Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism (review)

146 SHOFAR Summer 1993 Vol. 11, No.4 Poland, and some of the features analyzed by the author were not specific only for them. Jerzy Tomaszewski Historical Institute Warsaw University Benevolence and Betrayal: Five ItalianJewish Families Under Fascism, by Alexander Stille. New York: Summit Books, 1991. 365 pp. $25.00. Alexander Stille, a journalist, has skillfully written an excellent portrait of the trials and tribulations of five Jewish families in Italy under Fascism. What makes this book important is that it goes inside the minds and hearts of the survivors and reports on their different experiences during the Fascist era. As the title implies, what existed in Fascist Italy was both benevolence and betrayal. The book traces acts of kindness, compassion, and heroism on the part of Italians who helped their Jewish brethren, as well as acts of deceit and cruelty by those who betrayed their Jewish co-citizens and benefited from it. The author begins with an in-depth description of the Ovazza family of Turin, which was assimilated and patriotic, and members of which belonged to the fascist party. The patriarch of the family, Ettore Ovazza, was editor of the anti-Zionist publication La Nostra Bandiera. Ettore Ovazza was granted a much coveted "certificate" of the March on Rome, for his contribution to the revolution that installed Mussolini to power. (At the beginning of the racial laws introduced in 1938, more than 10,000 Jews were members of the fascist party. They believed that Mussolini had the right idea and was trying to advance Italy from its backwardness and chaos.) But no matter how hard Ovazza tried to deny the danger of being Jewish, the family was ultimately betrayed, caught, murdered by the Nazis, and burned in a school boiler room. The second family, the Foas of Turin, was a large family like most Jewish families. Unlike the Ovazzas, the Foas did not assimilate into the cosmopolitan life of the city; Vittorio Foa's father, Giulespie, was a rabbi. Many of the Foas from the beginning of the rise of fascism appeared to be anti-fascist, concerned with what fascism stood for. But among the members of the family were also fascists, including Pitigrilli, who was purported to be a spy for the fascist police and who caused the arrest of Book Reviews 147 some anti-fascist Jewish members of the Foa family and others. Some members of the Foa family perished, others survived and, although scattered, remain emotionally close. The third family were the Di Verolis, who lived in Rome, where they had resided since 1539 (thus predating the ghetto by a generation or two). Almost from their arrival in Rome, this family had made a living from commerce as itinerant peddlers of textiles in the provinces around Rome; their attachment to their Jewish roots had always been strong. Four and a half centuries after their arrival, the conditions of the Di Veroli family had changed very little. All 30 members of the immediate family, the four Di Veroli brothers and their wives and children, lived on or near Via del Portico d'Ottavia. All of them were peddlers or shopkeepers like their ancestors from North Mrica and Sicily. On October 13, 1943, after the Nazis had conquered Rome, the Germans rolled several railroad cars onto the street tracks and parked them in front of the synagogue. This was the sign of an imminent roundup, called a Judenaktion, in which people were caught and deported. This Judenaktion in part was carried out by the new Italian Minister of the Interior, Guido Duffarini, who sent out a dispatch to the police precincts in Italy ordering the arrest of all Jews. To ensure the success of these Judenaktions, rewards were posted for 5000 lire for delivery of a Jewish male, 2000-3000 lire for women and children. In addition to this humiliation, the Nazis demanded gold from the entire Jewish community. The Di Verolis that survived the war managed to reconstruct their lives. The experience, however, left them traumatized. Some have developed a strong attachment to the Jewish community and returned to more or less a "normal" life. The fourth family were the Teglios of Genoa. Following the German...