Pope Benedict XVI has defended the Vatican against accusations¹ of indifference² towards the Nazis³' annihilation of Europe's Jews in WWII.

教皇本笃十六世为罗马教廷辩护二战时期其对纳粹屠杀欧洲的犹太人漠不关心的言论。

Benedict is only the second pope to visit Rome's main synagogue

On a landmark⁴ visit to Rome's main synagogue犹太人教会, the Pope said the Vatican helped Jews and "provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet小心的，谨慎的 way".

The pontiff主教，教皇 responded after an Italian Jewish leader spoke⁶ of the painful "silence" of wartime Pope Pius XII.

It comes amid Jewish anger at Benedict's moves to beatify Pius庇护，孝顺.

The Pope conceded承认，退让 that "unfortunately, many remained indifferent", to the suffering of the Jews, six million of whom were killed in the Holocaust⁷.

But he said "The Apostolic See [the Vatican] itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet⁵ way," without mentioning Pius XII by name.

His remarks came directly after the president of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, told him "the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah [Holocaust], still hurts because something should have been done".

"Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity团结, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz奥斯维辛," he said.

The visit, Benedict's third to a Jewish temple since becoming pope in 2005, is seen as a gesture of reconciliation和解，调和 between Catholics and Jews.

Some in the Jewish community, including at least one senior rabbi拉比 and a Holocaust survivor¹⁰, boycotted联合抵制 the event.

The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome says some Jewish leaders have called on the Vatican to open up its secret archives档案，案卷 to study the record of Pius XII in closer detail.

That this issue is souring发酸，发酵 otherwise increasingly healthy relations between the two religions will frustrate¹² many on both sides, but it is an issue that is unlikely to go away whilst Pius' path to sainthood圣徒 is under consideration, our correspondent adds.