p 109188 INSIDE ROME WITH THE GERMANS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY" NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON ' BOMBAY * CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED TORONTO INSIDE ROMS WITH THE GERMANS By JANE SCRIVENER O Roma nobilis Orbis et domina Cunctarum urbium Excellentissima. Ancient pilgrim chant NEW YORK THE MACMBLLAN COMPANY 1945 Copyright, 1945, by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. All rights reserved no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper. Second Printing. A WARTIME BOOK TRII COMFUTX JUtttOH B nOOQCXB m FULL COMPLIANCE VTJTH TOW GOTO*. MINT'S MCUtATX*fS FOR COfOTHVINO PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP To E. C. H. I promised to write this diary for you. Here it is, with love. FOREWORD By CARLTON J. H. HAYES Late American Ambassador to Spain How fortunate that among the very few Americans who re- mained in Rome throughout the war there was an alert and talented lady who had a literary flair and kept a diary! She writes under the pseudonym of Jane Scrivener, but this, as I shall presently explain, is the only "pseudo" thing about it. It is an eyewitness account, as authentic as it is vivid. As background, one may recall that Mussolini and his Fascists, in concert with Hitler, had plunged Italy into war against France and Great Britain in June, 1940, and against the United States in December, 1941. By the spring of 1943 Italy was over- whelmed by misfortunes at home and abroad. Axis rout in North Africa was being followed by Allied invasion of Sicily, while within Italy the masses of the population were suffering intensely and Mussolini had become a mere puppet of the Ger- mans who already occupied and terrorized the country. "Jane Scrivener" was an old friend of my wife and myself, and while we were in Spain we received letters from her giving us lively impressions of what was transpiring in Rome. She described with special vigor the Allied air attack of July 19, 1943 the efficacious bombing of railway yards and freight the station, the wrecking of a populous workingman's quarter, ripping up of a cemetery, the demolishing of the famous did basilica of St. Lawrence-Outside-the-Walk She conveyed a sense of the thrill of horror that immediately ran througfc the city, of the increasing tension of the ensuing "hot July days,** and of the historic character of the tea-hour session of the Fascist Council on July 24th and the King's announcement two days later that Mussolini had been dismissed and Marshal Badoglio [vii] wrote: "The was prime minister. Of the scene on this day, she Rome a carnival joy of the Italians on being rid of Fascism gives lie like on the air. Torn fragments of Mussolini's portraits snow as have pavements. People laugh and talk in the streets they not done for years. Perfect strangers greet and congratulate one another. 'Now we can say what we like, with no fear of are hacked from spies/ they joyously exclaim. Fascist emblems cheers and public buildings to the accompaniment of applause. The city is covered with posters: 'Ewiva il Re!' 'Evviva Bado- in has never glio!* 'Evviva la liberta!' Rome, her long history, known quite such a day." Forty-five days passed, and on September 8, 1943, Marshal Badoglio concluded the armistice with the Allies. But this did not mean the delivery of Rome. Quite the opposite. It was the Germans and not the Italians who were in effective military control of the city, and the Germans had no intention of sur- rendering it or treating it as an "open city." Nor were the Allies in any position then, or for a long time afterwards, to liberate Rome. For months their offensive bogged down many miles south. It was not until June 5, 1944, after a lapse of nine frightful months, that "Jane Scrivener" saw in Rome the first Allied soldiers four American boys in a jeep and knew that at long last the Eternal City was free and secure. It is the day-to-day events of those nine months from the Armistice of September, 1943, to the Allied arrival in June, 1944, which the diary, now published, records. They were months of dreadful suspense, of alternating hope and despair, and of steadily increasing misery. Food and fuel grew ever scarcer, while refugees and escaped war prisoners overcrowded the cold, hungry city. Looting and assassination, and dire Nazi reprisals, added to the terror and havoc wrought by Allied bombs which missed their military targets. And occasionally, amid so much tragedy, the occupying Germans unwittingly provided a comic touch. All this is depicted in "Jane Scrivener's" diary with imme- diacy and spontaneity, and with an