Tuesday, December 16, 2008

ROME - A SAFE HAVEN FOR ITALIAN JEWS





ROME – A CENTURIES OLD HAVEN FOR ITALIAN JEWS

Jews were brought to Rome by Pompey the Great and were soon appreciated for their financial and medical skills. They continued to prosper and grow in numbers. Jews migrated to every other region and province in Italy, where they formed important and viable communities.

Only in 1556, when they were forced to live inside a walled enclosure in the middle of Rome, was there any systematic persecution of the Jewish population of Rome.

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, MARCH, 1937

ROME IS A HAVEN FOR MANY AN ALIEN. I TALKED WITH JEWS RUNNING BUSY
AUTO WRECKING SHOPS AND WONDERED HOW MANY OLD CARS AMERICA
WOULD SCRAP IF METAL JUMPED TO WAR PRICES AND FOUR GALLONS OF
GAS COST FIVE DOLLARS.

“THERE ARE PERHAPS 25,000 OF US IN ROME,” REMARKED THE FATHER OF A
LARGE FAMILY WHOSE YOUNGER MEMBERS WATCHED HIM MELT BABBIT
FROM BRONZE BEARINGS, “MANY OF US FOUGHT IN ETHIOPIA. WE ARE FREE
TO WORSHIP AS JUDEA, BUT WE ARE ROMANS TOO.”

ANOTHER JEW, A RETIRED CLOTHING MERCHANT SAID HE LIVED IN ROME
BECAUSE “HERE I FEEL MORE EQUALITY THAN I HAVE EVER KNEW.”


CHRISTIANS CITED FOR AID TO JEWS

New York Times (1857-Current file);Sep 18, 1933;ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2001)
pg. 12
Group of 12 Christians chosen by Jewish Newspaper Editors in Jewish year 5693

Mussolini is praised because he took pains to demonstrate that Italian Fascism does not tolerate racial and religious prosecution


JEWS UNITE TO AID GERMAN BRETHREN

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov 2, 1933; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2002)
pg. 12

Chief Rabbi of Italy Speaks:
The most dramatic moment of the conference came tonight when Dr. A. Sacerdoti, Grand Rabbi of Italy, faced the delegates as a loyal Fascist, who repudiated the Nazi brand of fascism. Italian Fascism has never shown itself in the slightest degree Antisemitic as has been so plainly shown by many declarations on the part of its founder, Premier Mussolini.


In 1914, Mussolini shrewdly noted, during a visit to Berlin, that militarism was once again rearing its head. He saw and objected to Pan-Germanism first because it was dangerous to Italy, and second because of the general acceptance of the racial theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain [1] and others, which were subsequently adopted by Hitler. They seemed to him to be ridiculous. He was opposed to anti-Antisemitism on the grounds that the Jews were an essential historical and useful element in Italian society.

Condemnation of Antisemitism abound in Mussolini's speeches, writings and conversations. In 1933 and 1934 he was an open opponent of Germany's racial policies. He instructed the Italian ambassador in Berlin to make personal representations to Hitler expressing Italy's concerns concerning those odious policies. These unsolicited and unwelcome representations became unpleasant to Hitler and he rejected out of hand the ambassador's Fascist views on these matters of German social policy.

Mussolini chose and relied on Jewish friends as readily and as freely as he would any other person in his journey, regardless of their race or creed as long as they were in agreement with his Fascist ideals and goals. Two women who influenced him in those days were Jews; Angelica Balabanoff and Margherita Sarfatti. Aldo Finzi held an office in Mussolini's first cabinet and Guido Jung was his finance minister for many years. Jews sat as Fascists in the Italian Parliament and, at the very beginnings, five Jews were at the founding meeting of Fascists in Milan, in 1919.

