Italian Holocaust: Individuals


Figure 1.--Sandro Menaseri is a Jewish child who did not survive the NAZI occupation of Italy. He looks like he may have been from northern Italy by the bib shorts and long stockings worn with a Leibchen. Perhaps the family was living in another country, perhaos Germany, but you would like that an Italian family would have left Germany at an early point. Long stockings are not unknown in Italy, but the style was more northern European. Sandro is about 4 years old and is wearing a double breasted jacket with matching short trousers and a Peter Pan style collar on his blouse. The Peter Pan collar does look Italian. You can clearly see the supporter fasteners at the hem of his shorts, which indicates to me that he is wearing a Leibchen with four garter straps (the common arrangement in Germany). We know nothing of this little boy except that his life was horribly ended by NAZI racial policies. He probably died in Auschwitz. It is almost uncionceivanle that thousands and thousands of children like Sandro were murdered, but it is all to true. This portrait comes from the U.S. Holocaust Museum which is trying to to learn what happened to this boy and other children depicted in its vast photographic archive.

Most of the Jews in Italy survived in the Holocaust. It was difficult and many were murdered, but because of the relatively short period of the German occupation and the Allied invasion, most Italiann Jews survived. All too many perished, but unlike most NAZI-occupied countries, most managed to evade the NAZI net. The Germans were most sucessful in the north where the Germans held on the longest and the Fascists were the strongest. The Italian people and the Church were more susposed to hide Jews, especially the children. Thus Jewish children had aeal chance for life in Italy. Children were the most endangered. As elsewhere in Europe, it was virtually impossible for Jewish children to survive unless someone hid them. Children are more subject to illness and more easily affected by stesses like malnutrition. Some adults in rural areas managed to escape and hide in isolated areas. Children unable to fend for themselves or trek long distances were unable to do this. But even beyond their biological vulnerability, children were especially targeted by the NAZIs who saw them as non-producers. Healthy adult Jews or youths were sometimes spared for a time as useful labor supporting the war effort. Children on the otherhand were not useful for work. This is why children and mothers with children were selected for immediate murder when they arrived at camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau. Many children did survive and some have left moving accounts as to their childhood experiences. We also know about Italians who protected Jews. In many cases we know where they were murdered and when. In other cases they just disappeared, leaving no trace except a few haunting photographic images like the one here.

Rita Levi-Montalcini: Italy's Lady of the Cells (1909-2012)

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born to a Jewsish family in Turin (1909). Her father did not think that a girl should pursue advanced studies. She obtained a degree in medicine and surgery from Turin University (1936). Two years later she was dismissed as a research assistant after Italy's Fascist Government to apease the Germans issued laws banning Jews fron universities and the professions. She created a makeshift laboratory in her bedroom and began studying the development of chicken embryos. This was the first step in her ground breaking work on the mechanisms that regulate the growth of cells and organs. She survived Fascist anti-Semitic persecution and the German occupation (1943-45) to become one of Italy's leading scientists. She shared the Nobel prize for medicine with American bio-chemist Stanley Choen. They worked at the United States. Their work increased our current understanding of many conditions, including tumors, developmental malformations and senile dementia. She remained active in her work until she died peacefully in her sleep (2012).

Italian Children

Jews in many countries occupied by the Germans during Wotld War II had little chance of escaping the Germas. Jews in Poland had no real way of escaping and the Germans occupied the country for 5 years. Thus the chances of survivung were minimal. The situation was similar in many other countries. Italy was an exception. Although Hitler's ally, Mussolini never embraced ant-Semitism to the degree Hitler did. Bowing to pressure from the Germans, Mussolini issued anti-Semetic laws (1939), but he did not authorize deportations to the death camps the Germans opned in occupied Poland. Thus the Italian Jewish population was still intact when Italy changed sides and the Germans occupied the county (September 1943). The Germans had only about a year to kill Italian Jews, depending on where they lived. Hiding for 5 years was virtually impossible, a year is more feasible, expecially bcause many Italians aided their Jewish countrymen as well as the Church. And the Allies landed in the same month and began fighting their way up the Pininsula.

Marcello Buiatti

Marcello Buiatti was a 5-year old Italain boy living in the northen Italian city of Florence when Italy changed sides in the war and the Germans occupied most of the country (September 1943). Suddenly his life changed dramatically. His family went into hiding. The hid at 43 Via Faenza, a narow pedestrian street near the train station. It is still there and has barely changed. He remembers the paratroopers. At first people thought they were the Americans, but they proved to be the Germans seizing cintrol before the Allies could push north. As far as we know, this was the last German paratroop drop of the War. His mother was a Polish-born Jew, educated in Prague. His father had an office in the city center. He had been in the military and believe the Germans would come and had connections to help prepare for just such a situation. He chose a house owned by a Fascist, but one who did not agree with the regime's anti-Semitism. It thus was relatively safe and no one would suspect that a Fascist would hide Jews. It was an empty house with an attached chapel attached. KIt was built in the 12th Century for Templar Knights. Hardly a place wherre the authorities would expect to find Jews. Marcello's family was joined by two other Jewish families. There was an Hungarian friend and his son. And an elderly couple with two older sons. They left to fight with the Resistance in the hills. Shortly after they arrived, 'Aunty' Chaja joind them. She managed to escape from an Italian concentration camp with help from the partisans. Marcello grew upto be a professor of genetics at Florence University.

Sandro Menaseri

Sandro Menaseri is a Jewish child who did not survive the NAZI occupation of Italy (figure 1). He looks like he may have been from northern Italy by the bib shorts and long stockings worn with a Leibchen. Perhaps the family was living in another country, perhaos Germany, but you would like that an Italian family would have left Germany at an early point. Long stockings are not unknown in Italy, but the style was more northern European. Sandro is about 4 years old and is wearing a double breasted jacket with matching short trousers and a Peter Pan style collar on his blouse. The Peter Pan collar does look Italian. You can clearly see the supporter fasteners at the hem of his shorts, which indicates to me that he is wearing a Leibchen with four garter straps (the common arrangement in Germany). We know nothing of this little boy except that his life was horribly ended by NAZI racial policies. He probably died in Auschwitz. It is almost uncionceivanle that thousands and thousands of children like Sandro were murdered, but it is all to true. This portrait comes from the U.S. Holocaust Museum which is trying to to learn what happened to this boy and other children depicted in its vast photographic archive.






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Created: 7:25 AM 3/24/2011
Last updated: 1:57 AM 12/27/2013