The first shot was fired half an hour ahead of the time set for the beginning of the revolt, due to unforeseen circumstances and, soon, coordination between the different combat teams broke down. Nonetheless, as chaos was spreading and part of the camp was set on fire, hundreds of inmates, either in groups or on their own, succeeded in breaking through the fences and escaping.61
In his prison conversations with Gitta Sereny, camp commander Stangl described the scene: “Looking out of my window I could see some Jews on the other side of the inner fence—they must have jumped down from the roof of the SS billets and they were shooting…. In an emergency like this my first duty was to inform the chief of the external security police. By the time I had done that our petrol station blew up…. Next thing the whole ghetto camp was burning and then, Matthess, the German in charge of the Totenlager [upper camp] arrived at a run and said everything was burning up there too.”62
According to various estimates, of the 850 inmates living in the camp on the day of the uprising, 100 were caught at the outset, 350 to 400 perished during the fighting, and some 400 fled but half of them were caught within hours; of the remaining 200, approximately 100 succeeded in escaping the German dragnet and the hostile population; the number of those who ultimately survived is unknown.63 After fleeing the immediate surroundings of the camp, Galewski was unable to go on and poisoned himself.64 Wiernik survived and became an essential witness.65
The immediate reason for the uprising in Sobibor was the same as in Treblinka, and from early 1943 on, a small group of the camp’s working Jews started planning the operation. Yet only in late September, when a young Jewish Red Army lieutenant, Alexander Pechersky, who had arrived from Minsk with a group of Soviet POWs, joined the planning group, were concrete steps rapidly taken.66 The date of the uprising was set for October 14. The plan foresaw the luring of key SS members to various workshops under some fictitious pretext, and killing them. The first phase of the plan, the liquidation of the SS personnel, succeeded almost without a hitch; although the second phase, the collective moving through the main gate, soon turned into uncontrolled fleeing, more than three hundred inmates succeeded in escaping to the surrounding forests.67 Pechersky and his group crossed the Bug River and joined the partisans.
The cooperation of Jewish inmates and Soviet POWs in the breakout was a unique aspect of the Sobibor uprising. Yet it added a further dimension to the security scare in Berlin. Coming after the Warsaw rebellion, the uprisings in Treblinka and Sobibor convinced Himmler that the murder of most Jewish workers, even in the Lublin district, should be completed as rapidly as possible. On November 3, 1943, the SS killed 18,400 inmates in Majdanek while music was played over loudspeakers to cover the sounds of shooting and the cries of the dying prisoners. In July 1942 the roundup of Jews in Paris had been baptized “Spring Wind”; in November 1943 the mass murder of the Jews of Majdanek received an equally idyllic code name: “Harvest Festival.”
IV
Barely two weeks after the German occupation of Rome, the main leaders of the community, Ugo Foà and Dante Almansi, were summoned by SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, the SD chief in the Italian capital. They were ordered to deliver fifty kilograms of gold within thirty-six hours. If the ransom was paid on time, no harm would befall the city’s Jews. Although Kappler had been secretly instructed by Himmler to prepare the deportation from Rome, it now appears (from declassified OSS documents) that the extortion was Kappler’s own idea, meant to avoid the deportation and eventually help instead in sending the Jews of Rome to work at local fortifications.68 Kappler, who had very few police forces at his disposal, preferred to use them in order to arrest Italian carabinieri, a far more real danger in his eyes than the mostly impoverished Jews of the city.69
The gold was collected in time from members of the community (a loan offered by the pope proved unnecessary) and shipped to the RSHA on October 7.70 Foà and Almansi believed Kappler’s assurances and, when warned by Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli and by leading officials of Delasem that further German steps could be expected, they chose for a while to ignore the omens: What had happened elsewhere could not happen in Rome. The community itself, mostly the 7,000 poorer Jews living in or near the former ghetto area, also remained unconcerned, like their leaders.71
And indeed, during the following days, the Germans appeared more interested in looting than in anything else. The priceless treasures of the Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica (the Library of the Israelite Community) became a special target. For good reasons. In the words of historian Stanislao G. Pugliese, “among the manuscripts were works of the rabbi and medical doctor Moses Rieti; manuscripts spirited out of Spain and Sicily during the Jewish expulsion in 1492; a Portuguese incunabulum of 1494; a mathematics text of Elia Mizrahi; and an extremely rare edition of a Hebrew-Italian-Arabic vocabulary published in Naples in 1488. There were also twenty-one Talmudic tracts published by Soncino [in the early sixteenth-century]…and a rare eight-volume edition of the Talmud by the famous sixteenth-century Venetian printer Daniel Bomberg.”72
In early October the Rosenberg agency specialists examined the collection. While some precious artifacts belonging to the main synagogue of the ghetto were hidden in the walls of the mikvah [the ritual bath for purification], the library could not be saved: On October 14 Rosenberg’s men loaded the books into two railroad cars and shipped them off to Germany.73 And, although some of the Jews of Rome argued that “crimes against books were not crimes against people,” panic started spreading.74 Frantically Jews looked for hiding places; the richer among them were soon gone.