excellent eye for both fact and form. Appropriately depicted, too, is the role of the Pope and the Vatican as Rome's bulwarks during the whole trying time. The Vatican found food for the starving. It eased physical >. [*vrn] and spiritual hardships. It guarded treasures of literature and art. Pope Pius XII stood forth against the Nazis as, centuries earlier, Pope Leo I had stood forth and saved Rome against Attila and the Huns. For an understanding of the Pope's position vis-a-vis the Nazi forces in Rome, and of the diary's frequent references to it, one should bear in mind that the Lateran Treaty which the Italian Government had concluded with the Holy See on Feb- ruary 11, 1929, and which therefore was binding in international law, accorded to the Pope certain temporal rights and jurisdiction in Rome. Consequently, when the Germans took full and un- disguised military possession of the city in 1943, they were obliged not only to repress local agents and supporters of the Italian Government of Marshal Badoglio, which they could do with their armies and police, but also to deal with a Pope against whom they hesitated to employ force and yet whom they dis- covered to be adamant about his rights. By the terms of the Lateran Treaty, that part of Rome which comprised the Vatican and St. Peter's the so-called Vatican City was an independent sovereign state of the Pope's; and in it, throughout the war, resided diplomatic representatives of almost all the United Nations as well as of the Axis. But this was not all. In addition, the Treaty provided for papal governance, through the international usage of "extraterritoriality," of a considerable number of properties in Rome and its environs outside of Vatican City. These included the basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Paul's- Outside-the-Walls, and St. Mary Major, together with all build- ings connected with them; the palace of St. Calixtus in Traste- vere; the papal summer residence and farms at Castel Gandolfo; the Augustinian college of Santa Monica and other buildings on the Janiculum; the old Church of St. Michael and its neighboring convent; the Jesuit headquarters and house of retreats; the Col- lege of the Propaganda; the church and convent of St. Onofrio; the Bambin Gesu hospital; the Ukrainian and Rumanian col- leges; the palaces of the Chancery and the Datary in the center of Rome; that of the Propagation of the Faith in the Piazza di Spagna; that of the Holy Office near St. Peter's; the Vicariat in the Via della Pigna; and "Raphael's House" in the Via delk Condliazkwae. Besides these "extraterritorial" properties, certain others were stipulated in the Lateran Treaty as being free from expropriation because owned by the Holy See, although otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the Italian State. These were the buildings attached to the basilica of the Twelve Apostles and to the churches of St. Andrew and St. Charles; the Gregorian Univer- sity; the Biblical, Archaeological, and Oriental Institutes; the Russian Seminary; the Lombard College; the two palaces of St. Apoilinarius; and the House of Retreats of Saints John and Paul. The papal properties, thus scattered all over Rome, made it no easier for the Nazis there. Indeed, had it not been for the Lateran Treaty and the Vatican's neutrality during the war, the German occupation might have been much worse than it was both for the anti-Fascist Italians and for the Allies. "Neu- trality on the part of the Pope," the author of the diary has written, "did not signify any sympathy by him for Fascism or Nazism. These totalitarian doctrines already stood condemned, (a) by the moral law, which he constantly preached, and (b) by such specific papal encyclicals as Non Abbiamo Bisogno and I/Lit Brennender Sorge. It has always been the policy of the Holy See to observe neutrality towards whatever Power might have effective military control of the city of Rome, in order to maintain contact with its own representatives abroad and with the Catholic hierarchy in all parts of the world. It was only because of this neutrality that the Pope was able to carry on multitudinous good works for suffering mankind during the course of the war, works which ranged from supplying war prisoners everywhere, regardless of race or nationality, with ma- terial and spiritual help, to providing aid for devastated areas and feeding the starving in Rome* (When the Allies entered the city, the Holy See was furnishing daily meals for 15,000.) For the well-being of Christian peoples, the Holy See has always negotiated even with the worst pagan rulers." A few final words about "Jane Scrivener" herself.