Jewish DPs in Post-War Italy: The Role of Italian Jewry in a Multilateral Encounter (1945–1948)

Marzano, Arturo

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-89405-8_8

Arturo Marzano⁴

207 Accesses
1 Citations

Abstract

At the end of World War II, thousands of Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) transited through Italy and received assistance and support from several organizations, from UNRRA to the Joint to voluntary associations. In my contribution, I focus on the relationship between Jewish DPs and the Italian Jews, with a view to assessing the role played by the latter, both individually and institutionally, in supporting Jewish DPs.

Most of this support was indirect. Italian Jews were crucial in connecting the various players—the Jewish DPs, the organizations taking care of them, and the Yishuv representatives—with Italian institutions, both at the central and local level. However, save for a few exceptions, Italian Jews were not involved in the daily life of Jewish DPs and did not participate in the activities carried out in the camps and hakhsharot that hosted them.

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Notes

1.
See Dina Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy: the Encounter of Italian Jews with Holocaust Survivors and with Hebrew Soldiers and Zionist Representatives in Italy (1944–1946),” in Gli Ebrei nell’Italia Unita (1870–1945). IV Convegno Italia Judaica (Rome: Ufficio Centrale per la conservazione dei beni archivistici, 1993), 487–513.
2.
UNRRA, founded in 1943, was an international relief agency representing 44 countries whose main aim was to assist DPs in Europe. In July 1947, UNRRA was replaced by IRO. See Jessica Reinisch, “Internationalism in Relief: The Birth (and Death) of UNRRA,” Past and Present, 6 (2011): 258–289.
3.
For a general overview of its activities, see Yehuda Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939–1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981).
4.
The OJRI was founded in Rome in November 1945, during the Conference of Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy.
5.
The ORT had been created in the early 1880s to improve the lives of Russian Jews, the majority of whom was living in poverty. Its aim was to provide education and training in practical occupations, such as handicraft and farming work.
6.
The HIAS was an American non-profit organization created in 1881 to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to Jewish refugees mainly coming from the Russian Empire.
7.
The UCII was the association representing all the Italian Jewish communities. Founded in 1911 as the Comitato delle università israelitiche, it was renamed the Consorzio delle comunità israelitiche italiane in 1920, and then Unione delle comunità israelitiche italiane in 1930.
8.
The Italian Zionist Federation had been created in 1901, but became a reference point for Italian Jews only at the end of Second World War II, when Zionism became the ideology of choice for the majority of Italian Jews.
9.
This research was carried out thanks to the International Institute for Holocaust Research Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, where I spent four months as Post-doc Research Fellow in 2007–2008. I would like to take this opportunity to thank David Bankier and Iael Nidam-Orvieto for all their support. My gratitude also goes to Silvia Salvatici for reading a first draft of this chapter and providing invaluable suggestions. Any mistakes are, of course, my own responsibility.
See, among others, Mark Wyman, DPs Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998), 131–155 on Jewish DPs in particular; Areh J. Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 236–256 on Italy in particular; Menachem Z. Rosensaft, ed., Life Reborn. Jewish Displaced Persons 1945–1951, Conference Proceedings, Washington DC, January 14–17, 2000 (Washington: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2001).
10.
See, for example, Michael Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Life in Post-War Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Zeev W. Mankowitz, Life Between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Avinoam J. Patt and Michael Berkowitz, eds., “We are here”: New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-war Germany (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010).
