How could it be that millions of Europeans could see the Jews in such demonic terms they'd be willing to massacre little children and old people?

For that, I think the church bears great responsibility.

- The Nazis were here in Rome at the gates of his palace.

He was a prisoner in the Vatican.

- The pope has come to symbolize a moral test for the Catholic Church during World War II.

[dramatic music] - Major funding f [bell tolling] ce" - It's hard to date the origins of what happened with the Vatican and the Holocaust, but 1922 was a key year because Pius XI becomes pope, and he will be pope over the next two decades in the years that will lead up to the Holocaust.

♪ ♪ In Italy itself, the Fascist movement is gaining ground, and later that same year is when Benito Mussolini would come to power.

♪ ♪ - Pius XI almost immediately saw an opportunity to deal with a figure who he believed had control of the political system.

[horse neighs] - The pope himself said, God chooses strange instruments, and Mussolini certainly is very strange as God's instrument.

♪ ♪ Mussolini was a big bully, a violent man, not a religious bone in his body, but this is how the pope saw things.

♪ ♪ - The two of them worked together toward the establishment, eventually, of a concordat in 1929, which did many things to change the course of Italian-Vatican relations.

♪ ♪ - The concordat is a treaty that establishes Vatican City as a sovereign entity.

Vatican City did not exist beforehand.

♪ ♪ [cheers and applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Pope Pius XI appoints his new secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, who's the number two in the Vatican after the pope himself.

♪ ♪ - Eugenio Pacelli really cuts his diplomatic teeth in Germany in that immediate post-First World War period, when he serves in Germany as the papal representative.

There's no question that he develops a fondness for German language, the German people.

He develops, probably most importantly, a familiarity with the reality of German politics.

♪ ♪ - His fixation on communism was rooted way back in his early career when the Communists tried to take-- did take over Munich, and he was threatened with his life at that point.

♪ ♪ - Pacelli was a man with deep knowledge of the world political situation.

Pius XI had much less sophistication.

He was someone that if he felt church values were threatened, would--could erupt, and Pacelli was not like that.

He was someone very much in control of himself.

The pope came to rely on Pacelli, especially in dealing with German affairs because of Pacelli's deep experience with Germany.

♪ ♪ - As the vote for Adolf Hitler is growing, Pacelli is receiving letters from German Catholics saying, "I want to be Catholic and I want to be a Nazi.

"Please take a clear stand.

"Please ask Pope Pius XI to take a clear stand.

Please advise me."

[cheers and applause] There are fascinating internal documents between Pacelli as secretary of state and bishops in Germany discussing this.

Do we risk alienating Catholics who want to remain in the church and are attracted to Nazism?

How do we handle this problem?

♪ ♪ - Hitler comes to power in January 1933, and very quickly, within just six months, Pacelli negotiated a concordat, a treaty, between the Vatican and the Nazi regime in Germany.

♪ ♪ - Even though it got broken before it was even signed, they thought it was the right thing to do.

♪ ♪ - It was certainly not that he had sympathy for National Socialism, but Pacelli was concerned that if the pope did anything to upset Hitler, especially publicly, it might threaten some of the privileges that the Roman Catholic Church still had in Germany.

♪ ♪ [all chanting in German] - The first anti-Jewish laws were in 1933.

♪ ♪ Pacelli, as secretary of state, took a position of neutrality.

"Let German bishops make their decisions.

"We here in Rome, I as secretary of state, I am going to try to remain above the fray."

♪ ♪ - In Nazi Germany, not only the Jews were persecuted.

They were killed, yes, but also the church, the Catholic Church, were really persecuted.

Murdered priests, and the goal of the Nazis was also to eliminate-- to murder the church.

- At the onset of the first anti-Jewish laws, many letters were coming to the Vatican from Jews saying, "Help me.

"Please give some kind of response "that will be heard by the millions of Roman Catholics in the world," and by a regime that had a 30% Catholic population.

♪ ♪ [bright music] ♪ ♪ - As the United States rises as a world power, so, too, do the American Catholics, and it's an extraordinary rise.