On October 6 Theodor Dannecker arrived in Rome at the head of a small unit of Waffen SS officers and men. A few days later, on October 11, Kaltenbrunner reminded Kappler of the priorities he seemed to ignore: “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,” the message, decoded and translated by the British, stated. “To postpone the expulsion of the Jews until the Carabinieri and the Italian army officers have been removed can no more be considered than the idea mentioned of calling up the Jews in Italy for what would probably be very unproductive labor under responsible direction by Italian authorities. 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 Italians of disappearing completely. [undecoded] has been instructed in executing the RFSS orders to proceed with the evacuation of the Jews without further delay.”75 Kappler had no choice but to submit.
On October 16 Dannecker’s unit, with small Wehrmacht reinforcements, arrested 1,259 Jews in the Italian capital. After Mischlinge, partners in mixed marriages, and some foreigners had been released, 1,030 Jews, including a majority of women and some 200 children under the age of ten, remained imprisoned at the Military College. Two days later these Jews were transported to the Tiburtina railway station and from there to Auschwitz. Most of the deportees were gassed immediately, 196 were selected for labor; 15 survived the war.76
Throughout the country the roundups continued until the end of 1944: The Jews were usually transferred to an assembly camp at Fossoli (later to Risiera di San Sabba, near Trieste) and, from there, sent to Auschwitz. Thousands managed to hide among a generally friendly population or in religious institutions; some managed to flee across the Swiss border or to the areas liberated by the Allies. Nonetheless, throughout Italy about 7,000 Jews, some 20 percent of the Jewish population, were caught and murdered.77
Since the end of the war the arrest and deportation of the Jews of Rome (and of Italy) have been the object of particular scholarly attention and of a number of fictional renditions, given their direct relevance to the attitude of Pope Pius XII. The events as such are known in detail; the reasons for some of the most crucial decisions can only be surmised at best.
By early October 1943, several German officials in the Italian capital, including E
itel Friedrich Möllhausen, embassy councillor with the German diplomatic mission to Mussolini’s Salo Republic but himself posted in Rome, Ernst von Weizsäcker, former state secretary at the Wilhelmstrasse and newly appointed Ambassador to the Vatican, as well as Gen. Rainer Stahel, the Wehrmacht commander of the city, became aware of Himmler’s deportation order.
