6. The Nazis and Italian collaborators began deportation of Italian Jews in 1943
After the Germans seized control of most of Northern Italy, its troops battled the Americans and British at the front, Italian partisans in the rear areas, and established control of the civilian population. Troops of the Italian army were offered the choice of service with the Germans or imprisonment by them. Regarding the Italian Racial Laws, Teutonic efficiency replaced Italian indifference. Many of the Italian camps were simply abandoned by their guards, allowing the inmates to escape before German troops arrived. The Nazis began a campaign throughout Italy which resembled those of the rest of the European continent.
In the ancient Italian city of Assisi, Roman Catholic clerics established a network of safe havens in the monasteries and convents, including areas which were by papal direction closed to the public. They also provided falsified travel documents and identity papers. More than two dozen havens sheltered Jews from the Nazis before the region was liberated by the Allies in June, 1944. The Assisi network was credited with saving over 300 Jews from deportation to the death camps. In Rome, the Jewish ghetto, which could be seen from Fatebenefratelli Hospital, was swept by the Nazis. Some Jews fled to Tiber Island, where they sought shelter from the Nazi SS.