♪ ♪ By the mid-1930s, Catholics are approaching 1/5 of the population of the United States.

Prior to this, in the 19th and early 20th century, many Catholics were looked down upon and even persecuted.

♪ ♪ - Roosevelt tapped into this population, spoke to the needs of immigrant Catholics and ethnic Catholics of this time.

Before that, they were kind of ignored by both Republicans and Democrats.

♪ ♪ - Cardinal Pacelli, who was then secretary of state, visited the United States.

His main purpose in coming was he wanted to meet Roosevelt.

And any time Pacelli had visited the country, they actually chartered a plane to fly him out to the west coast.

♪ ♪ - Pacelli's visit in 1936 took place literally on the eve of the presidential election, so Roosevelt wanted this well known within the Catholic community that he was inviting the secretary of state of the Vatican, Pacelli, to the United States.

♪ ♪ - What's really going on behind the scenes, it appears, is that the Vatican and the United States are coming closer together than ever before in their history.

♪ ♪ And figures like Joseph Kennedy, for example, are instrumental in helping to introduce Pacelli to the world of FDR.

♪ ♪ - And there was a famous argument that they had.

Pacelli said, "The greatest challenge facing the United States is communism."

And... Roosevelt scoffed at Pacelli and said, "The greatest challenge is fascism."

♪ ♪ crowd: [chanting] Heil!

Heil!

Heil!

Heil!

Heil!

Heil!

[cheers and applause] ♪ ♪ - Pope Pius XI, who sees Hitler as an enemy of the Catholic Church, becomes more and more upset as Mussolini embraces Hitler.

♪ ♪ Initially, Hitler sees Mussolini as his role model, as a kind of bigger brother, but this relationship would alter as Hitler becomes more and more powerful.

♪ ♪ In 1938, Hitler would visit Rome.

The pope would not stay in Rome for that visit but goes to his summer estate outside the city, closes down the Vatican.

♪ ♪ - It was a surprise to most Italians when the anti-Semitic measures were announced.

For example, kicking all Jewish students out of the public schools and firing all Jewish teachers and professors and all the civil servants.

There's a big debate about whether Mussolini was anti-Semitic.

A Jewish woman, Margherita Sarfatti, was his lover and mistress and perhaps his most important political counselor as he was coming to power.

So I think most historians would see his move toward anti-Semitism as wanting to show Hitler that he was his equal.

♪ ♪ [gentle music] - Pius XI begins to question whether it makes sense for the Vatican to continue to normalize its diplomatic relationship with the Hitler regime and with the Mussolini regime.

And there are some very frank exchanges between Pius XI and Pacelli, his secretary of state.

Pacelli's response was characteristic of Pacelli.

It was to acknowledge the concern, but to always ask the question "What's the alternative?"

In Pacelli's estimation, there were no good alternatives to that diplomatic relationship, as imperfect and as controversial as it was.

- Pius XI said to a group of Belgian tourists, "Anti-Semitism is a hateful movement "with which we Catholics must have nothing to do.

Spiritually, we are all Semites."

♪ ♪ - Negative teaching about Jews that originates from the earliest years of Christianity where Jews are portrayed in a negative light.

♪ ♪ Over the centuries, as Jews were vilified, that vilification became intensified.

♪ ♪ - Pius XI began to feel it necessary to take a strong position denouncing racism, denouncing anti-Semitism.

He strongly believed it was not only his job to protect the institutional interests of the church, but also to speak out on important moral questions.

It was over the objection that Pacelli and others around the pope put up that the pope decided, no, this is a matter of deep principle, deep Catholic values.

He felt the pope has an obligation to speak.

♪ ♪ It was pretty clear, I think, to Pope Pius XI that, if he tried to work through the normal channels in the church, he'd be thwarted.

He didn't want to even consult his own secretary of state.

Pacelli didn't initially know this was happening.

Pope Pius XI brings in what, to the Vatican, is quite obscure American Jesuit John LaFarge.

- John LaFarge came from a blue-blood-like family.

John went to Harvard in the late 1800s, breezed through, and then came to his parents one day and said he wanted to be a priest.

They were deeply shocked by that.

