By 1944, as the end of the war approached, the Vatican was thoroughly aware of the Nazis' ruthlessness and intransigence, especially toward the Jews. The evaluation of Msgr. Domenico Tardini, secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, is typical. On August 7, the papal official transmitted to the German ambassador an Allied appeal on behalf of foreigners or stateless persons, mostly Jews, located in camps in Northern Italy. At the requests of the American and British governments, the Holy See asked the German government to permit them to be gathered and sent to a port on the Adriatic coast, from which Allied ships would transport them to Southern Italy or Africa. The proposal, which emanated particularly from Myron C. Taylor, was issued just a few weeks after the July 20 attack on Hitler's life. According to Tardini, the Allied refugee specialists believed that, under the existing circumstances, the Nazis might be disposed to a concession, an act of clemency. Tardini himself did not think so. After handing the proposal to von Weizsacker, he recorded: "I told him I thought otherwise. The Nazis will get worse, the worse things are going for them." Nevertheless, telegrams in support of the project, as unrealistic as it may have been — went to the papal representatives in Berlin and Berne.
Still, there was a chance to provide some help to the threatened Jewish communities in the Balkans. This, then, was the scene of an intensive "war of telegrams" during 1944 in Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. The Apostolic Nuncio in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, was Msgr. Andreas Cassulo, who had previously secured relief for the Jews deported to Transnistria, a new Romanian province annexed from the Soviet Union in 1941 which had become a veritable penal colony. The nuncio's relations with the Jewish community, and especially with the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Alexander Safran, were close and confident. On January 22, 1944, Cassulo reported to his superiors the latest preoccupations of the Romanian Jews and the role that the Holy See might play. The time seemed opportune to secure the withdrawal of all Jews in Transnistria back to the center of the country, which was known as "the Kingdom". If they remained where they were, they would be in danger of falling into the hands of the retreating Germans. It was also proposed that the many orphans in this group might be sent to Palestine.
Not waiting for instructions, the nuncio immediately began diplomatic maneuvers, asking the government to raise the age limit of the orphans from 12 to 16, thereby increasing the number eligible for the exodus to Palestine. Soon after, the Grand Rabbi of Jerusalem asked the Holy See to intervene in a similar manner, but having already acted, the nuncio pointed out that further Vatican action would be superfluous. In a March 16 report to the Vatican, he said the government seemed ready for conciliation and that it would do even more were it not afraid of the reaction of the country's anti-Semites. The nuncio informed the Vatican that the civilian administration of Transnistria had been dismantled and that the population, including the Jews, "will be evacuated this side of the Nistra," that is, to safety beyond the reach of the Germans.
As for the orphans, on July 11, the nuncio informed Rome that the first Romanian refugee ship had arrived in Istanbul carrying 250 children from Costanza. Other ships would bring more refugees, he said, "and in this way the difficult question, which gave us so much work in the past, is reaching a successful solution." Naturally, he said, the gratitude of the Jewish community in Romania is felt deeply. Rabbi Herzog of Palestine also sent his thanks to the nuncio.
Obviously, one should not suppose that whatever positive results were gained through these initiatives were due solely, or even largely, to any reputed Vatican "influence". To do so would be to underestimate the vast and intensive activity of the Jewish organizations themselves. Yet the gratitude of the Jewish leaders, such as Rabbi Safran, was no less sincere and justified.
The Holy See's support was also sought in another, less efficacious attempt to evacuate Jews from Romania to Palestine. The Jewish organizations had secured the services of a Turkish vessel, the Tari, to shuttle refugees between Costanza and Istanbul-Haifa. The International Red Cross, however, insisted that the ship first obtain a guarantee of safe passage from the Germans. The Vatican instructed Nuncio Orsenigo to solicit the Foreign Ministry for such a guarantee. Unfortunately, though, at that same time, the Germans learned that the Turks, responding to Allied pressure, had refused to deliver chromium to the Reich, so the Tari was not allowed to sail. Notwithstanding Turkish policy, it is doubtful in any case that Berlin would have conceded safe passage to the Tari.