Chapter Seven Subservience to the Germans

(1937-1938)

World events did not stop for my personal problems. While I had retired to a private life hoping to be left in peace, Spain fought for the future of civilization.

I knew little about Spain aside from what I had learned in school. I had vague memories of the Inquisition and of an absolute monarchy that, in the name of Catholicism, had closed the country to every progressive trend, be it the Enlightenment, liberalism, or scientific thought --in other words, a continuous and unredeemed misgovernment. The last reigning dynasty, the Bourbons, was well-known to every Italian school child who immediately associated it with the Spanish Bourbons, and their reign over the "Two Sicilies." They governed with exemplary ineptitude even in their methods of oppression, and had been thrown out of Italy by Garibaldi's Mille.

More recently, I had learned from the newspapers that De Rivera had been a dictator, that he had stepped down. Then one fine day, King Alfonso had also been forced to leave. I was still a student, and I was excited by the proclamation of the Spanish Republic. In the summer of 1933, when I had gone to the Swiss collegio, my Spanish friends had had me listen to a record that went

Espana, Espana, tu valentia la monarchia a destrujo.

I never tired of hearing it. I hadn't taken much interest in the Spanish Republic until Franco's revolt. I did hear of the victory

of the Popular Front in the latest elections ('35 or '36). But when the revolution started, I followed news of the war with interest. Mussolini's involvement was evident from the beginning, when the newspapers reported that some Italian airplanes had crashed on the French coast of North Africa. Fascist Italy's participation in the revolt became more and more obvious and I began to hear of so-and-so who had gone to fight in Spain. It was no secret that entire army units were fighting alongside the rebels. In the meantime the rebels had begun to call themselves Nationalists, probably because, with the help of a foreign nation, they were fighting against the explicit will of the Spanish people. Even Mussolini admitted, in his article in the Popolo d'Italia, that Guadalajara was a defeat for the Italian Fascist army.

On the other hand, the Republicans were helped only by the working people and the Soviet Union, and due to the distance between the two countries this help was not very effective. Meanwhile, the great European powers had declared a policy of non-intervention, whose only result in regards to Italy, was that passports were stamped "not valid in Spain." Meanwhile, the Italian government continued to send soldiers.

Soviet aid could not reach the Spanish front by land, because of France's neutrality. Italian submarines, under the approving eyes of the French and the English, took to acts of piracy in the Mediterranean, sinking Russian ships that were bringing reinforcements to Spain. But the Spanish people

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showed how hard it is to defeat those who are fighting for their ideals: the Spanish revolution continued for years, bloody and giving no quarter.

Just as the Italian clergy had blessed troops when they left for Abyssinia, they now blessed troops going "overseas." It was a matter of defeating Communism and of eliminating the red peril forever.

While the Spanish nationalists were submitting to Mussolini, the Italian Fascists were submitting to Hitler. The approchement between the two totalitarian regimes was inevitable after the war in Abyssinia. Mussolini traveled to Germany and was visibly impressed by the achievements of the new German state, by the brutality with which it had eliminated all opposition, and by the strength of the new German army.

In March 1938 the Anchluss was an accomplished fact. The Germans were on the Brenner Pass. Mussolini did not oppose them, either because he disliked democracy, or because he knew he did not have the strength to defeat them. From that moment Mussolini developed an inferiority complex, and he began imitating the German model.

One day the Italian army introduced the goose step. The first time I saw a newsreel of the Fascist legions doing the goose step, the whole theater broke out laughing: "This is not our thing," the laughter seemed to say, "our sense of the ridiculous is too well-developed."

Another similar innovation was the introduction of a uniform to be worn by state employees. I might have been forced to walk around the Institute in uniform, if I had not been spared this fate by another instance in which Italian Fascists imitated the Nazis.

* * *

Because of the anti-semitic campaign, I was never required to wear a uniform. Anti-semitism had not previously existed in Italy in any form. Jews were admitted into all phases

of Italian life, including high society. Nobody worried if a person was, or was not, Jewish. The Italian perspective on the Jews is less anti-semitic than in some democratic countries, such as France or the United States.