♪ ♪ A family friend, none other than the vice-president of the United States at the time, Teddy Roosevelt, interceded, saying, "The boy has a vocation, and he should become a priest," and he convinced them to allow that to happen.

♪ ♪ LaFarge had his first great experience as a priest in St. Mary's County, Maryland, where he ministered to a very poor, predominantly African-American community.

And it really changed his worldview, seeing the suffering and racism that the black folks in St. Mary's County suffered.

♪ ♪ He wanted the church to get more active than it had ever been in fighting racism.

That, in turn, amazingly, brought LaFarge's name to the desk of Pope Pius XI.

[applause] ♪ ♪ [crowd cheering] ♪ ♪ In the mid-1930s, Americans were not always and necessarily focusing on the changes that were going on in Europe with the rise of Hitler and Nazism.

By 1938, though, something terrible seemed to be happening.

♪ ♪ And John LaFarge, who was an associate editor at "America" magazine, sailed to Europe in the spring of 1938 to get an idea about, as he said, whether the newspapers were telling it right.

[crowd chanting in German] [tense music] - This is one month after Hitler has paid his very dramatic, triumphal visit to Rome, to Naples, to Florence.

[cheers and applause] - A day or two before LaFarge was supposed to leave Rome, suddenly, a letter arrived at the residence with the telltale colors and insignia of the Vatican, and he knew immediately that this was an invitation from the pope himself.

[sweeping music] ♪ ♪ After a sleepless night, LaFarge drove down to Castel Gandolfo-- it's about an hour and a half drive on winding roads-- and presented himself at the papal palace.

When the elevator opened and Pacelli came out, Pacelli was kind of glaring at LaFarge.

He wouldn't have known who he was necessarily, but he seemed to be not very happy.

And that would not be a surprise because, in fact, the pope had cleared the room purposely to talk about something which he considered to be highly secret.

♪ ♪ LaFarge, looking around, saw that a copy of his book, "Interracial Justice," was on the pope's desk.

There was LaFarge, expecting to have been rebuked by the pope for saying something that was too far out of bounds, too progressive.

♪ ♪ Then followed almost a humorous interaction in which they tried to determine what language they were gonna speak.

The pope read many languages and probably could speak some English, but they finally settled on French.

After a moment, the pope got to the point that he wanted to discuss: that he was preparing himself to challenge Hitler, Nazism, Mussolini, and the entire concept of anti-Semitism, the same point which LaFarge had made in "Interracial Justice."

"There's only one race and that's the human race."

"And," the pope continued, "you, John LaFarge, will write this encyclical for me."

He was floored.

He said, "How would a humble Jesuit from the United States do such a thing?"

And that was where the pope turned to him and said... [speaking French] "Say it completely simply.

Say it as if you yourself were the pope."

♪ ♪ LaFarge was supposed to be leaving Rome and coming home, so he had to immediately tell the editor of "America" magazine something had changed.

He wrote a long letter to his boss.

"Frankly, I am simply stunned.

"And all I can say is, "the rock of Peter has fallen on my head.

"Had I anticipated such a terrific development, "nothing would have persuaded me "even to go to Rome, "much less see the pope.

"As it is, nothing to do but to go through with the whole thing."

♪ ♪ - An encyclical is the most authoritative pronouncement a pope can make.

Unfortunately, Wlodimir Ledóchowski, the head of the Jesuit Order at the time, is a virulent anti-Semite, and he's very upset when he learns, first of all, that the pope is planning an encyclical denouncing anti-Semitism, and secondly, that the pope has called on a Jesuit, a member of the order who's under his direction, to draft it.

♪ ♪ - LaFarge, in the summer of 1938, is in Paris.

He is working at a feverish pace to try to produce an encyclical.

♪ ♪ Ledóchowski, every once in a while, was getting in touch.

"How are you doing?

What's going on?"

A little bit too interested, perhaps, in finding out what was going on, and finally saying to LaFarge, "Well, if you're about finished, "no need to come back to Rome.

"Just give it to me and I'll deliver it to the pope."