11.
See, for example, Susanne Rolinek, Jüdische Lebenswelten 1945–1955: Flüchtlinge in der amerikanischen Zone Österreichs (Vienna and Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2007).
12.
See, among others, Eva Pfanzelter, “Between Brenner and Bari: Jewish Refugees in Italy, 1945 to 1948,” in Escape Through Austria: Jewish Refugees and the Austrian Route to Palestine, eds. Thomas Albrich and Ronald W. Zweig (London: Frank Cass, 2002), 83–104; Sonia Menici, “L’opera del Joint in Italia. Un ‘Piano Marshall’ ebraico per la ricostruzione,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, 2 (2003): 593–617; Vito Antonio Leuzzi and Giulio Esposito, eds., La Puglia dell’accoglienza. Profughi, rifugiati e rimpatriati nel Novecento (Bari: Progedit, 2006); Sara Vinçon, Vite in transito. Gli ebrei nel campo profughi di Grugliasco (1945–1949) (Turin: Zamorani, 2009); Susanna Kokkonen, The Jewish Refugees in Postwar Italy 1945–1951. The Way to Eretz Israel (Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011).
13.
Maria Grazia Enardu, “L’immigrazione illegale ebraica verso la Palestina e la politica estera italiana, 1945–1948,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali, 1 (1986): 147–166; Mario Toscano, La “porta di Sion”. L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina (1945–1948) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990); Jacob Markovizky, “The Italian Government’s Response to the Problem of Jewish Refugees 1945–1948,” The Journal of Israeli History, 1 (1998): 23–39; Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
14.
Three MA theses have discussed this topic in the last few years: Martina Ravagnan, “I profughi ebrei in Italia nel secondo dopoguerra (1945–1950)” (MA thesis, University of Bologna, 2011); Chiara Renzo, “‘Aprite le porte.’ I profughi ebrei nei campi di transito del Salento (1944–1947)” (MA thesis, University of Venice, 2012); Federica Di Padova, “Jewish Displaced Persons in Italia tra il 1945 e il 1948. Permanenza e vita quotidiana nei campi profughi” (MA thesis, University of Bologna, 2014). See also Cinzia Villani, “Milano, via Unione 5: un centro di accoglienza per Displaced Persons ebree nel secondo dopoguerra,” Studi storici, 2 (2009): 333–370; Chiara Renzo, The Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) in Italian Refugee Camps (1943–1951) (PhD diss., University of Florence, 2017).
15.
According to Jacob Markovizky, out of 65 ships leaving Europe to reach Palestine illegally before May 1948, 21 sailed from Italian ports with 21,000 refugees aboard: Markovizky, “The Italian Government’s Response.” According to Mario Toscano, 33 ships left Italy with 20,480 passengers aboard; Ada Sereni has stated instead that the actual number of passengers was 23,500. In Toscano, La porta di Sion, 7.
16.
Pfanzelter, “Between Brenner and Bari,” 104.
17.
In 1945–1946, Canadian Rabbi Lavy Becker (1905–2001) was Director of the DPs camps in the American zone of Occupation.
18.
Mr. Lavy Becker’s Statement Concerning His Visit to Italy, 2 September 1946, in Joint Archive, Jerusalem (hereinafter JA), AR 45/54–663.
19.
Jacob L. Trobe (1911–2005) was director of the Joint in Italy. Previously, he had been director of the Joint in Germany.
20.
Letter dated 26 February 1947, in Archivio Storico del Ministero Affari Esteri (Historical Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hereinafter ASMAE), Rome, Affari Politici (Political Affairs, hereinafter AP) (1946–1950), Italia, Box 114, File “Jacob Trobe.”
21.
Letter from Raffaele Cantoni, President of the UIJC, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 3 September 1946, in Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome (Central State Archive, hereinafter ACS), Ministero dell’Interno (Ministry of Interior, hereinafter MI), Category A 16 “Foreign Jews” (A16), Box 18, File 1, “Richieste per ingresso in Italia.”
22.
Quarterly Report—Hachsharot Bureau, July–September 1947, in JA, Geneva I, Box 126, Bag 43.
23.
Letter from the Prefect’s office in Viterbo to Ministry of Interior, 16 March 1948, in ACS, MI A16, Box 21, Bag 5, Sottofascicolo Viterbo.