I don't want to write about the reasons for the existence of anti-semitism, because I am speaking about Italy, and anti-semitism is not an Italian phenomenon. I don't even want to explain why anti-semitism doesn't exist in Italy, as this seems so natural as not to require explanation. But maybe at this point it would be interesting to say something about Italian Jews [see Cecil Roth, History of the Jews of Italy], or rather, I should say, Jewish Italians.

As opposed to other countries, especially those of central Europe, the Jews in Italy were neither an ethnic nor a cultural minority. As to my own experience, all the ancestors that I knew of, lived and were buried in Italy, as were the ancestors of almost all my Jewish acquaintances. Italy is "the land of my fathers" and therefore by definition it is my land. Furthermore, all my ancestors spoke Italian --if not pure Italian, then an Italian dialect which identified them even more closely with the people among whom they lived. Therefore my cultural tradition is Italian.[This is hard to explain to Americans, for whom a Jew is a person who speaks Yiddish.]

Maybe my ancestors knew how to read Hebrew (but they probably did not even know of the existence of Yiddish) and used it for their prayers. But my grandfather did not know the meaning of the words that he was reading. (This is a bit like some Catholics who sing and pray in Latin without understanding what they are saying.) Even the more cultured Jews, who understood Hebrew, did not use it as a spoken language. Hebrew had been a dead language for centuries before it was revived by Zionists in the new state of Israel.

There have always been Jews in Italy. The synagogue in Rome is an institution that is older than the Church. Since pagan times there had been Jewish shopkeepers and slaves, and they had their own synagogue. Some of my relatives say that they are descended from ancient Roman families. This claim seems to be as stupid as the claims the Nazis made when they asserted that they were racially pure. Probably I have Jewish, Roman, Lombard, German and Spanish blood in my veins, as do all Italians. And maybe, who knows, one of my ancestors was a Jewish slave in Rome who spoke Latin. In fact, this is

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quite possible, because in 20 centuries there are 100 generations, and excluding duplications, I would have at least 2100x1030 = 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 ancestors who were alive in Roman times. But this number is much larger than the total number of people who have ever walked the earth.

I do not know much about my ancestors. It is known that a family of De Benedettis (probably an Italian version of Ben Baruch, son of Benedetto in Hebrew) lived in Piedmont, in Nizza Monferrato, in the 18th century. They may have settled there much earlier.

My maternal grandfather's family was from Livorno. It was probably a family that had immigrated when the Medici, who had established the town as a new port, had welcomed Spanish Jews who were being persecuted. My grandmother's maiden name was Tedeschi, which indicates that some forgotten ancestor was probably German. My other grandmother was an Urbino, and maybe it is through her that I am descended from a Roman slave. Since all my ancestors had lived in Italy, I did not have any relatives abroad before the anti-semitic campaign. This was true of most Jewish Italians.

It's hard to understand how and why the Jewish religion survived twenty centuries of persecution and exile. Probably it's because strict monotheism forces its believers into greater social cohesion than other beliefs.

During these past twenty centuries, the Jews of Italy have been persecuted and hated, but maybe they've also been loved and respected. They survived by taking advantage of, but also sometimes helping, their neighbors. They took on the professions that were allowed them, which excluded carrying weapons and farming. During the Renaissance, many Jews became dance teachers.

But as eryone knows, they usually took more sedentary jobs. The most profitable among them was usury, an activity which was considered sinful by medieval Catholics. Beginning in Dante's time, however, some of the better known [Catholic] families began practicing usury and it came to be known as banking.

But traditionally, the most respected people in the Jewish community were not those who showed the greatest business acumen, but those who exhibited the greatest ability and erudition in religious and Talmudic dialogue. Within the ghettos, the study of sacred books and auxiliary literature, Talmudic exegesis and the worship of a single abstract God, produced a class of people that was accustomed to using abstract and formally exact reasoning.