For a variety of reasons (fear of unrest among the population, wariness about the possibility of a public protest by Pius XII and its potential consequences), these officials attempted to have the order partly changed: The Jews would be used for labor in and around Rome. Möllhausen went so far as to convey his worries to Ribbentrop, on October 6, in unusually explicit terms: “Obersturmbannführer Kappler has received the order from Berlin to arrest the eight thousand Jews living in Rome and to transport them to northern Italy where they will be liquidated. The city commander of Rome, General Stahel, informs me that he will allow the operation only if the Foreign Minister agrees to it. I am personally of the opinion that it would be a better deal (besseres Geschäft) to use the Jews for work on fortifications, like in Tunis, and together with Stahel, I would present the case to Field Marshall Kesselring.”78
The next day Luther’s successor, Eberhard von Thadden, replied: “By order of the Führer, the 8,000 Jews living in Rome have to be taken to Mauthausen as hostages. The Minister asks you to avoid interfering in this matter under any circumstances and leave it to the SS.”79 On October 16, as we saw, the roundup took place.80
On the morning of the raid a friend of the pope, Countess Enza Pignatelli, informed him of the events. Immediately Maglione summoned Weizsäcker and mentioned the possibility of a papal protest if the raid went on. Strangely enough, however, after hinting that such a step could trigger a reaction “at the highest level,” Weizsäcker asked whether he was allowed not to report the conversation, and Maglione agreed. “I observed,” Maglione noted, “that I had asked him to intervene appealing to his sentiments of humanity. I was leaving it to his judgment whether or not to mention our conservation, which had been so friendly.”81
The reason for Weizsäcker’s suggestion is unclear. Did he wish to avoid receiving an “official” message that could indeed have led to retaliation against church interests in the Reich? His next step (the letter from Hudal, which we shall refer to) would be a nonofficial warning and thus probably exclude any violent reaction. But if the pope were to protest, all such precautions would have been in vain. Weizsäcker probably hoped that the threat of papal protest would suffice to stop the roundup; a protest would thus not be necessary. Either Maglione was informed of Weizsäcker’s next step and understood his reasoning, or else the cardinal’s acceptance of Weizsäcker’s suggestion not to report the conversation could only be interpreted as a rather strange signal that the possibility of a papal protest should not be taken too seriously.
Be that as it may, on that same day Weizsäcker and fellow German diplomats in the know approached the rector of the German church in Rome, Bishop Aloïs Hudal, a prelate notorious for his pro-Nazi leanings, and convinced him to write a letter to Stahel in which the strong possibility of the pope’s public protest would be mentioned.82 Hudal accepted.
A few hours later Weizsäcker cabled Hudal’s message to Berlin and added his personal comments for Ribbentrop’s benefit: “With regard to Bishop Hudal’s letter,” Weizsäcker informed the minister, “I can confirm that this represents the Vatican’s reaction to the deportation of the Jews of Rome. The Curia is especially upset considering that the action took place, so to say, under the Pope’s own windows. The reaction could perhaps be dampened if the Jews were to be employed in labor service here in Italy. Hostile circles in Rome are using this event as a means of pressuring the Vatican to drop its reserve. It is being said that when similar incidents took place in French cities, the bishops there took a clear stand. Thus the Pope, as the supreme leader of the Church and as Bishop of Rome, cannot do less. The Pope is also being compared with his predecessor, Pius XI, a man of a greatly more spontaneous temperament. Enemy propaganda abroad will certainly also use this event, in order to disturb the friendly relations between the Curia and ourselves.”83
The pope kept silent. On October 25, after the deportees’ train had left Italy on its way to Auschwitz, an article in the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, sang the praises of the Holy Father’s compassion: “The August Pontiff, as is well known…had not desisted for one moment in employing all the means in his powers to alleviate the suffering, which, whatever form it may take, is the consequence of this cruel conflagration. With the intensification of so much evil, the universal and paternal charity of the Pontiff has become, it could be said, ever more active; it knows neither boundaries nor nationality, neither religion nor race. This manifold and ceaseless activity on the part of Pius XII has intensified even more in recent times in regard for the increased suffering of so many unfortunate people.”84
Weizsäcker sent a translation of the article to the Wilhelmstrasse, with a notorious cover letter: “The Pope, although under intense pressure from various sides, has not allowed himself to be pushed into a demonstrative comment against the deportation of the Jews of Rome. Although he must know that such an attitude will be used against him by our adversaries…he has nonetheless done everything possible in this delicate matter in order not to burden relations with the German government and the German authorities in Rome. As there apparently will be no further German action taken on the Jewish question here, it may be expected that this matter, so unpleasant in regard to German-Vatican relations, is liquidated.” Referring then to the article in L’Osservatore Romano, Weizsäcker added: “No objections need be raised against this statement, insofar as its text…will be understood by very few people only as a special allusion to the Jewish question.”85
In August 1941 Hitler had been sufficiently worried about the impact of Bishop Galen’s sermon against euthanasia to alter the course of the operation. Why didn’t the Nazi leader make the faintest move to forestall a threat of much greater magnitude—a public declaration by the pope against the deportation and extermination of the Jews? Why, in fact, did Hitler insist on deporting the Jews of Rome, notwithstanding warnings about dire potential consequences? Even if he assumed that German Catholics would not take a stand regarding the Jews as they could have done regarding their own people (the mentally ill), a public condemnation by the pope would have constituted a worldwide propaganda disaster. Only one answer is plausible: Hitler and his acolytes must have been convinced that the Pope would not protest. This belief probably derived from the multiple and quasi-identical reports reaching Berlin about the pontiff ’s political stand.
