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Deportation to extermination camps. they are held at the military college of rome, mere blocks from st. peter's basilica. but despite the a trotrocities unfolding right at his doorstep, pope pius xii remains publicly silent. >> he takes the path of diplomatic caution in terms of his public pronouncements, but it's not that the pope was inactive. there is a view that the pope worked behind the scenes to try to put an end to the round up. there is some evidence, in fact, that actually worked. >> they got several jews released primarily because they were married to a catholic or they invoked the ...

In the two years after pope pius xi releases his antiracism encyclical, the party remains unsure about the regime. on the eve of 1938, nazi violence against the jews reaches a fever pitch. >> crystal night was the night of shattered glass. it's the night when the nazis went to the jewish businesses, the synagogues and smashed everything. >> 30,000 jewish men were sent to a concentration camp. it was a very public violent attack on jews. and after that it was game over. >> bishops from all over europe write to the vatican secretary

Ground. >> there were some vatican trucks that would go around and take food and blankets and bring additional supplies to where it was needed. >> some believe that pope pius xii silence is a cover. that throughout the war, he is secretly involved with covert operations with the allies. >> the pope did secretly tape his conversations. during the week of his election in 1939, the vatican tapes show quite clearly that he opted for public acquiescence with the nazis, and at the same time deciding they must be resisted behind the scenes. >> pius xii received information from the vatican spy in ger...

Publicly against hitler. >> latter part of the 1930s, pius xi began to prepare himself and the church with something against the fascist regime. >> he was personally not very friendly with the jews. he shared the widespread christian belief that the jews as a people had been responsible for jesus' death, but he thought that that didn't mean you had a right to invade their human rights. and, in fact, wrote in a cyclical condemning it. >> enlisted bocelli's health. he drafts an encyclical. >> it is the most formal statement from the vatican. it is the highest statement a pope can make. >> pope p...

>> despite pius xii public neutrality, hitler's march towards world domination reaches the pope's doorstep. in september of 1943, hitler invades rome. >> it was a situation where the pope thought that they had an operating agreement, did not think this was going to happen, but about 2000 jews were rounded up. >> the day of the round up, the pope says he doesn't want to have to come out and condemn explicitly nazi behavior. it's obviously a veiled threat to do precisely that, but he says he doesn't want to do it. so, the threat of a public condemnation is dangled which tells us he and his men u...