But the residential restrictions, and the limitation on allowable professions must have weighed heavily on the ghetto Jews. As a result they welcomed Napoleon's troops who brought liberty, equality and fraternity to Italy. And when the kings of Savoy, having come to understand contemporary ideas, proclaimed a constitution that recognized that all their subjects were equal, the Jews became their natural allies. Italian nationalism was embraced enthusiastically by Italian Jews who shed blood in the wars of the Risorgimento and participated in Garibaldi's expeditions. [There were eight Jews in Garibaldi's Mille. For documentation on the Jewish contribution to the Italian wars of unification see The History of the Jews of Italy by Cecil Roth.]

On the other hand, it would be ridiculous to deny that Jews in Italy form a subculture characterized by certain attributes and opinions. Obviously, the communal history of the ghetto and of persecutions will leave its mark. The irony is that the despised activities that the Jews had mastered as a result of external coercion, became highly valued in the modern world. By the time the Jews left the ghetto, business acumen, the cult of knowledge, and training in abstract reasoning were much more useful than knowledge about farming or handling weapons. Therefore, they were able to rise rapidly from a despised status to a relatively high level. I think that this undeniable fact is easily explained by historical factors, without bringing racial factors into play. If heredity is a factor, it can be easily explained by selection due to persecution and life in the ghetto, where intellectual endowments were more likely to survive than qualities of physical strength.

Liberated from the ghetto, the early generations threw their efforts into making money. While Italian Jews did not accumulate fortunes on the order of the Rothschilds, many of them were able to earn a place in the high bourgeoisie, and in the Kingdom of Italy the average Jew lived a more comfortable life

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than the average citizen. This is attributable to, I repeat, their specific training resulting from historical conditions, and not to "racial" superiority.

Later generations threw their energies into cultural endeavors with the result that whereas Jews constitute about one percent of the total population of Italy, some 10% of Italian professors are Jewish.

The small number of Jews (about 50,000 before the war) and their effective equality with other citizens facilitated assimilation. Assimilation would probably have been total within a few generations if policies had not changed. It was only the imposition of Nazi persecution that prevented the small population of Italian Jews from naturally disappearing (and some rabbis were grateful to them for this).

Despite the progress toward assimilation, there remained an undeniable tendency for Jews to cluster together, to find friends and spouses among people of Jewish descent, independent of any ethnographic, ritualistic or racist considerations. Proof of this is the number of Jewish names mentioned in these pages. This tendency is due to the fact that Jews belonged to the same subculture, formed by a common history and family tradition. It is a fact that if a Jew has an interesting conversation with a fellow traveler, whether it be on a ship, a train, or in an international hotel, he will often find, to his own surprise, that he is talking to a person of Jewish heritage. I imagine this happens to members of other subcultures, such as travelling salesmen, soccer players, members of the nobility, and university professors, who by profession or tradition have a similar world view.

At the beginning of the Fascist period, Jewish Italians were sufficiently assimilated that their reaction to the new regime was based on their class affiliation, rather on belonging to the Jewish minority. In fact, many Jews, among whom my rich relatives, were active supporters of the regime, as was most of the business class with whom they identified. Others, such as my uncle who was a professor, disapproved of, and opposed Fascism because, as intellectuals, they did not want to jeopardize their freedom of expression. Very few felt that the Fascist totalitarian program endangered them as members of an ethnic minority. The ghetto had been forgotten by the young, and Jewish Italians no longer considered themselves part of a minority.

It is true that the percentage of antifascists was greater among Jews than among non-Jews. But it may also be possible to show that Fascism received greater support from the Jews in relation to their numbers, in terms of financial contributions. If this were true, it would not be contradictory. It corresponds to the need among members of the Jewish subculture to take a definite stance, either pro or con, rather than to sit on the sidelines. Maybe this is the most salient characteristic of the Jewish people: the tendency to take matters seriously and to take them to extremes.