24.
See Villani, “Milano, via Unione 5.” Sergio Della Pergola, on the contrary, provides a different number. According to him, in the years 1946–1948 about 30,000 Jewish refugees stayed in Italy: Sergio Della Pergola, “La popolazione ebraica in Italia nel contesto ebraico globale,” in Gli ebrei in Italia, ed. Corrado Vivanti, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), 897–936. Mario Toscano provides the same number in Toscano, La porta di Sion.
25.
As Jacob L. Trobe, Director of the AJJDC activities in Italy between February 1946 and March 1948, stated in a report concerning the activity of the Joint in Italy in the first quarter of 1947, “80% to 85% of the UNRRA DP Load was Jewish.” This was not only due to the presence of a much higher number of Jewish DPs compared to non-Jewish. As Trobe argued, in fact, “a few enlightened UNRRA staff members applied rigidly the eligibility clause, thus admitting for UNRRA care only persons discriminated against for race, religion or activity on behalf of the Allies.” Report dated 21 April 1947, in JA, Geneva I, Box 126, Bag 42.
26.
The Hebrew term hakhsharah (plural hakhsharot) can be translated by the expression “preparatory farm.” It was a place, generally in the countryside, where European Jews used to spend a period of time doing practical work, mainly in the fields, to get used to a different life in Eretz Israel. The first Italian hakhsharot were created in the 1930s for the German Jews on their way to British Palestine. See Carla Forti and Vittorio H. Luzzatti, Palestina in Toscana. Pionieri nel Senese (1934–1938) (Florence: Aska, 2009).
27.
In this sense, a comparison with Germany is quite useful. According to Avinoam J. Patt, in October 1946 there were 36 hakhsharot in the US zone, housing about 3442 refugees, hence only 2.4 per cent of the total number of Jewish DPs staying in the US zone. In Italy, hakhsharot hosted more than 7000 people, that is almost 50 per cent of the total number of Jewish DPs staying in Italy. Avinoam J. Patt, “Living in Landsberg. Dreaming of Deganiah. Jewish Displaced Youths and Zionism after the Holocaust,” in “We are here”: New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-War Germany, eds. Avinoam J. Patt and M. Berkowitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), 98–135: 112.
28.
See Arturo Marzano, “The Italian Jewish Migration to Eretz Israel and the Birth of the Italian Chalutz Movement (1938–1948),” The Mediterranean Review, 1 (2010): 1–29, in particular p. 13.
29.
A member of that hachsharah, Arieh Grossmann, joined the Provisional Central Committee with the idea of creating a Hechalutz movement in Italy. Report written by Eldad Boroccio, Rome, 16 January 1945, in Central Zionist Archives (hereinafter CZA), Jerusalem, S6, Box 2154.
30.
Fabrizio Lelli, “Testimonianze dei profughi ebrei nei campi di transito del Salento,” in Per ricostruire e ricostruirsi. Astorre Mayer e la rinascita ebraica tra Italia e Israele, ed. Marco Paganoni (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2010), 113.
31.
Renzo, “Aprite le porte,” 103.
32.
See Bice Migliau and Ghila Piattelli, eds., La Brigata ebraica in Italia 1943–1945: attraverso il Mediterraneo per la libertà, Manifesti, fotografie, documenti in mostra alla Cascina Farsetti di Villa Doria Pamphili, Roma 13–29 giugno 2003 (Rome: Litos, 2003); Michael Tagliacozzo, “Attività dei soldati di Eretz Israel in Italia (1943–1946). Il corpo ausiliario dei soldati palestinesi nell’armata di liberazione inglese,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, 2 (2003): 575–586.
33.
On this topic, see Carlo S. Capogreco, I campi del duce. L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista (1940–1943) (Turin: Einaudi, 2004).
34.
See Klaus Voigt, Il rifugio precario. Gli esuli in Italia dal 1933 al 1945, vol. 2 (Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1996), 524–527; see also Silvia Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates. DPs and Refugees in Post-war Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History, 3 (2014): 514–536.
35.
Letter from Joint Italy to Joint New York/Paris, 7 August 1945, JA, G5, File 54, Box 656.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Quoted in a letter from Charles Passman on “Hachsharah Groups – Italy,” 4 March 1946, in JA, Geneva I, Box 126, Bag 42.
