amount had been delivered and the two men prepared to leave. As a parting gesture, Foa declared that he would personally go to Germany at some stage to retrieve the gold. As darkness fell, Foa and Almansi returned to their families and friends and Rome’s Jewish community felt a sense of relief. Across Europe Jews were being rounded up and transported to death camps. Yet to date it seemed that Italy was exempt, and the Jews of Rome believed that the payment of gold would prevent any deportations from their own city. It was a false hope.
Within hours SS men were at their door, raiding the offices of Rome’s Jewish community, the very place where the gold had been handed in. They took money and documents, including details of Jews who had donated gold. Two weeks later they returned and took away old manuscripts and rare books.
Kappler still hoped he could win the argument that the deportation of the Jews should be abandoned. He had all the rings, bracelets and other gold items put into one box and sent off to Berlin. The package was marked for the attention of Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who was Himmler’s deputy in the Reich security empire. Kappler attached a covering letter. In his note he explained why he was against the planned deportation of Jews. Such a move, he wrote, would deprive him of the chance to exploit the Jewish community for intelligence purposes. He added that Field Marshal Kesselring had approved plans to use Roman Jews in labour gangs across the city.
When Kaltenbrunner opened the box he was indifferent to the gold and unconvinced by Kappler’s reasons for abandoning the deportation of Jews. The gold was of little consequence and would remain in Kaltenbrunner’s office untouched until the war ended. Kappler’s arguments he tackled head-on. He contacted Kappler and instructed him that the deportation must be his top priority: he must ‘proceed with the evacuation of the Jews without further delay’. Kaltenbrunner’s tone was equally direct as he told Kappler that ‘it is precisely the immediate and thorough eradication of the Jews in Italy which is the special interest of the present internal political situation and the general security in Italy’. He dismissed any suggestion that the operation should be delayed and added that ‘the longer the delay the more the Jews who are doubtless reckoning on evacuation measures have an opportunity by moving to the houses of pro-Jewish families’.
By now Kappler’s opposition to conducting the deportations was causing much anxiety in the corridors of power in Berlin. If the Final Solution was to be enacted in Rome, the Nazi leaders knew they had to put their own man in. In the first week of October an SS captain and a detachment of Waffen SS men were dispatched to Rome to hasten the rounding up of Jews. If Kappler was uncomfortable receiving questionable orders on the telephone, he probably felt even more uneasy hearing them in person in his own office.
At Villa Wolkonsky the newly arrived Captain Dannecker sat opposite Kappler. Even though Kappler outranked him, he knew his guest had to be taken seriously. Theodor Dannecker was a troubleshooter, sent from Berlin with Himmler’s blessing. He had a track record of carrying out Jewish deportations and twelve months earlier had organized round-ups of Jews in Paris.
Dannecker told Kappler that he required manpower of at least one motorized battalion and wanted the operation to be surrounded by secrecy. He also needed the names and addresses of Rome’s Jews. Kappler was running out of excuses and time. Realizing he had lost the argument, he simply handed over the list.
On Saturday, 16 October, as rain fell on the streets of Rome, lines of SS officers and military policemen made their way to the city’s Jewish ghetto. This time the Nazi policemen had not come for gold, money or documents. This time they wanted men, women and children. Kappler’s attempt to delay the deportations had failed. Armed with submachine guns, the SS police and Waffen SS ordered around 1,200 people out of their homes. Frightened, wet and cold, and clinging to what small possessions they could carry, the captives were placed into open army trucks.
Most of them were still in their nightclothes. As the children cried and screamed and the adults openly prayed, they were driven to the Italian Military College, close to the Tiber. It was a carbon copy of the raids Dannecker had led in Paris. By mid-afternoon the operation was over. Nearly 900 of those arrested were women and children. At the military college the prisoners were examined and interviewed and around 230 non-Jews were released.
The news of the deportations reached the Vatican very quickly. As the German raids began, Princess Enza Pignatelli Aragona Cortes, a young aristocrat well known on the Rome social scene and involved in charity work, was woken by a phone call from a friend. The caller lived near the Jewish ghetto and informed her of the German raids. The princess decided she must inform the Pope. She had known Pius XII for some time and had been received by him in the Holy See. The princess left her home and travelled to the Jewish ghetto to witness what was happening. She then went directly to the Vatican and, although she had no appointment to see the Pontiff, was quickly granted an audience. In his study the princess informed the Pope what was happening and told him he must act to stop the deportations. The Pope seemed genuinely surprised to hear the news. He said he had believed the Jews would remain untouched after the payment of gold. Then he made a phone call and, as he saw the princess out, promised that he would do all he could to help.
Cardinal Luigi Maglione, the Vatican’s Secretary of State and one of the Pope’s aides, summoned the German ambassador to attend the Vatican. Maglione asked Ernst von Weizsäcker to use his influence and intervene to stop the deportations, saying, ‘It is painful for the Holy Father, painful beyond words, that right here in Rome, under the eyes of the Common Father, so many people are made to suffer because