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This book is perhaps the first to describe the active involvement of the individual Italians, the government and the military in saving the lives of many of the Jews of Italy, Yugoslavia, and the German-occupied south of France in 1942 and 1943.
The extraordinary story of a few non-Jews who risked their lives to rescue and protect Jews from Nazi persecution in Europe during World War II is told in The Courage to Care. It features the first person accounts of rescuers and of survivors whose stories address the basic issue of individual responsibility: the notion that one person can act—and that those actions can make a difference. These rescuers are true heroes, but modest ones. They did a thousand ordinary things—opening doors, hiding and feeding strangers, keeping secrets—in an extraordinary time. For this, they are known as "Righteous Among the Nations of the World." The rescuers and survivors are from many countries in Euro...
In February 1945, Israele Zolli, chief rabbi of Rome's ancient Jewish community, shocked his co-religionists in Italy and throughout the Jewish world by converting to Catholicism and taking as his baptismal name, Eugenio, to honor Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) for what Zolli saw as his great humanitarianism toward the Jews during the Holocaust. Almost a half a century after his conversion, Zolli still evokes anger and embarrassment in Italy's Jewish community. This book is the first authoritative treatment of this astonishing story. What induced Zolli to embrace Catholicism will probably never be known. Nonetheless, by painstaking scholarly detective work, through interviews in Italy and e...
The author demonstrates that the Italian Army deserves attention for its often humanitarian treatment of Italian Jews and other Jews. He also analyzes revisionist histories of Pope Pius XII and his alleged "silence," arguing that revisionists were writing for a popular audience interested in sensation and scandal, and that this profitable trail attracted journalists and historians alike. Focusing primarily on the roles played by the Vatican and the Royal Italian Army, this book also provides an overview of the travail of Italy's Jewish community from the beginning of Mussolini's anti-Semitic policies in the late 1930s, through the end of the German occupation in May 1945.
Illuminating the history of Jews and Jewish-Catholic relations in Rome, Intimate Strangers investigates the unusual and uninterrupted relationship between Jews and Catholics as it has developed from the first century CE to the present.
An incisive account of how Mussolini pioneered populism in reaction to Hitler’s rise—and thereby reinforced his role as a model for later authoritarian leaders On the tenth anniversary of his rise to power in 1932, Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) seemed to many the “good dictator.” He was the first totalitarian and the first fascist in modern Europe. But a year later Hitler’s entrance onto the political stage signaled a German takeover of the fascist ideology. In this definitive account, eminent historian R.J.B. Bosworth charts Mussolini’s leadership in reaction to Hitler. Bosworth shows how Italy’s decline in ideological pre-eminence, as well as in military and diplomatic power, led Mussolini to pursue a more populist approach: angry and bellicose words at home, violent aggression abroad, and a more extreme emphasis on charisma. In his embittered efforts to bolster an increasingly hollow and ruthless regime, it was Mussolini, rather than Hitler, who offered the model for all subsequent authoritarians.
Reflections and essays, Judaism-20th century.
Mining new sources, Klein tells the dramatic story of Italy's Jews, from emancipation to Fascism, the Holocaust, and postwar myth-making.
In the brutal fight that has raged in recent years over the reputation of Pope Pius XII_leader of the Catholic Church during World War II, the Holocaust, and the early years of the Cold War_the task of defending the Pope has fallen primarily to reviewers. These reviewers formulated a brilliant response to the attack on Pius, but their work was scattered in various newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals_making it nearly impossible for the average reader to gauge the results. In The Pius War, Weekly Standard's Joseph Bottum has joined with Rabbi David G. Dalin to gather a representative and powerful sample of these reviews, deliberately chosen from a wide range of publications. Together with a team of professors, historians, and other experts, the reviewers conclusively investigate the claims attacking Pius XII. The Pius War, and a detailed annotated bibliography that follows, will prove to be a definitive tool for scholars and students_destined to become a major resource for anyone interested in questions of Catholicism, the Holocaust, and World War II.
The history of the Christian-Jewish relations is full of curious, intense, and occasionally tragic episodes. In the dialectical development of the Western monotheistic religions, Judaism plays the role of the “thesis”, of the origins and background for the rise of Christianity and Islam. With the rise of Christianity, Judaism was progressively marginalized, since it was denied the same essence and validity of Christianity, which grew immensely in terms of spiritual and secular power. Christian scholars since the Middle Ages looked at Judaism as at the “broken staff” in the evolutionist line of religion, to quote the insightful work of the late Frank E. Manuel. At the same time, while...