Melville House Books

A poster for the film version of Robert Katz's "Death in Rome"

Robert Katz, the author and screenwriter “who incurred the wrath of the Vatican by accusing Pope Pius XII of failing to act to stave off a Nazi massacre of Italians in 1944,” has died in Montevarchi, Italy, due to complications following surgery for cancer. He was 77.

As a New York Times obituary by Bruce Weber details, Katz wrote many notable books, including Naked by the Window, an account of the death of artist Ana Mendieta, “who either committed suicide by leaping from her 34th-floor Greenwich Village apartment or was thrown from the window and killed by her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre.” He also wrote the screenplay for the 1976 movie The Cassandra Crossing, which starred Richard Harris, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster and O. J. Simpson.

But he was perhaps best known for his 1967 book Death in Rome. As Weber details, the book …

… was a reconstruction of the infamous Ardeatine Caves massacre of 1944, when the Nazis, in reprisal for an attack by Italian resistance fighters on a German-speaking police battalion, herded 335 Italian men — prisoners and civilians — to a series of man-made caves on the outskirts of Rome and shot them. In his book, Mr. Katz, citing evidence he later called strong but circumstantial, said that Pope Pius XII had learned of the planned executions 19 hours before they occurred but chose to remain silent, an accusation that was immediately denied by the Vatican.

As it turned out, the Pope had been made notified of the reprisal five hours before it happened.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.