38.
Hachsharot Report, 12 October 1946, written by Monika Gluskin, Hachsharot Department, AJJDC Rome. In JA, Geneva II, Box 279 B, File n. 4.
39.
Ibid. After July 1947, when IRO replaced UNRRA, negotiations began for a new agreement between the Joint and IRO. According to the new agreement, which was signed in February 1948, the IRO guaranteed “assistance to the refugees in Hachsharot,” who were going to receive “the same total per capita […] provided to the population in larger camps.” In JA, Geneva I, Box 21 C, IRO 1117.2.
40.
In YIVO Archive, Record Group N. 294.3, Displaced Persons Camps and Centres in Italy (1945–1949), microfilmed and located in Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem (hereinafter YVA), JM 10.517.
41.
Ibid. On comments by the Yiddish journal Ba-derekh, official organ of the Central Committee of the OJRI, see Ravagnan, “I profughi ebrei in Italia,” 58–62. On the journal itself, which was published from August 1945 to February 1949, see Ravagnan, “I profughi ebrei in Italia,” 88–100.
42.
Mario Toscano recalled that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a representative to that Conference, who later stated that he was in favour of Jewish migration to Palestine. Toscano, La porta di Sion, 61.
43.
Memorandum, 15–7, in YVA, JM 10.517.
44.
Report on AJJDC Activities in Italy, prepared by the Hachsharot Bureau, 4 February 1947, p. 2 of 66, in YVA, JM 10.542.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy,” 503.
47.
Guri Schwarz, Ritrovare se stessi. Gli ebrei nell’Italia postfascista (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 2004) 28–35, 51–62.
48.
Villani, “Milano, via Unione 5,” 335.
49.
Villani, “Milano, via Unione 5,” 358.
50.
Vinçon, Vite in transito, 93.
51.
Federica Di Padova, “Jewish Displaced Persons in Italia (1945–1950),” Rivista degli Istituti Storici dell’Emilia Romagna in Rete, http://e-review.it/di-padova-jewish-displaced-persons, accessed 21 October 2017.
52.
Elena Mazzini, La Delasem di Firenze fra ricostruzione comunitaria e aiuti agli ebrei stranieri (1945–1948) (Paper presented at the Conference “Cantieri di Storia IX”, Padova, 13–15 September 2017), https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AEKhUJCwcdcThxcFdrc1JEdk0/view, accessed 21 October 2017.
53.
Settimio Sorani, L’assistenza ai profughi ebrei in Italia (1933–1947). Contributo alla storia della “Delasem” (Rome: Carocci, 1983), 159–160; 491–511. On the activity of the DELASEM after the war, see also Voigt, Il rifugio precario, 335–350.
54.
Raffaele Cantoni (1896–1971), one of the leaders of the DELASEM in the late 1930s, was appointed president of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities in 1946. See Sergio Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni: un ebreo anticonformista (Rome: Bonacci Ed., 1992); Schwarz, Ritrovare se stessi, 33–36.
55.
Umberto Nahon (1905–1974) had migrated to Eretz Israel in April 1939. In February 1945, he was sent to Italy as representative of the Jewish Agency in Italy. See Alfredo Sarano, “Ricordo di Umberto Nahon,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, no. 1 (1974): 9–11.
56.
Ada Sereni (1905–1998), Enzo Sereni’s wife, came back to Italy in 1945 to take part in the ‘aliyah bet operations as second-in-command to Yehuda Arazi. She replaced him as commander of the operation in 1947 and continued in that position until 1948. On her experience in Italy, see Ada Sereni, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (1973; repr., Milan: Mursia, 1994).
57.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 148.
58.
See Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy,” 504.
59.
Toscano, La porta di Sion, 74.
60.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 178–179.
61.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 184.
62.
Sereni, I clandestini del mare, 110.
63.
Sereni, I clandestini del mare, 232.
64.
Toscano, La porta di Sion, 26.
65.
Toscano, La porta di Sion, 96.
66.
Schwarz, Ritrovare se stessi, 130ff.
67.
Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, 235ff.
68.
Toscano, La porta di Sion, 99.
69.