In 1933 and 1934 he was an open opponent of Germany's racial policies. He instructed the Italian ambassador in Berlin to make personal representations to Hitler expressing Italy's concerns concerning these odious policies. Hitler's refusal to take under consideration Mussolini's wishes did not deter Mussolini from working towards a goal of ameliorating the plight of the six hundred thousand Jews of Germany. At this time Italy's population of Jews of approximately forty-seven thousands living in Italy as Italian citizens, many of whom in leading positions in the State and the Fascist party.

One of Italy's and Europe's leading industrialists and leader of Italy's Jewish communities, Signor Gianni Agnelli served as a military officer in the Italian Fascist armed forces in Russia. He was awarded the Italian Cross for Military Valor.

He viewed the Jewish population of Italy, as Italians first and Jews second

He was however strongly opposed to Italian and International Zionism on the basis that Zionism was more political than a representation of the Jews of the world, and that it was calculated to provide a conflict of loyalties in the Jewish people. He wanted to demonstrate to the world that Fascism, with its Latin humanity, was a superior and more desirable option than the Nazi barbarism, then becoming a social reality.

He knew that certain people in the West wanted and needed a war, and that in Adolph Hitler, there existed a prepared and anxious contestant in the political problems then facing Europe and the Far East. Given the horrific economic conditions then existing in most capitals of the world due to the protracted and unprecedented Great Depression, an all out war was not only inevitable, but imminent and desired. It was the emergence of the legitimization of the newly born Zionist movement by, the English parliamentarian, Lord Balfour with the passage of the Balfour Declaration which placed, on the European scene, another antagonist at this critical time in European and world history. These European disputes had been simmering since the Treaty of Versailles and were now no longer capable of being placated or ignored. Where was Italy to go in this scheme of things? To remain neutral, while others prepared for war, seemed to Mussolini to be a dangerous stop-gap measure. Also Italy was too important to both the Western powers and to Germany, its modern navy controlled the Mediterranean waters and its air force, one of the world's best at this period of history, the skies.



Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1993
An Army of Schindlers From Italy
By Dorothy Rabinowitz
Journal editorial writer

Oskar Schindler, flawed hero of Steven Spielberg’s monumental film, “Schindler’s List,” came to Poland a profiteer and ended up a rescuer of many hundreds of Jewish lives. His story’s entry into the world, via Mr. Spielberg’s justly celebrated film, calls to mind a number of other unlikely rescuers of whose exploits little has been heard, however much they are known to historians.

I have in mind, namely Hitler’s allies, the Italians, whose government ministries and army and highest political circles moved heaven and earth to see to it that not a single Jew was deported from Italy. They schemed, they plotted, they resorted to the wiliest of strategies and delaying efforts -- including the invention of the most wonderful complicated “census-taking” known to man -- to ensure that no Jews under their governance fell into German hands. Not for nothing does the history of these plots sometimes read like farce.

Not only would the Italian government -- reflecting the popular attitude of the citizenry at large -- resist deportation, its army and consuls undertook extraordinary efforts to rescue Jews in their zones of occupation. As an Axis partner, Italy’s forces occupied a large sector of Greece, part of Yugoslavia, and eight sectors of southeastern France, including Nice.

The attitude of the occupying Italians with regard to Germany’s extermination plans for the Jews was made immediately clear to the great distress and confusion of the Germans and their French allies. For, as soon as the Vichy government rounded up Jews for arrest and deportation, the Italians military and foreign ministry demanded -- and obtained -- a stop to the arrests and deportations.

In Annecy, the French police, who had rounded up a train load of Jews for deportation, found themselves looking at the barrels of guns trained on them by soldiers of the Italian Fourth Army

In Greece, the Italian consuls and military - witness to the brutal deportations taking place before their eyes -- busied themselves handing out phony certificates of “Italian nationality” to the hunted Jews.

In Nice, the Italian commandant stationed Carabinieri outside the Jewish communal center and synagogue to make certain that Vichy police could not enter to make arrests.

What there was in the character of the Italians that made their resistance to mass murder so implacable, so different from that of the Vichy French, is a question we may ponder -- and one for whose existence we may be grateful.

