When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. In 2020, the archives were finally opened. Based on thousands of never-before-seen documents, Brown University Professor Emeritus David Kertzer's book "The Pope at War" paints a dramatic portrait of what the Pope did and did not do as war enveloped Rome and the continent, and as the Nazis began their systematic mass murder of Europe's Jews. Kertzer's earlier book, "The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe," won the Pulitzer Prize. (#38975)