The Fascists made the mistake of thinking of people as members of groups rather than as individual members of society. I think an anti-fascist government that made the same error (ie., of seeing people as members of groups and not as individuals) could have chastised Jews for being Fascist on the same basis that Fascists accused them of being anti-fascist.

Jews can be accused of anything. The bourgeois class can accuse them of being Communists, pointing to Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky as examples. The Communists can accuse them of being capitalists, pointing to Jews in high finance. Religious people can accuse them of being atheists, and atheists of being narrow-mindedly religious. For whoever finds a characteristic that is typically Jewish, someone else can find a world-famous Jew who is known for the opposite. For those who say that Jews are physically weak, one could point to Max Baer who was a world champion boxer. For those who say that Jews are corrupt, examples of strictly moral Jewish families could be found, and so on.

In Italy, people did not think much about the Jewish problem. There were clearly those who thought that Jews were cheap, but personally, I never knew anyone who judged me that way. If there were times when I turned down a movie because I wanted to save money, my friends joked about my Jewish background without any intention to offend.

The following is a possible example of the kind of anti-semitism that exists Italy: During my first year at the University in Florence, I made friends with a classmate to whom I was immediately drawn, and the feeling was reciprocal. In a shop we ran into another schoolmate whom I did not know. I asked my friend who he was, and he said "I don't like him, and besides, he's Jewish." I immediately let him know that I too was Jewish. He felt bad, and mumbled some apologies. This did not interfere with our

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friendship, and he often came to my home, and I was invited to his. I later learned that this same person, who was one of the few people I ever heard say a bad word about Jews, behaved very well towards his Jewish colleagues after they were fired following the enactment of the anti-semitic laws. He stood by them and did not hide his disapproval of the racial laws.

On the other hand, sometimes the opposite happened. Once I left the University with a young mathematician called Sestini [he must be professor of 'meccanica razionale' in Florence - 1966] and he began praising the Jews for their intellectual superiority. Naturally, I was embarrassed, and objected by saying that Jewish superiority did not exist. Warming to the subject, he tried to press his point until I told him that I was Jewish, which I thought he knew from the start. "If I had known that you were Jewish," he answered, "I wouldn't have spoken like that. It's embarrassing for both of us."

For a long time, the Fascist attitude toward the Jewish question was typically Italian: the problem simply did not exist. Among other things, in his conversations with Ludwig, Mussolini explicitly condemned anti-semitism. His intimate relationship with Margherita Sarfatti proved that Jews did not make him puke, as they did Hitler.

Only once before Fascism's approchement with Germany did anti-semitism make an appearance in Fascist politics. I think it was in 1934. A group of young Jews was discovered along the Italian-Swiss border, attempting to smuggle subversive literature (from Giustizia e Liberta) into Italy. The news was kept quiet for a few days, and then was published on Passover, the Jewish Easter, under a front-page banner headline, "Arrest of a Group of Jewish Anti-Fascists." The glaring use of the word "Jewish" seemed to indicate that the Fascists intended to initiate an anti-semitic campaign.

The article detailed the arrest of every member of the group except one, Mario Levi, son of a well-known anatomy professor in Turin. Levi managed to swim across the border by jumping into a river, avoiding shots from the Italian border guards. On the other side he was fished out by the Swiss border guards. The Italian papers attributed the following words to him: "cani di Italiani vigliacchi" (Italian sons of bitches) which they claimed he spit out as soon as he reached the other side. When I met Mario in Paris, he told me that what he had actually said was, "cani di fascisti vigliacchi" (Fascist sons of bitches).

But Sarfatti intervened, and there were no consequences for Jewish Italians, except to inspire fear among the philo-Fascists. Fear is a bad counsellor. In this case, it resulted in the publication of a weekly paper, called La Nostra Bandiera, settimanale degli Italiani di fede mosaica (Our Flag, a weekly for Italians of the Jewish faith), published in Turin.