As early as the beginning of 1943, in a conversation with the German ambassador to the Vatican, Diego von Bergen, Pius XII had expressed his desire to postpone dealing with all outstanding contentions between the Reich and the Holy See (regarding the situation of the church in Germany) until the end of the war. According to Bergen the pope added that such was his intention except if the Germans took measures that would compel him to speak out “to fulfill the obligations of his office.” Given the context the remark referred to the situation of the church in Germany.86 The pope’s readiness to accept, temporarily, the everyday difficulties that party and state created for German Catholics, and to postpone the discussion until after the war, derived, of course, from the ever-increasing worry of the Holy See in the face of gathering “Bolshevik” strength.
A short comment in Goebbels’s diary entry of February 8, 1943, confirmed that Hitler was well aware of the Vatican’s fears. The propaganda minister was listing the main points of Hitler’s address to the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter at Rastenburg headquarters, on February 7. In the course of his survey of Germany’s strategic and international situation after Stalingrad, the Nazi leader came to speak of the Vatican: “Also the Curia has become somewhat more active as it sees that now it has only one choice left: National Socialism or Bolshevism.”87
; Two further Goebbels diary entries of the same weeks have to be viewed with caution, as the minister may have added some wishful thinking to information that was reaching him. Thus on March 3 he noted: “I hear from the most diverse sides, that it could be possible to do something with the present Pope. He is supposed to share, in part, some very reasonable views and not to be as hostile to National Socialism as one could surmise from the declarations of some of his bishops.”88 Two weeks later Goebbels noted the “very sharp declaration against the twisting, in the U.S., of a speech by [New York Cardinal Francis] Spellman [who had just met with the pope]…. The Vatican declares that it has nothing to do with the war aims of the enemy. One can see from this, that the Pope is possibly closer to us than is generally assumed.”89
On July 5, on presenting his credentials as new German ambassador to the Holy See, Weizsäcker had a conversation with the pontiff that seemed to tally entirely with prior German assessments: Pius first mentioned his “gratitude for the years he had spent as Nuncio in Germany and his affection for Germany and the German people.” After alluding to the ongoing problems between church and state in Germany, the pope expressed the hope that these issues would later be solved. The conversation then turned to Bolshevism. Weizsäcker emphasized Germany’s role in the fight against the Bolshevik threat. According to the ambassador, “the Pope spoke of his own Munich experience with the communists in 1919. He condemned the mindless formula of our enemies that refers to ‘unconditional surrender.’” After mentioning Pius’s lack of expectations regarding any peace initiatives “at the present time,” Weizsäcker indicated in conclusion that although in general the conversation took place without apparent passion, it was “suffused with hidden spiritual ardor which turned into an acknowledgement of common interests with the Reich only when the fight against Bolshevism was evoked.” (“Das Gespräch…wurde vom Papst ohne sichtbare Leidenschaft, aber mit einem Unterton von geistlichen Eifer geführt, der nur bei der Behandlung der Bolschewisten-Bekämpfung in eine Annerkenung gemeinsamer Interessen mit dem Reich überging.”)90
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