Luisa Levi D’Ancona, Filantropi ebrei italiani nella ricostruzione: il caso di Milano, in Paganoni, Per ricostruire e ricostruirsi, 39–57: 47.
70.
I am grateful to Federica Di Padova for this information.
71.
Alberto Gagliardo, Ebrei in provincia di Varese. Dalle leggi razziali all’emigrazione verso Israele—Tradate 1938–1947 (Varese: ANPI-Edizioni Arterigere, 1999).
72.
Sereni, I clandestini del mare, 101.
73.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 161.
74.
On Max Varadi, see Arturo Marzano, Una terra per rinascere. Gli ebrei italiani e l’emigrazione in Palestina prima della guerra (1920–1940) (Milan: Marietti, 2003), 171ff.
75.
Letter from the prefect’s office in Viterbo, “Foreign Jews in the IRO centre of Soriano al Cimino.”
76.
Aide Memoire, Rome, 4 January 1947, in ASMAE, AP, Italia, Box 114, File “Terrorismo Sionista.” See also Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, 246–247.
77.
Matteo Villa, Dai Lager alla terra promessa. La difficile reintegrazione nella «nuova Italia» e l’immigrazione verso il Medio Oriente (1945–1948) (Milan: Guerini e Associati, 2005), 204. On Yehuda Arazi, see Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power, 27ff. The same hakhsharah is mentioned by Primo Levi, Se non ora, quando? (1982; repr., Turin: Einaudi, 2007), 249.
78.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 164.
79.
Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy,” 507.
80.
See Stefania Pirani, Storia dell’haksharà di Fano dal 1945 al 1948 attraverso i documenti e le interviste ai testimoni (Bologna: Patron Editore, 2008).
81.
AJJDC Report, 22 April 1948, in JA, Geneva I, Box 21 C, IRO 1117.2.
82.
Letter from Jacob L. Trobe, 26 April 1947, in in JA, Geneva I, Box 9 A-2, C 54.033.
83.
Letter from the Prefettura di Pesaro-Urbino to the Ministry of Interior, 4 October 1948, in ACS, MI, A16, Box 21, Bag 15 “Scuola marinara di Fano.” On Navarra, see Marzano, Una terra per rinascere, 249; on Viterbo, see Arturo Marzano, ed., Leo Levi. Contro i dinosauri. Scritti civili (1931–1972) (Naples: l’ancora del mediterraneo, 2011), 23–24.
84.
Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy,” 507.
85.
See Marcella Simoni’s contribution in this volume. See also Marzano, “The Italian Jewish Migration to Eretz Israel.”
86.
Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy,” 507.
87.
Sereni, I clandestini del mare, 43.
88.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 163.
89.
Sorani, L’assistenza ai profughi, 164.
90.
An Italian term of endearment for the Polish Jews, referring to the thinness of their bodies after surviving the Shoah.
91.
See Marzano, “The Italian Jewish Migration to Eretz Israel,” 15–25, and Marcella Simoni, “Gli ebrei italiani e lo Stato di Israele: appunti per un ritratto di due generazioni (1948 e 1967),” in “Roma e Gerusalemme”. Israele nella vita politica e culturale italiana (1949–2009), eds. Marcella Simoni and Arturo Marzano (Genoa: ECIG, 2009), 47–73, in particular 50–54.
92.
Interviews with the author, Kibbutz Ma‘agan Michael, 7 October 2007.
93.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 157.
94.
On the experience at Selvino, see Sergio Luzzatto, I bambini di Moshe. Gli orfani della Shoah e la nascita di Israele (Turin: Einaudi, 2018).
95.
Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, 158.
96.
Memorandum, “Relief in Italy,” 17 August 1945, in JA, AR 45/54–629.
97.
Porat, “One Side of a Jewish Triangle in Italy,” 511.
98.
Schwarz, Ritrovare se stessi, 42–47 in particular.
99.
Interviews with the author, Kibbutz Ma‘agan Michael, 7 October 2007.

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Arturo Marzano

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Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY, USA
Francesca Bregoli
University College London, London, United Kingdom
Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti
University of Genova, Genova, Italy
Guri Schwarz

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Marzano, A. (2018). Jewish DPs in Post-War Italy: The Role of Italian Jewry in a Multilateral Encounter (1945–1948). In: Bregoli, F., Ferrara degli Uberti, C., Schwarz, G. (eds) Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89405-8_8

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