Publisher Description

This history of Italy's Jews under the shadow of the Holocaust examines the lives of five Jewish families: the Ovazzas, who propered under Mussolini and whose patriarch became a prominent fascist; the Foas, whose children included both an antifascist activist and a Fascist Party member, the DiVerolis who struggled for survival in the ghetto; the Teglios, one of whom worked with the Catholic Church to save hundreds of Jews; and the Schonheits, who were sent to Buchenwald and Ravensbruck.

How did Italy treat Jews during World War II? Historians have shown beyond doubt that many Italians were complicit in the Holocaust, yet Italy is still known as the Axis state that helped Jews. Shira Klein uncovers how Italian Jews, though victims of Italian persecution, promoted the view that Fascist Italy was categorically good to them. She shows how the Jews' experience in the decades before World War II - during which they became fervent Italian patriots while maintaining their distinctive Jewish culture - led them later to bolster the myth of Italy's wartime innocence in the Fascist racial campaign. Italy's Jews experienced a century of dramatic changes, from emancipation in 1848, to the 1938 Racial Laws, wartime refuge in America and Palestine, and the rehabilitation of Holocaust survivors. This cultural and social history draws on a wealth of unexplored sources, including original interviews and unpublished memoirs.

My aim was to explain in detail the facts surrounding Fascist anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews in Mussolini's Italy. Too many people in Italy and elsewhere underestimate or deny the tragic fate of European Jewry and anti-Semitism between the two world wars. A few short years ago anti-Semitism appeared defeated and reduced to a tiny group of fanatics. But now it seems to be regaining ground in its more political incarnation, probably the most dangerous one, because next to the religious, social and economic varieties it is the most insidious of all. The author occupies a central position among Italian historians specialized in modern Italy's political history. He broke new ground by first publishing this book in 1961 having obtained special permission to consult the files in the Archives of the Italian Jewish Communities concerning the Fascist regime's persecution of the Jews in Italy from 1938 to 1945. The book's release coincided with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem that brought the Holocaust to the attention of other historians and to the world public. The English translation of the final 1993 edition was supported by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This paperback and electronic book edition is published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This book is the first collection of multi-disciplinary research on the experience of Italian-Jewish musicians and composers in Fascist Italy. Drawing together seven diverse essays from both established and emerging scholars across a range of fields, this book examines multiple aspects of this neglected period of music history, including the marginalization and expulsion of Jewish musicians and composers from Italian theatres and conservatories after the 1938–39 Race Laws, and their subsequent exile and persecution. Using a variety of critical perspectives and innovative methodological approaches, these essays reconstruct and analyze the impact that the Italian Race Laws and Fascist Italy’s musical relations with Nazi Germany had on the lives and works of Italian Jewish composers from 1933 to 1945. These original contributions on relatively unresearched aspects of historical musicology offer new insight into the relationship between the Fascist regime and music.

Describes the history and nature of the Italian Race Laws during the period (1938-43) when Italy was independent of German control.