LaFarge didn't know if that was a good idea or not, but he finally gave in and said, "Well, I can trust my superior to deliver this."

♪ ♪ The pope, meanwhile, was expecting it to arrive and made some comments in the press that he had something major to say.

♪ ♪ LaFarge arrived in the United States a couple of weeks later, awaiting word, and things were quiet.

♪ ♪ By late October, LaFarge was getting... increasingly concerned that he'd heard nothing about his encyclical draft, and he was starting to realize that something might be wrong.

♪ ♪ LaFarge decides to write a letter to the pope saying, "I'm sure that you've received "the encyclical from Father Ledóchowski because I gave it to him."

♪ ♪ LaFarge delivers the letter to the Vatican representative in Washington, who assumedly sends it through in a diplomatic pouch to the Vatican.

LaFarge finally hears that the pope has been asking, "Where is the encyclical?"

Meanwhile, the pope was ill a series of times throughout 1938.

There are questions about whether his apparent heart condition will finally get bad enough so that he may not be able to function.

[people shouting] [uneasy music] ♪ ♪ - Kristallnacht was the pogrom against the Jews that took place in Germany on November 9th and 10th of 1938.

Jewish shops were smashed, 30,000 Jews were deported and put in concentration camps, and Jews were widely attacked throughout Germany.

It is considered the beginning of the Holocaust because it is the first time that you saw full-on, orchestrated violence against Jews as a select minority in Nazi Germany under Hitler.

♪ ♪ - Pacelli is approached to intervene and make a public statement.

At the time, because Pius XI was ill, Pacelli had a lot of decision-making power and instructed the response to be, "We can only make a general, neutral statement "about all victims.

"We cannot speak out "against the Nazi regime specifically and for Jews specifically."

He will not use the word Nazi.

He will not use the word Jew.

- We know that the encyclical written by John LaFarge, the American Jesuit priest, was on the pope's desk in January of 1939.

♪ ♪ How it got there and whether the pope had read it is not absolutely clear, but it is known through students who met with the pope, he had told them he had something exciting planned, big changes, and they saw the pope, despite having been sick, to be quite vigorous and excited about what the prospects were.

The pope convened all of Italian bishops to come to Rome.

♪ ♪ The pope suddenly came down with a cold.

He called in doctors, told the doctors keep him going, give him whatever they had to give him, because he had to get through to that Saturday to meet with the bishops.

♪ ♪ Whatever might have occurred, we don't know because the pope died the day before, February 10th, 1939.

♪ ♪ - The question of who would succeed Pius XI becomes very important to Mussolini and, to a lesser extent, to Hitler himself.

We know from the diplomatic correspondence that both the Fascist, the Italian, ambassador to the Holy See and the German, or Nazi, ambassador to the Holy See meet to discuss what needs to be done, and they both agree that the man who would most protect their interest would be Eugenio Pacelli, and so they scheme behind the scenes, meeting with the German and Italian cardinals to try to bolster their support.

[crowd chattering] - Outside St. Peter's, Rome, they wait for news of the election of the pope.

Catholic men, women, and children waiting for a sign from the conclave.

Then suddenly, after the third ballot, the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel.

The pope has been elected, but who?

♪ ♪ - [speaking Italian] [cheers and applause] - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, papal secretary of state, is the choice of the cardinals.

Elected on his 63rd birthday, he has assumed the title of Pius XII and is likely to continue the policy of Pius XI.

[bells tolling] - Pius XII decides that the encyclical is a bad idea.

It would just increase tensions, both with the Fascist regime in Italy and with the Nazi regime in Germany.

- And one of the first things that Pacelli did was to say to his subordinates, "Gather up all versions of these documents "and they must be destroyed.

Not a letter should remain."

♪ ♪ He did meet with Ledóchowski and made it clear that this draft of an encyclical would not be known as an encyclical and would never be referred to as an encyclical.

And with that happening, it was clear to LaFarge that that chapter in history had been closed and was sealed.

Pope Pius XI's attempt to challenge Nazism, to challenge fascism in Italy, and to challenge anti-Semitism would never appear in that form ever again.

