Israel Zolli - Holocaust

Holocaust

Zolli was reportedly given advance warning about an imminent Nazi Aktion. Some critics claim he failed to warn other Roman Jews about what was about to transpire and about his own plans, describing this alleged failure to share his information with other Jews as a serious moral lapse. He claimed to have tried but Rome's Jewish community did not accept the explanation. He later described his experiences as follows:

"It was from my father that I learned the great art of praying with tears. During the Nazi persecution, long years afterward, I lived near the center of Rome in a small room. There, in the dark, in hunger and cold, I would pray weeping: 'O, Thou keeper of Israel, protect the remnants of Israel; do not allow this remnant of Israel to perish!'"

After Zolli emerged from his hiding-place in the house of a member of Rome's Resistance party, Giustizia e Libertà, his position as Chief Rabbi was restored by Charles Poletti, although the Jewish community rebuffed him. On 9 July 1944, Zolli, while still attempting to retain the title of "Chief Rabbi", gave an interview to a reporter. He described how two Italian families had hidden him, but he made no mention of the fact that during the greater part of the time he had hidden in the Vatican. After the war a great debate arose between the president of the Jewish community in Rome (Signor Foa) and Zolli, as to who was at fault for allowing the Nazis to obtain the list of Roman Jews. This list was used when they were gathered, deported, and murdered. Foa blamed Zolli; Zolli blamed Foa. In her book, Inside Rome with the Germans (1945, pg. 38), Jane Scrivener wrote: "The Rabbi did not destroy his registers and they know where every Jews lives." A Chief Rabbi of Rome Becomes a Catholic (pg. 135), suggesting Zolli's culpability in not destroying the register indicated to him that "his future must lie elsewhere than in the Jewish community".