Gender, Age, and Survival of Italian Jews in the Holocaust

Political scientists have examined the role of gender in genocide but have largely ignored the Holocaust in these analyses. Yet, the Holocaust is the largest genocide in human history and there is much we do not know about how gender affected individual experiences. Nor do we have a very precise understanding of the impact of age in survival, beyond the common wisdom that old and young people usually did not survive. Here we examine in more detail the impact of gender and age and their intersection among the nearly 7,000 Italian Jews deported to the east, mostly to Poland and mostly to their deaths. Unlike most previous work on gender that uses personal recollections as the data source, here we use individual data collected and published by Liliana Picciotto in Il Libro della Memoria. Examining survival rates and places of death, we find distinct gender and age differences and an important interaction between the two characteristics.

The Trauma of “Fear-Induced Exodus:” The Case of Victor Magiar and the Italian Jews of Libya

The Italian/Italophone Jewish community is amongst those that suffered from the Holocaust and other traumas. Drawing on the work of thinkers of trauma theory such as Dori Laub and Cathy Caruth, this paper aims to add to the current discourse on literary production by Italian/Italophone Jews by analyzing the trauma of the Italian Jewish community in postcolonial Libya, a topic often neglected by scholars. In 1967, the long-established Jewish community in Libya was forced to leave, abandoning all its property and economic funds. Victor Magiar, a Sephardic Jew born in Libya in 1957, was among those who — like all Jews who lived in Arabic lands — experienced trauma due to a myriad of factors, such as pogroms and the fact that he had no passport and true nationality. Through Magiar’s novel E venne la notte: Ebrei in un paese arabo (2003), this paper examines the trauma of the “fear-induced exodus” to Italy on the writer and his community. Moreover, a continuous dialogue with the author informs the analysis of the trauma involved in his story and the Sephardi community history, which also includes the elucidation of Jewish identity in postcolonial Libya. This paper highlights the details of history and stories that go beyond the novel itself, illuminating a nearly unknown facet of Italian history and of the country’s current multilingual and multicultural society.

“But there is always hope in the human heart”: Italian Jews’ Search for the Deported in the Immediate Aftermath of the Holocaust

This investigation examines the early efforts of Italian survivors, beginning with the June 1944 liberation of Rome, to discover the fate of loved ones. Survivors of the camps shared their experiences with those who had evaded capture and deportation (through hiding, passing, or other means). Highlighting the crucial role returnees played in transmitting information about the camps reveals how these two groups created support networks. As hope that relatives would return dwindled by the late 1940s, this frantic search evolved into an effort to commemorate the victims. Though relatives struggled to mourn without a body to bury or grave to visit, networks of shared suffering and early attempts to commemorate the deceased helped survivors process their loss.

On the Margin of a Historic Friendship

IN THE AUTUMN of 1939 in the wake of the Polish defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany and the USSR, the Hungarian political leadership decided to admit Polish military and civilian refugees, including a number of Jews, into the Kingdom of Hungary. Over the past seventy years a large number of studies and memoirs have been published on this subject in both Hungary and Poland. While they do not deny that many problems emerged as a result of this flight, a somewhat idealized picture has developed of Hungary during the Second World War as a ‘paradise for refugees’. According to this, not only Polish but also German, Austrian, French, British, and Italian Jews lived together peacefully side by side with the Hungarian people. In turn, the Hungarian public administration ‘took good care’ of them. This image needs to be significantly modified in the light of archival documents....

Italy

Fascist Italy under Mussolini joined Germany as an Axis power in 1939, and passed numerous laws that restricted the rights of Italian Jews. After the establishment of the Nazi-controlled Italian Social Republic in northern Italy, a German Command ordered the arrest of all Jews and confiscation of their property for the benefit of those who lost property in enemy (Allied) air raids. The same government entity established to manage confiscated property during the war, the Office for the Management and Liquidation of Real Estate (EGELI), was entrusted to return the property after the war. A report issued in 2001 by a government commission (Anselmi Commission) found that private property was generally returned after the war. However, differences emerged regarding the ease of the restitution process in different regions, and restitution also varied depending on whether the property was in state or private hands. Italy endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices in 2010.

Accounting and the banality of evil

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the significant role of accounting in the expropriation of Jewish real estate after the enforcement of race laws under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime in Italy. Design/methodology/approach Hannah Arendt’s understanding of government bureaucracy in the twentieth century totalitarian regimes informs the research which draws upon a wide range of primary sources. Findings Implementation of the program of expropriation was the responsibility of a government body, EGELI, which was created specifically for this purpose. The language of accounting provided the means to disguise the nature and brutality of the process and allow bureaucrats to be removed from the consequences of their actions. Accounting reports from EGELI to the Ministry of Finance confirmed each year that those who worked in EGELI were devoted to its mission as an agency of the Fascist State. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study recognize the need for further research on the role played by servicemen, bureaucrats and accounting as a technology of government in the deportation of Italian Jews to Germany. The study also provides impetus to examine how other countries managed the properties confiscated or expropriated from the Jews in the earlier stages of the Final Solution. Originality/value The study is the first to identify the significant role played by accounting and accountants in the persecution of Italian Jews under the Fascism.