[tense music] ♪ ♪ - From what we know of very radical Nazis at the highest levels, they were gonna do what they were gonna do, no matter what anyone said.

I'm not sure anything a pope or another head of state would say would necessarily sway them in the way we would like.

♪ ♪ I'm thinking here about those 21 million German Catholics who had to cooperate and support the Nazi regime for it to function on a day-to-day level.

They might have behaved differently.

Maybe they would've sheltered a Jewish family.

Maybe they would have responded differently to an order on the field of battle.

Maybe they would've responded differently to their Nazi thug in their neighborhood that they tried to avoid and ignore rather than speak up against.

Maybe they would've behaved differently when their own church was being attacked.

♪ ♪ [explosions rumbling] ♪ ♪ [propellers whirring] - With everything that's happening in Europe, we're pulling not just our German ambassador out, but we're having no one left in Europe, so one of the considerations in Roosevelt's mind is, we need someone over there who can tell us what's going on.

♪ ♪ - FDR decided with Pacelli becoming pope, a man whom he had met in the United States, it would be wise to have a kind of go-between between himself and the pope.

- Roosevelt sits down and writes a handwritten letter to the pope.

- February 14, 1940.

Your Holiness, I am entrusting this special mission to Mr. Myron Taylor, who is a very old friend of mine and in whom I repose the utmost confidence.

I shall be happy to feel that he may be the channel of communications for any views you and I may wish to exchange in the interest of concord among the peoples of the world.

Cordially your friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

♪ ♪ - Myron Taylor is probably the country's leading industrialist of the first half of the 20th century.

In the early 1920s, his friend J.P. Morgan begs him to save U.S. Steel.

He then takes U.S. Steel through the Depression.

♪ ♪ And he says, "Okay, that work is now done.

I now want to retire."

Then a couple weeks later, Franklin Roosevelt calls him and says, "I want you to take on an assignment for me."

♪ ♪ - Even though Myron Taylor is not a Catholic, he is speaking to the vicar of Christ as a representative of the president of the United States.

♪ ♪ - Taylor brought a very quiet diplomacy to that process.

He also had a personal relationship not just with people in the Vatican, because Taylor had this fabulous villa in Tuscany, so he'd spend a lot of time in Italy, knew all the people in Europe.

On Taylor's first visit in 1940, the initial instructions are to try to prevent a greater outbreak of war.

Try to use all of your best efforts to get the pope to keep Mussolini from joining the war.

♪ ♪ That mission does not succeed.

The pope's reaction is, "I really have no authority, "moral or other authority, to convince Mussolini to do anything."

♪ ♪ - My father had a wonderful career in the foreign service.

He was assigned to Rome for 11 years, and because of his long experience in Italy, he was assigned to be the assistant to Myron Taylor.

That was the beginning of his career at the Vatican City.

♪ ♪ "One of the consequences of living in the Vatican City "was, of course, that of being close with the Holy Father.

"A few times, I was invited to bring along my wife and two sons."

The Americans had as their goal to get the pope to be specifically in favor of the Allies.

My father had a lot to do with that.

But the pope never gave in on that.

He wanted to keep his neutrality.

♪ ♪ - Pius XII did not think that the Allies would win World War II.

He thought there would be a negotiated peace, and it would leave the Nazis in power in much of Europe.

He doesn't speak out against the Nazis.

That was his attempt to stay on the safe side, to thread the needle.

♪ ♪ - Dear Mr. President, as Vicar on Earth of the Prince of Peace, we have dedicated our efforts and our solicitude to the purpose of maintaining peace, and afterwards, of reestablishing it.

Heedless of momentary lack of success and of the difficulties involved, we are continuing to follow along the path marked out for us by our apostolic mission.

♪ ♪ [planes roaring] [explosions booming] - Pearl Harbor happens.

We declare war against Japan.

Italy and the Nazis declare war on us.

So we're at war with three different countries.

Roosevelt wants Taylor to go to the Vatican again.

- Pius XII hoped very much that he could remain neutral in the war and that he could help negotiate a peace.

He felt that that would be his major contribution.

