The raid on the Roman Ghetto took place on 16 October 1943. A total of 1,259 people, mainly members of the Jewish community—numbering 363 men, 689 women, and 207 children—were detained by the Gestapo. Of these detainees, 1,023 were identified as Jews and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Of these deportees, only fifteen men and one woman survived.
Ghetto
The Ghetto of Rome was established as a result of the papal bull Cum nimis absurdum, issued by Pope Paul IV on the 14th of July, 1555. By the time of the raid, it was almost 400 years old and consisted of four cramped blocks around the Portico d’Ottavia, wedged between the Theatre of Marcellus, the Fontana delle Tartarughe, Palazzo Cenci, and the river Tiber.
Prelude
When Nazi Germany occupied Rome two days after the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943, 8,000 Italian Jews were in Rome, one-fifth of all Jews in Italy. Many of those had moved south after the Allied landing, hoping to find safety from Nazi persecution.
The German military commander of Rome, General Reiner Stahel, was initially wary that any action against the Jews of Rome would draw condemnation from Pope Pius XII, of which he had been warned by Bishop Alois Hudal, rector of the German church in Rome. This condemnation, however, never materialised, which has led to considerable controversy. Stahel decided against ordering deportation without official authority from the German foreign ministry. Germany's Consul-General Eitel Friedrich Möllhausen went so far as to write to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in order to suggest that the Roman Jews be interned in Italian camps rather than deported, but Ribbentrop never dared to act against the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), from which Stahel received his orders. The role of the German ambassador to the Vatican, Ernst von Weizsäcker, in these events remains a matter of controversy.
On 26 September, Herbert Kappler, commander of the SS and the Gestapo in Rome, announced to the Jewish community in the city that unless they handed over 50 kilograms (110 lb) of gold, 200 Jewish family heads would be deported. The community delivered this sum on the deadline of midday, 28 September, with the assistance of the non-Jewish citizens of Rome. This left the Jewish community with the impression that the Germans were only after loot, especially the priceless treasures of the Biblioteca della Comunità Israelitica community library.
Raid
On the morning of 16 October 1943, 365 German security and police forces (the Italian police were considered too unreliable) sealed off the Ghetto, which held a large part of the Jewish community at the time, turning it into a virtual prison. Theodor Dannecker, recently appointed chief of the Judenreferat in Italy and tasked with implementing the Final Solution, the genocide of the Jews, in Italy, had ordered the Ghetto to be cleared. Some Jews in the Ghetto managed to escape over rooftops.
In the raid, 1,259 people were detained, comprising 363 men, 689 women, and 207 children. Afterwards, non-Jewish prisoners were released while 1,023 Jews were taken to the Collegio militare in the Palazzo Salviati in Trastevere. Two days later, at least 1,035 prisoners were loaded onto Holocaust trains at Tiburtina station and deported to Auschwitz. Only 16 survived.