Pius XII Told Catholic Groups to Assist Th ose Fleeing NaziS.
Vatican City, April 8, 2003 (ZENIT)
At least eight hundred Jews in three Italian cities were saved from Nazi persecution in 1943 and 1944; thanks
in part to an appeal from Pope Pius XII, documents were revealed. Th e newly found evidence shows that in
the cities of Livorno, Lucca, and Pisa, the Jews were spared after the Pope had asked various church groups
to help out.
Th e network of assistance was made up of oblate priests of Lucca, the archbishop of Genoa, Franciscan friars,
cloistered nuns, and Catholic politicians. Gino Bartali, one of the greatest cyclists in Italian history, also
collaborated in the initiative. He hid false documents in the crossbar of his bicycle to save the life of refugees.
Th ese deeds have come out into the light; thanks to letters and a testimony written by Giorgio Nissim, a Jew
from Pisa.
Th e documents were found by his children, Piero and Simona, and have been examined by historians
Silvia Angelini and Paola Lemmi under the supervision of Liliana Piccioto of Milan’s Foundation of Jewish
Documentation. Giorgio Nissim died in 1976.
Following the 1943 imprisonment of members of Tuscany’s “Delasem” network (which aided Jews after
discriminatory racial laws took eff ect), Nissim continued his activity; thanks to the collaboration of the
three oblate priests of Lucca. Th e three were referred to as fathers Paoli, Staderini, and Niccolai. “I organized
a complete offi ce of false documents in the premises of cloistered nuns,” Nissim recalled in his papers.
“Frequently, it was the priests themselves who added the false signatures.” Th at made it possible to save Jews
by hiding them in a convent or enabling them to reach liberated areas in Italy. “I would go to Genoa as best
I could to take the money given to me by Father Repetto, the archbishop’s secretary, and would then give the
funds to Father Paoli,” to cover the costs of these operations, he added.
In a testimony given in 1969, kept in the archives of Milan’s Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation,
Nissim wrote that the network of Catholic assistance “had received the order to maintain relations [with the
clandestine Jewish movement—editor’s note] by Pius XII, the Pope at the time.”
Andrea, son of champion cyclist Gino Bartali, confi rmed his father’s participation in that network that aided
the Jews. “His task was to take the photos and papers to clandestine printers to produce the false document,”
Andrea Bartali said. “When he arrived at the convent, he would get off the bicycle and put the material in
the crossbar, and then go. He also acted as a guide, pointing out the less-known ways so that the refugees
could reach some areas in the center of Italy.”
Source: Pope Pius XII and World War II: The Documented Truth