- Roosevelt sends Taylor over principally to talk the pope into not doing this, that that's a bad idea.

- "I was now confronted with the problem "of persuading the Holy See "that the United States would never agree to a Nazi victory of any kind."

♪ ♪ - One of the things that he arms the pope with, Taylor does, is his knowledge of the American war machine.

♪ ♪ We are now turning out 10,000 tanks a week, 10,000 planes a week, and it's not a question of if we win the war, 'cause we are gonna crush these people with just the sheer weight of the war materiel that we make.

The world is going to be a world that we are going to be leading, because there's just no way we can lose.

♪ ♪ - September 3, 1942.

Your Holiness, I well know what great difficulties surround you, and I know that you are praying for us in the United States just as you are praying for all humanity.

♪ ♪ - Dear Mr. President, our heart is particularly saddened by the thought of the massacre and widespread devastation which the present conflict is leaving in its wake.

We have not failed and we shall not fail to do everything possible to alleviate the sufferings of those in need and in carrying out this beneficent work of charity.

- There's very little disagreement on the issue of what the pope knew because the documents are quite clear.

♪ ♪ - Myron Taylor's mission was not principally about the Jews and the situation of the Jews, although the-- this issue was raised.

♪ ♪ - Pius XII had the equivalent of ambassadors in many different countries, including Germany, who brought back an enormous amount of information.

Many of the reports have actually been signed, seen by the pope.

The documents speak of 2 million Jews having been killed.

♪ ♪ - "October 6, 1942.

"The Holy See is still apparently convinced "that a forthright denunciation by the pope "of Nazi atrocities "would only result in the violent deaths of many more people."

- The whole controversy around Pius XII, what we've come to call the Pius War, really centers around the question of what the pope said or didn't say, especially when word begins to reach the Vatican of the mass deportation of European Jews.

♪ ♪ - The pope made a Christmas message every year, which was broadcast over the radio.

The Allied world was hoping very much that Pius XII would make a statement about the Jews in his Christmas message of 1942.

♪ ♪ In a long, long speech, he had one sentence about the suffering of Jews.

♪ ♪ - Hundreds of thousands of persons, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline.

♪ ♪ - To mention Germany, to explicitly mention Jews, in the Christmas message of 1942 would, in his mind, run the risk of a diplomatic break between the Vatican and Germany.

And he would not do that.

He would not take that risk.

♪ ♪ - During World War II, Pius XII came out with a number of messages of world peace and brotherhood and harmony, all of which are very, I'm sure, praiseworthy sentiments.

In all those pronouncements, however, he never mentions the word "Jew."

He certainly never talks about the massacre of Jews that he knew was occurring by the millions.

He never mentions the fact that thousands of people who saw themselves as good Catholics were taking part in the massacre of Jewish men, women, and children.

- There was nothing specific that would contravene the anti-Jewish sentiments in countries like Poland, like Eastern European countries, and other countries as well, unfortunately, to remind them of moral and spiritual obligations.

I think that could've made a difference.

♪ ♪ - Basically, it's pretty boring for a 10-year-old kid at the Vatican.

Sit around a place that has a nice garden, but no other kids.

And so the entertainment was provided by the bombings.

[planes roaring] - The pope was very much concerned about Rome, and especially Vatican City, being bombed by the Allies.

- This was a recurrent theme in his meetings with Myron Taylor, that, "Please convince Churchill and Roosevelt "to not bring bombing runs over Rome.

"You think you're hitting one part of Rome, "you're gonna hit the Vatican, and this is irreplaceable."

- July 19, 1943.

My dear Mr. President, the neutrality of the Holy See strikes its roots deep in the very nature of our apostolic ministry.

And now, even in Rome, we have had to witness the harrowing scene of death leaping from the skies, striking down women and children.

A city whose every district has its irreplaceable monuments of faith or art, and Christian culture cannot be attacked without inflicting an incomparable loss on the patrimony of religion and civilization.

♪ ♪ [plane roaring] - We read all these dire threats on the part of the Vatican about, "Don't bomb us, don't bomb us," and then you think, where is the threat about what's happening to the Jews?

