Cory Holt

Four days after the occupation began on September 8, Mussolini was freed from an Italian prison by Nazi SS commandos. He had become a Nazi tool. But Mussolini, even up to the German occupation, had never released even one Jew for deportation. The Jews hoped he would continue to protect them. However, the condition of the Jews of Rome would deteriorate rapidly.
During September, the Germans took time to establish their authority, restore order, resist the anticipated Allied invasion, and deal with the thousands of confused Italian soldiers. The SS also took time to piece together lists of residents in the Jewish community without stirring apprehension. By the end of September, the task had been completed.
Meanwhile, during the middle of September, the new Italian Social Republic was announced. The new republic was denied a capital with most of the government offices scattered about the northern province of Verona, an area located conveniently (for the Germans) along the rail line leading to the Brenner Pass.
Called the Republic of Salo, the Foreign Ministry and Minister of Popular Culture were located in that small town located along the western side of Lake Garda. More important offices were located in Maderno, just north of Salo.
On September 25, 1943, SS Major Herbert Kappler, chief of the German security police in Rome, received the following message from SS Chief Heinrich Himmler:
All Jews, regardless of nationality, age, sex, and personal conditions, must be transferred to Germany and liquidated…. The success of this undertaking will have to be ensured by a surprise action, and for that reason it is strictly necessary to suspend the application of any anti-Jewish measures of an individual nature, likely to stir up among the population suspicion of an imminent action.
Therefore, Kappler devised a scheme he thought would rest the fears of Rome's Jews, a plan which would largely achieve its goal, but would also prove to be nothing more than cruel extortion.
On September 26, Kappler sent the following message to two Jewish leaders, Almansi and Foa:
It is not your lives nor those of your children we will take, if you fulfill our demand. It is your gold we want to provide new arms for our nation. Within thirty-six hours you must bring me fifty kilograms of gold. If you do so, nothing bad will happen to you. If you do not, 200 of you will be taken and deported to Germany….
By four o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 28, fifty kilograms of gold had been delivered to Gestapo headquarters in Via Tasso, carefully weighed, and accepted. Foa later recalled that the people "deprived themselves of every dear remembrance, every precious jewel to avoid the gigantic massacre."
The Holy See, having learned of the extortion, reported immediately to Foa that if it was not possible for the Jewish community to collect the fifty kilograms of gold within the thirty-six hours, the Pope would pay the balance. The gold, of course, could be paid back later when it was possible for the Jewish community to do so.
(After the war, the fifty kilograms of gold were found in a box in the office of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the Reich Security Main Office. The box had never been opened.)
A few days before the Rome roundup, Kappler's security police surrounded the main synagogue, which also housed the Jewish community's administrative offices. The Nazis claimed to be searching for compromising documents and correspondence with enemy agents. They found none, but instead seized two million lire from the safe as well as a vast archive of paraphernalia, including documents, registers, minutes of meetings, and records of contributors. Entire file cabinets were carried away intact. Everything was loaded onto railroad cars which had been rolled along streetcar tracks and parked in front of the synagogue. Within a few hours, the two thousand year history of the Jews of Rome had been removed.
Finally, on the morning of October 16, the event many Jews figured to be inconceivable occurred. For in the city of Rome, in fact, one mile from the Pope's residence, the final horror began. Rome became like many other European cities. Its Jews were rounded up like cattle. Law-abiding Italian citizens were taken from their homes and sent unknowingly to their deaths. The Italian government did not object. Rarely has Italy known a sadder day.