Reflections on Italy . . . and the Holocaust

Since my last week in Italy was a blur of getting ready for the banquet, grading the students' analytical papers, blogs, and finals, I didn't get around to posting my thoughts about teaching about the Holocaust while living in Italy until now, and I'm not sure that I have yet digested everything I thought about for the past six weeks.

Even though it is true that 85% of Italy's Jews survived the Holocaust, that statistic wasn't true for the border area in which Gorizia is located, and one sees that absence in the fact that the synagogue is no longer in use. One sees the death toll in the memorials to those who died.

Occasionally, I also saw contemporary evidence of the kind of prejudice that produces genocide (and not only bottles of wine with Hitler labels and Mussolini labels either). For example, Angela identified one of the cafes near the hotel as a place where elderly Fascists hang out, and one day she translated a poster for a play that had been put on in March. The title seemed to single out Jews, homosexuals, and one other group. I planned to get a photograph of the poster, but the shutters over the window were closed every time I went by after that. Did the proprietors see us staring at the poster? Were they embarrassed? or away from Gorizia?

If this group seems intent on keeping prejudice alive, others seem equally intent on remembering the Holocaust and everything that happened, so that nothing like it will ever happen again. Not only are there memorials throughout the region, but Jay and I found a CD at the Italian equivalent to the Dollar Store when we were out looking for gag gifts for the student banquet. The title is Shoah: Musica Per Non Dimenticare (or Music to Remember).

The CD, which was issued in 2008 by Azzurra Music, includes the following cuts: La vita e bella theme song; Schindler's List theme song; "Eli Eli," identified as an Israeli folk song; "Yerushalaim Shel Zaav" (also identified as an Israeli folk song); the theme song from Il postino (The Postman; "Shalom Alejem"; "Yedid Nefesh"; "Barcarolle" (from La vita e Bella); "Sher"; "Notturno/Opera 9 n. 2" from Il Pianista; "Remembrances" (from Schindler's List); "Erev Shel Shoshanim" (an Israeli folk song); and "Buongiorno Principessa" (from La vita e bella).

I suspect that most cultures incorporate these extreme differences (one only needs to read a newspaper or watch the news), but teaching a class on the Holocaust this summer made me especially aware of what CAN happen. I suppose that all right thinking people wonder exactly how to nourish positive responses and make sure that hate is eliminated before it takes hold. Certainly my students were consistently horrified and kept asking, "How could this happen?" "Why didn't people do more?" To which I occasionally retorted, "What are you doing about climate change today?" "The treatment of people in the developing world?"