And so you weigh those two things and the scales go like this.

♪ ♪ - Mussolini had been removed from power in July of '43.

The Germans occupied Italy, and Italy was no longer a partner of the Germans in the war, but an occupied country, and until that time, Jews had not been deported.

♪ ♪ [engine revving] Everything changed for the Jews at that point.

Italian police and civil servants were asked to prepare lists of Jews throughout the city of Rome.

They certainly had strong suspicion that their lists were being prepared for evil purposes.

Many of those officials were practicing Catholics who didn't want to see the Jews deported and spoke to their priests.

There was a network.

It's hard to believe that that information did not reach the pope.

Yet the Jews seemed not to have been warned of the impending danger.

♪ ♪ On October 16th, 1943, Jews were caught unaware in their homes and 1,259 individuals, men, women, and children, were arrested and imprisoned in a military institution very close to Vatican City.

♪ ♪ The pope learned about the Rome roundup early in the morning of October 16th as it was happening.

[dog barking] ♪ ♪ The pope contacted his secretary of state, Maglione.

Maglione arranged a meeting with the German ambassador to the Holy See.

♪ ♪ - The German ambassador, Ernst von Weizsacker, says to the cardinal, "Well, I understand your position, "but do you really want me to tell "that highest authority in Germany, "who might be very unhappy if you were going to protest this?"

And Cardinal Maglione says, "Well, no.

"Please don't do that.

I'll leave that to your judgment."

♪ ♪ - The pope did not protest.

More than a thousand people were deported to Auschwitz on October 18th, two days later, and most of them were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz.

♪ ♪ [explosion booms] - Your Holiness, the soldiers of the United Nations have come to rid Italy of fascism and of its unhappy symbols and to drive out the Nazi oppressors who are infesting her.

Churches and religious institutions will, to the extent that it is within our power, be spared the devastation of war during the struggle ahead.

Cordially yours, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

♪ ♪ - Watching the Americans and British coming up Italy to liberate Rome, it was like hoping that your team will win.

I can remember being terribly impatient that they were taking so much time.

My brother and I had very good cameras, which were available at bargain prices because of the war, so we could sit on the wall of our house and take pictures of the Germans leaving, and it was obvious who were the winners and who were the losers.

The Germans didn't even have enough gas to pull their artillery.

They had horses pulling their artillery.

♪ ♪ When the Americans came through in all their modern Jeeps and powerful trucks and so on, you definitely had a feeling that the war could not last much longer.

♪ ♪ - His Holiness the Pope was about to speak, and nearly half a million packed the historic square.

[cheering] - [speaking Italian] [cheers and applause] ♪ ♪ [speaking English] - Even if nothing had happened, for Pius XII, in a very bold way, specific way, very clear way, had condemned the Holocaust using the word "Jew," identifying the 6 million who were murdered, what would that say today for Catholic-Jewish relations?

What would that say today for the moral voice of the papacy?

♪ ♪ - It has been said in defense of Pius XII and his silence during the Holocaust, "Well, what did the Americans or British do to help the Jews?"

And of course, we know that in the American case, the record is, in many ways, quite shameful in terms of not taking in Jewish refugees.

The Americans and the British, of course, did denounce the Nazis for what they were doing to the Jews and spoke out about the absolute necessity of defeating the Nazis, and this, of course, the pope never did.

The pope never denounced the Nazis for the massacre of the Jews and never called for their defeat.

- We've just learned so much more about what was actually said, not said, what was actually done or not done, and I hope that we can finally come away from these really simplistic caricatures, either that he's Hitler's pope or he's a righteous gentile, so it's important not to demonize him.

But I think, you know, canonizing him, literally or figuratively, is another matter as well.

♪ ♪ - We all crave an honest, responsible, clear assessment of this history.

For Jewish families trying to understand why, when they didn't deserve it, didn't do anything to earn the wrath of their neighbors and the Nazi regime and the silence of the church in the face of that, and for Catholics who are asking themselves, "Why did my church fail?

"Why did it fail the Jews?

"Why did it fail Catholic principles ultimately?

Why did it fail to be a church of love and mercy?"

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