Rome – "Open City"
In the beginning of 1944, Rome had been under German control for nearly four months. More than six months were yet to pass before German troops withdrew from the city in retreat to the north. By January, the city had become the hiding place of thousands of persons who were eluding the occupation power or the Fascist Republicans. Swollen by refugees drawn by what they though was the protection of the Open City, Rome experienced great problems of food supply. So while the Holy See was trying (always in vain) to get some assurance that Rome would be demilitarized and spared from bombing, it was also concerned with averting starvation.
On the night of February 3, the Republican (neo-Fascist) police broke into the extra- territorial Basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls and brought to light that the entire monastery was a shelter for the very people the neo-Fascists were seeking: military officers, Jews, ex-members of the dissolved Carabinieri (military police) and various young persons avoiding military service with the Fascist Republicans. Some were dressed in clerical garb. It was no great secret that the many ecclesiastical homes in Rome — and not just those enjoying extraterritorial status — hid people of various categories whose safety was threatened. In the Roman Seminary at St. John Lateran there was hidden nearly the entire National Committee of Liberation — only a few paces from the headquarters of the Gestapo Police Chief Kappler on the Via Tasso. They were never molested. An invisible protecting hand poised over them.
The thoughts of the Holy See on the subject of asylum were revealed in a notation by Cardinal Maglione following a conversation with the German ambassador. On January 6, 1944, His Eminence recorded that Weizsacker had complained about the existence of fugitives in religious houses, whose presence had been revealed by nighttime raids. This situation, said the ambassador, diminishes his authority with his superiors, and he complained to the cardinal about such infractions of the German occupation laws. What did the Cardinal Secretary of State reply to the charge of such "irregularities"? He told the ambassador that he had himself urged the religious houses to be "correct" and "prudent", but he added that he hoped they would not be judged too severely. Later, he wrote down this summary of his sentiments expressed to the German envoy:
It is difficult to accuse a priest or a member of the faithful of having been unfaithful to his duty because out of pity, he has given food to an escaped prisoner or even a German deserter. If, on our side, we recommend prudence and correct behavior, comprehension should be shown also on the German side for acts of human pity such as the ones mentioned above. And since mention was made of laws, I pointed out that the latter are applied excessively and with too great severity: at the front and behind the front populations of several thousands of persons (women, children and old people) are forced to abandon their homes in a few hours, in some cases a few minutes ... and then everything is destroyed (household goods, houses, fields ...). Sufferings are increasing to an unspeakable extent.
The Cardinal, hinting at the change of fortune that comes to those who take up the sword, wrote that he had hoped the Holy See would not be put in a position of being unable to say a good word for Germany in the future.
Following the September Armistice, the doors of convents in Rome had been opened to all categories of refugees, regardless of their politics, religion or race. This unusual situation was already under study when the raid on St. Paul's provoked a new examination. Some of the reports then submitted to the Secretariat of State of His Holiness help illuminate the situation. For example, Msgr. Robert Ronca, rector of the Roman Seminary, reported on February 6 that he had 56 "guests". He said they had all signed a statement not to compromise the neutrality of the Holy See and the State of Vatican City and also not to perform any political activities (at least not on the premises; the National Committee met elsewhere). DeGasperi, he added, did not sign the document as he was about to leave the Lateran anyway. (He moved to comparable shelter as the guest of Cardinal Celso Costantini at the Propaganda Fide. None of the guests wore clerical garb, and all used their real names, said Msgr. Ronca.
A similar situation was reported for the Vatican City itself. In a February 13 report, Msgr. Anichini, the rector of the Canonica of St. Peter's, said his guests were living in crowded quarters and that they comprised military men, students, foreigners, Jews, displaced families and others. "All together", he said, "there are about 50 individuals in serious danger of being arrested and shot or deported. Those less exposed to risks have already departed of their own free will; the others prefer to face all dangers in the Canonica in the shadow of the house of the Father to whom they address the anguished invocation: ‘Salva nos perimus’."
A third report came from a pontifical institute which was not in Vatican City but which also was not extra territorial. There, according to the rector, Msgr. Erminio Vigano, in early March were to be found 52 persons including many Jews. Such had been the situation, he said, since the previous October. After the October 16 raid on the ghetto of Rome, Jews had sought and found shelter in many religious houses. The largest group had gathered in the convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Sion on the Gianicolo. There, for months on end, lived about 200 Jewish men and women. Despite the conspicuous crowding and the inevitable complaints, the convent was not molested.