Fascism and Comrades of Hebrew Religion

It is useless to deny that in the national-popular universe there exists different opinions both on the question of present Israel or on the Jewish Italian world or, better said, on Italians of Hebrew religion.

The Jews in our national territory have never been actually persecuted by Italians who in the vast majority of cases always helped them and hid them at risk of their own life and by often paying with dire consequences.
 
And we have numerous examples of soldiers, officers, officials, and comrades of the Militia, Police, and Carabinieri who defended them and removed them from the furious and murderous irrationality of German killers.
 
And we have heroes like Perlasca, comrade of the Spanish war and sent to the East, a Fascist from the start, who with his incredible effort, saved thousands to the point that he, a Fascist, was honored  in Israel as “ Righteous Among Gentiles”.
 
It is true that Italy, because of its alliance with Hitler, produced the most ridiculous “Race Manifest” but never with the terrible consequences as in Germany where the infamous “Nuremberg Laws” allowed every possible abuse on harmless people who were at the mercy of the Gestapo.
 
Is there still resentment and suspicion from the Italian Right against the Jews?
 
No, there is a rage of a different nature and an irrational pressure of a minority that directs over them traditional targets and divergent frustrations not bound to a coherent political train of thought and to adult and mature behavior.
 
How many ties there are between the Fascism and the Comrades of Hebrew religion?
Many, even though both the Right and the national and international Hebrew community have willingly ignored them because of that absurd policy of a partly historic revisionism.
 
There was a great number of Italian Jews who supported the ascend of “IL Duce Mussolini”, five of them were among the 119 who founded the Italian Fascism Corps at San Sepolcro Square in Milan on the 23rd  of  March 1919 and  Cesare Goldmann was responsible for organizing the event.
 
Among the “Fascists Martyrs” who died in the conflict between 1919 and 1922, three were the Comrades of Hebrew religion, namely D.  Senigaglia , G. Balaffi, and B. Mondolfo and 746  Italians of Hebrew religion in 1923 were enrolled in the Fascist party while more than  300 were alongside IL Duce in the famous “ March to Rome”.
 
And this without counting the immense economic contribution that many of them gave to the newborn Fascist party and to the important friends of Mussolini.
 
Aldo Finzi, a Comrade of Hebrew religion, was the pilot who flew over Fiume together with G. Dannunzio and was one of the nine elected in 1921 as Congressman and later became Vice-Secretary at the Interior Ministry and a member of the Great Council.
 
Dante Almansi was second in command to the police chief De Bona and Guido Jung was Finance Minister from 1932 to 1935.
 
Maurizio Rava was Vice-Governor of Libya, Governor of Somalia and a General of the Fascist Militia.
 
Renzo Ravenna was a very personal friend of Italo Balbo, a very first member of the Fascist squad and for 15 years a Ferrara Podesta (Mayor).
 
Ugo Foa was awarded decorations many times for Militia Valor during the Great War, a lawyer, and among the very first enrolled in the Fascist Party was very important Official until 1939.
 
And did you know that the first Dean of the University of Rome was Giorgio Del Vecchio a Comrade of Hebrew religion?

And what can we say of Margherita Sarfati, lover of IL Duce before Claretta Petacci, publisher assistant to the news paper “ Popolo D’Italia” and Co- Editor of the “Gerarchia” (Hierarchy), the ideological magazine of the Regime.

Aside from these cases, from 1929 to 1935 there were 4920 Comrades of Hebrew religion accepted into the party and the exact percent (10%) of the Italian Hebrew  population of that time and the same as those enrolled to the Party in relation to the global population.
And this until the “Arian” blunder.

It is necessary to think and reflect on history itself without denying the evidence of the mistakes made and in the hope of arriving at what J. Evola defined as “The true awareness of the reality” in order to reach moral and internal fulfillment.

Francesco Zero