In all Italian cities, Jews gathered under the Italian flag, to affirm their pure faith in Fascist beliefs. At the Institute, someone asked me to sign an "our flag" manifesto. I told him, "I am not Jewish enough, nor Fascist enough to sign this paper."

My mother had kept up her membership in the Jewish community of Florence, so that she could be buried next to my father in the Jewish cemetery. I declined every invitation to join, either in Florence or in Padova, since I did not much care about the fate of my bones.

Meanwhile the Nostra Bandiera group which, to my shame, included my rich relatives, had managed to take control of the Jewish community in Florence. The community was reduced to making declarations of loyalty to the regime and of admiration for the Duce. After this, and after a talk with me, my mother resigned from the community, preferring to respect her own ideas and those of my father while she was alive, rather than to lie beside him after she died.

The religious groups and the Zionists opposed Nostra Bandiera while the more free-thinking Jews were disinterested in the administration of the Jewish community.

Few Jews were orthodox, and even these did not go to the extremes of observance that the Orthodox practice in other countries. The Italian rabbis wore a short beard that made them look somewhat professorial. In Italy I never saw a single full beard, or the long curls and caftans and black hats that can be found in New York. People practiced their religion with a modicum of good sense and though many families attended synagogue for the high holidays and for family occasions, few observed the dietary laws, and even fewer observed the Sabbath.

Zionism was viewed mostly as a charity for helping oppressed Jews in other countries. In other words, a Zionist in Italy was "a Jew who gave money to a second Jew, so that a third could go to

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Palestine." Maybe some saw it as a form of insurance, given that "one never knows...." [The attitude towards Zionism changed after the persecutions. Then the joke was that an Italian Zionist was a Jew who wanted to create a Jewish state so that he could be its ambassador to Paris.]

Very few seriously considered going to Palestine before the persecutions. Some older people wanted to go for traditional religious reasons and some young people wanted to go for completely different reasons. The few lay Zionists believed that the Jews were a nation, to which they felt they belonged.

* * * * *

This, in short, was the situation of Judaism in Italy when, on July 14,1938 the newspapers published the "Decalogue on Race" written by alleged intellectuals, ethnologists and anthropologists. This was another step toward imitating the Nazis, and toward a more complete subservience of the culture to sordid politics.

I read the Decalogue one evening at a cafe in Padua in the company of a fellow physicist, who was German and half Jewish. "If I were you," he said," I would try to leave right away. I have seen how these things turned out in Germany." During the next few days the newspapers began their anti-semitic slander. They alternated these articles with others affirming the originality of the Italian concept of race, with assurances that no harm would come to Jews.

A few weeks later I was called to Rome for a competition that I had entered. My friends in the physics lab welcomed me by saying that I probably had little chance of winning because of the anti-semitic campaign, but that since I was in Rome, I might as well take the exam.

I had known the circle of Roman physicists for several years, keeping in touch with them during my occasional trips to Rome, as well as at various conferences. The recognized head of the school was "Il Papa" (the Pope). This was the name given to His Excellency Enrico Fermi, Italian Academic, by Italian physicists. The name suited him well, since everyone was convinced of his infallibility, and they consulted him when they had questions about scientific problems. "Il Papa" pontificated on physics, and was not concerned about anything else.

Then there was the Venerable Teacher, Franco Rasetti, "Pontifical Academic." He was a person of monstrous intelligence, who could speak competently about biology and geology as well as about physics, and he had traveled the world. The "Venerable Teacher" had been a Fascist since the beginning, and had taken part in the March on Rome.

There was Gilberto Bernardini, of whom I have already spoken, and Edoardo Amaldi as well as other young assistants and students. Among these was Mario Ageno, a person of great literary and philosophical sophistication, and a deep thinker. Ageno had always been a Fascist.

