The history of the Jews in Italy spans more than two thousand years. The Jewish presence in Italy dates to the pre-Christian Roman period and has continued, despite periods of extreme persecution and expulsions, until the present. As of 2007, the estimated core Jewish population in Italy numbers around 45,000.
The Scarlet and the Black is a 1983 American made-for-television historical war drama film directed by Jerry London and starring Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer.
Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy is a book by Susan Zuccotti which examines the role of the Catholic Church in providing aid to Jews in Italy during the Holocaust, and is critical of the actions of the papacy in this regard.
Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza (PCA), also known as “Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza ai Profughi”, “Vatican mission” and “Vatican Relief”, was a papal ad hoc commission, created by Pope Pius XII on April 18, 1944, to provide quick, non-bureaucratic and direct aid to needy populations, refugees, and prisoners in war-torn Europe.
This bibliography on Church policies 1939–1945 includes mainly Italian publications relative to Pope Pius XII and Vatican policies during World War II. Two areas are missing and need separate bibliographies at a later date.
The Bolzano transit camp was a Nazi concentration camp active in Bolzano between 1944 and the end of the Second World War. It was one of the largest Nazi Lager on Italian soil, along with those of Fossoli, Borgo San Dalmazzo and Trieste.
Cavalier Angelo Donati was a Jewish Italian banker and philanthropist, and a diplomat of the San Marino Republic in Paris.
Pope Pius XII's response to the Roman razzia or mass deportation of Jews on October 16, 1943 is a significant issue relating to Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. Under Mussolini, no policy of abduction of Jews had been implemented in Italy. Following the capitulation of Italy in 1943, Nazi forces invaded and occupied much of the country, and began deportations of Jews to extermination camps. Pius XII protested at diplomatic levels, while several thousand Jews found refuge in Catholic networks, institutions and homes across Italy - including in the Vatican City and Pope Pius' Summer Residence. The Catholic Church and some historians have credited this rescue in large part to the direction of Pope Pius XII, however, Susan Zuccotti researched the matter in detail and discovered that although the pope was aware of The Holocaust, he did not issue a rescue order. Zuccotti states that there is, in fact, "considerable evidence of papal disapproval of the hiding of Jews and other fugitives in Vatican properties."
Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address was a speech delivered by Pope Pius XII over Vatican Radio on Christmas 1942. It is notable for its denunciation of the extermination of people on the basis of race, and followed the commencement of the Nazi Final Solution program to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The significance of the denunciation is a matter of scholarly debate.
Sister Margherita Marchione is an American Roman Catholic sister, writer, teacher and apologeticist, who dedicated herself in her later years to the defense of Pope Pius XII. A member of the Religious Teachers Filippini for most of her life, she had access to the sisters of her order in Italy, who reportedly sheltered some Jews during the Second World War.
Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants or DELASEM, was an Italian and Jewish resistance organization that worked in Italy between 1939 and 1947. It is estimated that during World War II, DELASEM was able to distribute more than $1,200,000 in aid, of which nearly $900,000 came from outside Italy.
Campagna internment camp, located in Campagna, a town near Salerno in Southern Italy, was an internment camp for Jews and foreigners established by Benito Mussolini in 1940.
The Fossoli camp was an internment camp in Italy, established during World War II and located in the village Fossoli, Carpi, Emilia-Romagna. It began as a prisoner of war camp in 1942, later being a Jewish concentration camp, then a police and transit camp, a labour collection centre for Germany and, finally, a refugee camp, before closing in 1970.
In 1495 one-third of the population of Martina Franca, Italy, was made of practising Jews or Jews converted to Christianity. The escape involved one-third of the population: 150–200 families. Among the privileges granted the city council of Martina in 1495, King Frederick of Aragon forbade Jews and Crypto-Jews and Neofiti to press charges against those who robbed them and prohibited their coming to live in that city. Also in 1495, the Jews of Martina Franca were massacred.
The Pope's Jews: The Vatican's Secret Plan to Save Jews from the Nazis is a 2012 book by the British author Gordon Thomas concerning the efforts of Pope Pius XII to protect Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. The Observer reported in 2013 that "Gordon Thomas, a Protestant, was given access to previously unpublished Vatican documents and tracked down victims, priests and others who had not told their stories before" and had uncovered "evidence on Pius XII's wartime efforts to save Jewish refugees".
The Holocaust in Italy was the persecution, deportation, and murder of Jews between 1943 and 1945 in the Italian Social Republic, the part of the Kingdom of Italy occupied by Nazi Germany after the Italian surrender on September 8, 1943, during World War II.
The Raid of the Ghetto of Rome took place on 16 October 1943. A total of 1,259 members of the Jewish community–numbering 363 men, 689 women, and 207 children–were initially captured by the Gestapo. Of these, 1,023 were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Only fifteen men and one woman survived.
The Stolpersteine in Croatia lists the Stolpersteine in the Republic of Croatia. Stolpersteine is the German name for stumbling blocks collocated all over Europe by German artist Gunter Demnig. They remember the fate of the Nazi victims being murdered, deported, exiled or driven to suicide.
The RSI Police Order No. 5 was an order issued on 30 November 1943 in the Italian Social Republic to the Italian police in German-occupied northern Italy to arrest all Jews except those born of mixed marriages, which were required to be monitored by the police.
