The documents contain the names of 3,200 Jews whose lives Catholics protected during the occupation.

Rome's Jewish community organisation has verified the listed Jews' identities.

Researchers from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Research Institute and Rome's Jewish community released the findings at an academic workshop on Thursday.

The documents have not yet been made public however.

It seems many Catholic institutions helped their Jewish neighbours.

The new documents provide names and addresses of dozens of Romans sheltered in Catholic institutions.

They list 4,300 people sheltered in the properties of 100 women's and 55 men's Catholic religious orders.

Of those, 3,600 are identified by name, with 3,200 identified as Jews.

"Of the latter, it is known where they were hidden and, in certain circumstances, where they lived before the persecution.

"The documentation thus significantly increases the information about the history of the rescue of Jews in the context of the Catholic institutions of Rome."

Were the sheltered Jews baptised?

Whether any of the Jews on the list were baptised is unclear.

Recently opened Vatican archives suggest the Vatican worked hardest to save Jews who had converted to Catholicism or had Catholic-Jewish parents.

Claudio Procaccia from Rome's Jewish community says the documentation doesn't provide any baptismal information.

But he says some people pretended to have Jewish last names in order to find shelter in Catholic convents, even if they weren't necessarily Jewish.

Jewish research

Procaccia notes the Roman Jewish community published its own research in 2013 about the fate of Jews during the Nazi occupation.

Over 1,000 of Rome's Jews were rounded up immediately after the Nazi occupation began and deported to Auschwitz.

Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research says the new documentation poses new questions.

One is - why did an Italian Jesuit compile the list at the Pontifical Biblical Institute immediately after the liberation of Rome?

"There are many more questions we ask but, while the document lists thousands of Jews who found refuge in religious institutions, it lacks the names of those who were refused assistance ... during the Holocaust."

Source

• AP News
• Jewish Telegraphic Agency

In a statement, they said the Catholic bishops under the Nazi regime did not oppose the war of annihilation started by Germany or the crimes the regime committed.

They also said the Nazi-era bishops gave the war a religious meaning.

Bishop Georg Batzing, who is the president of the German bishops' conference, says critics have accused the Church of failing not only to remember its role, but also of not owning up to it.

"We must not sit back, but carry the legacy into the future," he told a news conference.

"This is all the more true given that Europe does not seem to be in a good state at the moment."

Batzing says the "old demon of division, nationalism, ‘ethnic' thinking and authoritarian rule" is appearing in many places.

"Terrifying anti-Semitism is widespread, even here in Germany," he says.

He told the news conference that anyone who has learned the lessons of history must vehemently oppose these tendencies.

"This applies without ifs and buts to the Church, which is committed to the gospel of peace and justice."

Source

• The Catholic Universe
• Image: Holocaust Encyclopaedia - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum