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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Weizsäcker responded with a series of compliments about the Vatican. He praised the Catholic Church for steering a neutral course in the war and then suggested it would be wise if the Holy See refrained from making a protest, telling the cardinal, ‘I am thinking of the consequences that a step by the Holy See would provoke …’ He added that these measures came from ‘the highest level’ and stressed that their conversation must be regarded as confidential. In response Maglione asked Weizsäcker to intervene by appealing to his ‘sentiments of humanity’.
The meeting was cordial and diplomatic. Even so, Weizsäcker’s reference to the ‘highest level’ was seen as a threat by an already nervous Vatican. The Pope did not want a showdown with Rome’s new rulers. There were too many uncertainties. If he protested too strongly about the deportations, would the relationship he had established with the Germans change for the worse? Would Berlin continue to respect the independence of the Vatican State? Such questions were considered against a backdrop of persistent rumours that the Germans would invade the Holy See and seize the Pope. Just as he had done since the start of the war in 1939, Pius XII knew he had a diplomatic game to play.
That night Kappler worked until late, as he had to file a report on the day’s events for Himmler. Just before midnight he finalized his dispatch and had it transmitted to the office of the Reichsführer-SS in Berlin. Kappler reported that the ‘action against the Jews started and finished today in accordance with a plan worked out as well as possible by the office’. Even though he stated that there were insufficient numbers of German police, he stated that 1,259 people had been arrested but those of mixed blood and foreigners had been released, leaving just over 1,000 still in custody. Kappler also noted that the operation had gone ahead without any opposition and that the use of firearms had not proved necessary.
Two days later all the prisoners were taken to a railway station and squeezed into trucks and transported to Auschwitz. Within a week 800 would be dead.
On the day the Jews left Rome’s Tiburtina Station on their one-way journey to Auschwitz, Sir D’Arcy Osborne met the Pope. There was only one topic of conversation. The British Minister told the Pope that he had ‘underestimated his own moral authority’ and talked of ‘the reluctant respect in which he was held by the Nazis because of the Catholic population of Germany’. Osborne was gently pushing the Pontiff to be more forceful. He asked him to consider that an occasion could arise that might involve his taking a ‘strong line’. They discussed the security situation in Rome and the behaviour of the German army and police. The Pope said he had no complaints about either organization and told Osborne that he would never leave Rome unless he was removed by force.
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