Page 18-THE NEWS*August, 1987
Some Holocaust Stories
Had Happy Endings
Memoirs of A Fortunate Jew:
An Italian Story. Dan Vittorio
Segre; translated from the
Italian by the author. Adler &
Adler, 4550 Montgomery
Avenue, Bethesda, MD20814.
1987. 273 pages. $16.95.
The Italians and the Holocaust:
Persecution, Rescue, Survival.
Susan Zuccotti. Basic Books,
10 East 53rd Street, New
York, NY 10022. 1987. 320
pages. $19.95.
Reviewed by Joseph Aaron
If you’re looking to read a
story with a happy ending,
you probably don’t turn to a
book about the Holocaust.
But now, along come not
one, but two new books about
the Holocaust that not only
tell a Jewish story but that do
have happy endings.
The reason is that both
books tell the story of Italian
Jews, who suffered far less
and ended up far better than
Jews in other countries during
World War II.
One of those Italian Jews,
Dan Vittorio Segre, in his
Memoirs of A Fortunate Jew,
gives a personal account of life
in Italy before the war and of
his voyage of escape to and
discovery in Palestine.
Susan Zuccotti’s The
Italians and the Holocaust
takes a more objective ap
proach to what made Italy dif
ferent, and to how and why its
Jews fared as well as they did.
The modern tale of Jewish
life in Italy goes back to the
19th century when Jews fully
supported the movement of
national unification and, in
turn, were fully integrated in
to Italian governments. Anti-
Semitism was never a problem.
Indeed, Jews were in the
forefront of support for Benito
Mussolini’s assumption of
power in 1922. Highly assimi
lated, well educated, affluent
and patriotic, Jews lined up to
join the Fascists. Among them
was Segre’s father, a wesilthy
landowner.
His son, born one month
after Mussolini took over, tells
the story of his sheltered
childhood, one in which he had
little contact with his Judaism
and much with his father’s
Fascism. “As a totally
assimilated Jew,” Segre
writes, “and as an Italian
raised under a political regime
of which my family and all my
friends approved without
reservation. I, too, saw
Fascism as the only natural
form of existence.”
That philosophical accep
tance, however, would run in
to hard reality when, in 1938,
Mussolini enacted his anti-
Semitic Racial Laws. It was
then that Segre realized he
had “lived in the belly of the
monster, totally unaware of its
existence.”
And so, though totally
unaware of what he was get
ting into, Segre decided to
emigrate to Palestine.
It is the story of why he did
that and what happened as a
result, that are at the heart of
his beautifully written, emo
tionally expressive book.
Segre takes us along on this
voyage of self-discovery of
both his Jewish heritage and
of himself, describing his
disorientation in his new coun
try, his feeling of being “in
exile in the motherland to
which I had chosen to return.”
We are there as Segre, now
a professor of Zionism and
Jewish political thought at
Haifa University, moves from
kibbutz to agricultural school
to an intelligence unit in the
Palestine Regiment of the
British Army. And we are
there to witness with him the
incredible energy, vitality,
contentiousness and pressure
that permeated Palestine as it
moved toward becoming the
first Jewish state in 2,000
years. Segre lets us not only
see but feel, gives us not only
a sense of place but of mood,
supplying both historical
details and intimate personal
reactions.
Meanwhile, back home, it is
the story of the countrymen
Segre left behind that Zuccotti
looks at. Though official dis
crimination existed, Zuccotti,
a New York-based historian,
tells how life for the Jews went
on, with most of the anti-
Semitic laws not being put in
to practice.
She tells, too, how that
changed in 1943 when the Ger
mans occupied the north and
central parts of Italy. The late
entry into the country helps
explain why fuUy 85 percent of
Italian Jews survived the war.
But Zuccotti says there’s more
to it than that.
And in that more, Zuccotti
provides a rare, heartening
look into behavior during the
Holocaust that was both
moral and courageous.
Using both unpublished
recollections of survivors and
her own impressive research,
Zuccotti relates how Italians
did much to help the 6,000
Jews who escaped to Switzer
land and how they did little to
help in the Neizi round-up of
Jews.
The explanations for such
actions, Zuccotti shows, can
be attributed to the traditional
Italian emphasis on individu
alism and mistrust of govern
ment; the long Jewish pre
sence in the country; the lack
of anti-Semitic tradition; the
Italian distaste for the Ger
mans; and pure, simple altruism.
All of which is not to present
an unblemished picture. Zuc
cotti is unsparing in pointing
out that 20 percent of Italian
Jews were deported to concen
tration camps, that almost
7,000 Jews did die, and that
many Italians were brutal
partners of the Nazis.
Overall, however, here is a
fascinating account of how the
people of one country held on
to their humanity.
Together with Segre’s ac
count of how one man did the
same, the two books provide
not only happy endings, but
an encouraging beginning for
how decent human beings can
be, even under the most trying
of circumstances.
Joseph Aaron is the editor
of Chicago JUF NEWS and a
frequent contributor to Jewish
publications around the coun
try.
JLUB
Jewish Books
in Review
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