Erich Priebke was a German mid-level SS commander in the SS police force (SiPo) of Nazi Germany. In 1996, he was convicted of war crimes in Italy, for commanding the unit which was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre in Rome on 24 March 1944 in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in retaliation for a partisan attack that killed 33 men of the German SS Police Regiment Bozen. Priebke was one of the men held responsible for this mass execution. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, he fled to Argentina, where he lived for almost 50 years.
The Ardeatine massacre, or Fosse Ardeatine massacre, was a mass killing of 335 civilians and political prisoners carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for the Via Rasella attack in central Rome against the SS Police Regiment Bozen the previous day.
Karl Hass was an SS Hauptsturmführer and German spy who helped deport more than 1,000 Italian Jews to Auschwitz. A perpetrator in the Ardeatine massacre, in which 335 civilians were murdered, he was tried and convicted in Italy in 1998. He spent the last years of his life under limited house arrest in "the splendour of the beautiful Swiss Alps".
Herbert Kappler was a key German SS functionary and war criminal during the Nazi era. He served as head of German police and security services in Rome during the Second World War and was responsible for the Ardeatine massacre.
Hugh O'Flaherty was an Irish Catholic priest, a senior official of the Roman Curia and a significant figure in the Catholic resistance to Nazism. During the Second World War, O'Flaherty was responsible for saving 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews. His ability to evade the traps set by the German Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) earned him the nickname "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican".
The Scarlet and the Black is a 1983 Italian-American international co-production made-for-television historical war drama film directed by Jerry London, and starring Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer. Based on J. P. Gallagher's book The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, the film tells the story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a real-life Irish Catholic priest who saved thousands of Jews and escaped Allied POWs in Rome. CBS distributed more than 500,000 scripts of The Scarlet and the Black to students in elementary and high schools throughout the country, to be read aloud in class to stimulate student interest in English and history. The title The Scarlet and the Black is a reference not only to the black cassock and scarlet sash worn by monsignors and bishops in the Catholic Church, but also to the dominant colors of Nazi Party regalia.
Pietro Caruso was an Italian Fascist and head of the Rome police in 1944.
Robert Katz was an American novelist, screenwriter, and non-fiction author.
Johannes "Hans" Max Clemens was a German functionary of respectively the SS, Sicherheitsdienst was primarily the intelligence service of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Clemens was also known as the Tiger of Como while serving as a captain in the SS. During the war, he participated in the Ardeatine massacre. Clemens, together with other SS officers, including Herbert Kappler, Karl Hass, Carl-Theodor Schütz, and Erich Priebke, formed the first firing squad, which shot the first 12 victims. After the war, however, Clemens was acquitted of involvement by an Italian military court. He was released and returned to West Germany in 1949.
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 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, historian Susan Zuccotti researched the matter in detail and states that there is "considerable evidence of papal disapproval of the hiding of Jews and other fugitives in Vatican properties."
Vatican City pursued a policy of neutrality during World War II, under the leadership of Pope Pius XII. Although the city of Rome was occupied by Germany from September 1943 and the Allies from June 1944, Vatican City itself was not occupied. The Vatican organised extensive humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the conflict.
Kurt Mälzer was a German general of the Luftwaffe and a war criminal during World War II. In 1943, Mälzer was appointed the military commander of the city of Rome, subordinated to General Eberhard von Mackensen under the overall command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Under his authority, Mälzer commanded not only the garrison Wehrmacht troops in Rome itself, but also indirectly the SS security forces in the city.
Regina Coeli is the best known prison in the city of Rome. Previously a Catholic convent, it was built in 1654 in the rione of Trastevere. It started to serve as a prison in 1881.
Polizeiregiment "Südtirol", later Bozen, and finally SS-Polizeiregiment "Bozen", was a military unit of the German Ordnungspolizei recruited in the largely ethnic-German Alto Adige region in north-east Italy in late 1943, during the de facto German annexation of the region. The ranks were ethnically German Italian draftees while officers and NCOs were Germans.
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 8 September 1943, during World War II.
The raid on the Roman Ghetto took place on 16 October 1943. A total of 1,259 people, mainly members of the Jewish community—numbering 363 men, 689 women, and 207 children—were detained by the Gestapo. Of these detainees, 1,023 were identified as Jews and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Of these deportees, only fifteen men and one woman survived.
Two of the three Axis powers of World War II—Nazi Germany and their Fascist Italian allies—committed war crimes in the Kingdom of Italy.
The Via Rasella attack was an action taken by the Italian resistance movement against the Nazi German occupation forces in Rome, Italy, on 23 March 1944.
Pankratius Pfeiffer was a German Catholic priest and superior general of the Salvatorian order for 30 years. During the Nazi occupation of Rome during the Second World War, he acted as an informal liaison between Pope Pius XII and the German leadership. In this capacity, he rescued hundreds of Jews and others in Rome from execution by the Nazis. He also persuaded the Nazis to spare several Italian cities from destruction during their retreat from Italy. As a result, Pfeiffer became known as "the Angel of Rome."