At a luncheon with the Roman physicists, I noticed that Ageno was absent. "Where's Ageno?" I asked."He'll be here later," I was told. He arrived at about two o'clock, looking tired, thin, depressed and humiliated. He fell into a chair and ate very little, his eyes fixed on the table. "It's impossible," he said, "I can't stand it." He had been with the university militia, learning the goose step so that he could parade in front of Hitler, who was expected to visit shortly.

When I was able to talk to him alone, I asked him why he was so depressed. "In the first place, I'm exhausted," he said. "But exhaustion is nothing compared to the feeling I

have inside when I think that all this preparation is to honor Italy's most dangerous enemy. I'm telling you, I can't stand it any longer. If things go on like this for another few days I'll either get sick or go crazy."

It was sad to see a good friend reduced to this condition. I was not even heartened by his political change of heart: at this point, it was too late. But all the physicists in Rome had changed their political opinions. They had all become antifascists. The Anschluss had opened their eyes. A strong German state at the Brenner meant the end of Italian independence. They finally realized that Fascism was not the defender of Italian prestige. People had been ready to accept the sacrifices imposed on them by Fascism, thinking that they were required for the glory of their country. But they came to see that their sacrifices were made in the interest of a crude form of oppression and for exploitation without justification.

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A few days after taking the exam for the competition, I was given the results: the position was awarded to the other candidate who, everyone agreed, was not as good a scientist as I. The commission itself told me that he'd been given the position because, after all, "the poor guy . . ."

Among the members of the commission was Prof. Carrelli, from the University of Naples, the professor who advised me when I competed for the fellowship to Paris. As I said before, Carrelli had taken a liking to me. He explained the commission's decision, almost apologetically, and asked me about my future. I told him about my uncertain situation as a Jew and he advised me to leave Padua where, besides me, there were many other Jews in the lab. I told him that this was one of the reasons that I had taken the exam for a position in Rome. (This wasn't true, but I wanted to tug at his conscience, so that he would help me.)

I told him that since I could not get the position in Rome, the only way to leave Padua was to get a fellowship to study abroad. He felt this was a reasonable idea. "Spend a year abroad, and you'll see that this antisemitic insanity will end. Then you can get another good position in some Italian university. I'll phone the National Council of Research (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche) today. Come to the train station tomorrow and I hope to give you an affirmative answer before I leave."

I met him at the station the next day. "I phoned," he said "but the first thing they asked was if you were Jewish. I had to say yes, and they told me that, in that case, there's nothing possible for now. But don't worry. They have to maintain a certain proportion of Jews and non-Jews when they award fellowships, and it seems that at the moment they've decided against awarding any to Jews. But I'm sure things will change. It's too obvious an injustice. This isn't Germany. You can count on me if you need help, and . . . good luck."

The train left and I had to give up the idea of emigrating at the expense of the Fascist government.

* * * * *

But by now it was clear to me that I had to leave the country. I decided to spend the summer vacation with my mother, fearing that I would be unable to see her for a long time. Together we went to a little village under the Civetta where we had summered two years earlier. Many of our relatives were staying in the same hotel. Among them was my childhood friend, Gualtiero Procaccia, his mother and a large collection of his shopkeeper uncles and their families.

This group of vacationing Jews spent time rowing and fishing in the lake, driving under the mountain peaks, and hiking to mountain shelters. The whole tribe --men, women, and children --would climb into their cars. When the caravan stopped at the trailhead, everyone got out, dressed in the extravagant outfits worn by amateur hikers --walking sticks, cameras, and backpacks filled with equipment for the more challenging ascents. My mother was far from assuming the matronly appearance of so many older women, and maintained an uncommon physical and intellectual agility.

But the vacation was disrupted by the newspapers which published long columns of anti-semitic propaganda every day. The Jewish shopkeepers were worried, nervous and afraid that their easy life was coming to an end. They foresaw persecutions that they did not have the courage to face. Having no definite political philosophy [these were not the rich relatives that had joined Nostra Bandiera], they couldn't understand what was happening. Nor did they have religious beliefs or a social philosophy to sustain them. They felt lost, not knowing where to turn if the peace and comfort that had been their consuming goal were to be denied them.

