I think that the Pope (current at the time) even supported Hitler. So I wouldn't really consider that as some big plus.
As for a Napoléon “Vive le Empereur !†Am I spelling that right Rapace? (Please don't tell me “ask your Joseph†[emoji4] [emoji3] )
In Rome alone, around 4,500 people found refuge in churches, convents, monasteries and boarding schools.
In Warsaw, the All Saints Church sheltered Jews, even though the penalty for such an act is death.
Several aides of the Pope acknowledged that they had worked to rescue Jews on his direct instructions.
They included two future popes – John XXIII and Paul VI. Pius XII himself sheltered Jews both in the Vatican itself and at Castel Gandolfo.
On the 14th of March 1937, Pope Pius XI issued Mit Brennender Sorge (“With Burning Anxietyâ€) written in German, condemning Nazism.
“Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, and divinises them to an idolatrous level, perverts an order of the world created by God,â€
Pius XII did what no one else did to save Jewish lives during the war. He knew what was happening to the Jews.
At the time, most were in denial, including a British diplomat who wrote of “these whining Jewsâ€.
Neither Britain nor America made it easy for Jews to escape into exile – the Kindertransport was a blessed exception.
The myth of Pope Pius XII being a supporter of Nazism is due to a rather slanderous play, published in 1963 by Rolf Hochhuth, called The Deputy which blamed Pius XII for the Holocaust.
Hochhuth claimed it was historically accurate and the play was premièred in West Berlin and performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in England and America.