There was clearly good reason for concern, since the early laws were even stricter than those in Nazi Germany. Mussolini seemed to be afraid to make a bad impression on Hitler by demonstrating even a modicum of humanity; he wanted to prove that, even in Italy, it was possible to pitilessly oppress innocent victims through drastic measures. Thus, Jewish children were completely barred from the public schools in a law that had no counterpart in Germany. Students who were already enrolled were to be allowed to finish their studies, but for the future, special elementary and middle schools were to be created for Jews, and under no condition would they be admitted to the university. Real estate over a certain value would be confiscated in exchange for worthless government bonds that could not be sold.

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Jews were no longer allowed to own businesses employing more than one hundred workers, and all professional activities were basically rendered impossible, including the liberal professions.

In order to persuade Italians of the necessity for such measures, the government started a slanderous propaganda campaign. Most of the newspaper articles were translated from Nazi publications through which the Italian people were introduced to the "science" of racism, and to the study of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A pseudo-anthropological, pseudo-ethnological, pseudo-psychological, pseudo-sociological, pseudo-physiological magazine was introduced (its name, if I remember, was la Difesa della Razza or In Defense of Race). It had many illustrations --photographs of different racial types, graphics, maps --some of which were worded in the original German.

Nevertheless, the government continued to insist on the purely Italian nature of the new racist campaign. In fact, the racial campaign took a uniquely Italian form: it did not work. I don't mean that this failure was due to Italian inefficiency. On the contrary, its cause was the resistance encountered from almost the entire Italian population. Italians understood that the anti-semitic campaign was not really a means of liberating Italians from Jewish influence, but was instead a new kind of subservience to German Nazism. Instead of becoming an instrument of Fascist propaganda, anti-semitism became a channel for the diffusion of antifascist ideas.

The Italian people had never given any importance to the idea of their own "race". In Italy there was no difference between Jews and non-Jews, except for the minor difference of religion. Therefore the anti-semitic measures not only seemed unjust, they caused all Italians to be concerned. Today they persecute the Jews, people said, and tomorrow, by the same critieria, they might decide to persecute people with red hair, or people named John. A joke spread rapidly:

A government leader ended an incendiary speech by forcefully declaring, "We can blame it all on the Jews and on bicyclists." "Why bicyclists?" asks a listener. "And why Jews?" asked the other guy.

But at first this outcome could not be foreseen. There were serious reasons for concern. The laws had been written, in black and white, and there was reason to believe that they would be applied rigorously. The Jewish shopkeepers were in a real panic.

Among my vacationing relatives, Gualtiero and I were the only ones who showed any kind of determination in the face of possible persecution. We were the only ones prepared to face it with decorum. In any case, given our precocious anti-fascist tendencies, we had no ideological problem with the anti-semitic laws. Furthermore, we both could fall back on our political beliefs, and we had definite destinations if the situation deteriorated. For me the belief was liberty, and the place was Paris. For him the belief was Zionism, and the place was Palestine.

Except for a few words, I have said nothing about Gualtiero since the time of our victory in the revolt against King Arthur, and of our disappointment in our failed revolt against Mussolini.

We had been very upset to find that the Italian people had not followed our lead, and that they did not share our longing for freedom. We had been so upset that we questioned our reasoning and in our search for answers, we both became involved in Zionist groups. In Florence there were few Zionists who intended to go to Palestine, but there were many who wished to send others, and they described the future Jewish state with great enthusiasm. "If you want freedom," they said, "then go to Palestine. Only there can you find freedom that will make you happy ..." We listened and were somewhat influenced by them.

Then I went to Paris, and I saw that I could find freedom that made me happy without going to the Promised Land. But Gualtiero had a different experience, and he became one of the very few Italian Zionists who actually went to Palestine before the persecutions.

In brief, after a short romantic involvement with a Catholic girl, Gualtiero had gone back to the Zionist group. There he met a Polish girl (or maybe she was Lithuanian or Russian) who had lived in Palestine for several years. She had come to Italy to attend the university, although she was fiercely committed to returning to the Promised Land. Myriam was full of idealism and adventure, and Gualtiero fell in love with her. His family opposed the marriage, which did not conform to their bourgeois ideas, and this was the source of some family arguments.

One summer Gualtiero went to a camp where Jewish refugees from Germany and Eastern Europe were learning to till the soil in the hopes of being able, at some time in the future, to be allowed to farm

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the sacred soil of Israel. When they rested they discussed the Talmud and Jewish ritual, using the kind of punctilious reasoning that has made Jews such good lawyers. Naturally, on Saturday they did not work. Since the Bible says that on the day of rest one should not carry burdens, they argued about whether they were allowed to open an umbrella if it rained.

I'm sure that although Gualtiero's idea of Judaism was not at all religious, he enjoyed these discussions, since he tended toward intellectual erudition. I'm sure that he was able to keep up with the others who, on specific topics, would have been much better prepared than he.

During this time, Gualtiero trained his intellect, strengthened his muscles, and he married his friend Myriam in a civil ceremony in a nearby village. The family was forced to put a happy face on their bad luck and they welcomed the newlyweds, who were re-married in a religious ceremony at Gualtiero's home. Then they left for Palestine. In the summer of 1938, after less than a year, Gualtiero's family invited them back to Italy to spend the summer vacation.

Anti-semitism was a moral victory for Gualtiero, who considered it a confirmation of the necessity of Zionism. After his vacation he and his wife returned to Palestine where he still resides. [He was still there in 1966, professor of commercial law(?) at the University of Jerusalem(?)].

* * * * *

After a month or so in the Dolomites, and a short trip to the Riviera, I returned to Padua. There, in spite of the uncertainty about my future, I resumed my life at the lab. A new set of anti-semitic laws were announced in the middle of September at the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council or the Council of Ministers. Many of my Jewish friends anxiously listened to the radio to find out their fate. I worked in the lab as usual.

At about two o'clock in the afternoon Professor Laura's daughter phoned, asking me to come for a visit that evening. The anti-semitic laws, whereby I lost my position at the lab, had been announced at one o'clock. A family of friends wanted to express their sympathy in a difficult moment, and to demonstrate their disapproval of events. That evening they asked me what I planned to do. I answered decisively, "I'll leave. I'll go to Paris, the sooner the better."

During the next few days, I avoided saying hello to friends on the street, afraid that they would not appreciate my greeting. But I noticed that everyone took pains to greet me with a special warmth. In those days it was not unusual for people whom I knew only by sight, to cross the street and shake my hand and ask what my plans were. Some, who approached me sympathetically with the intention of bolstering my spirits, were disappointed to see that, without denying my concerns, I nevertheless had enough strength to confront my situation.

When I told people that I planned to emigrate, quite a few of them advised against it. "These laws can't possibly be enforced," they said. "They're too obviously unjust. This can't last. We're not in Germany."

During these brief conversations I tried to live up to what I thought was my obligation: to use my situation as an opportunity to disseminate some antifascist ideas. I felt honored to be a living example of Fascist injustice. I had to be above the situation, to conduct myself correctly, seriously, serenely. I had to speak of Italy's subservience to Nazism, the end of national independence, and the failure of Fascism as a champion of nationalism. I had to demonstrate that in a dictatorial regime, where rules are arbitrary, no one can feel secure.

In the lab I explained my work to those who were staying behind. I provided instructions so that the scientific activities of the Institute could proceed without me, turning over the designs for instruments to be built, giving advice on the order in which they should be built and how to assemble them. My co-workers were surprised at my behavior. One of them said that if he were in my position, he wouldn't have worried about anything, and in fact he would have made an effort to leave everything in the greatest possible disarray. I responded that such small vendettas were useless and that science had nothing to do with politics.

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My behavior had some success, not from a scientific perspective, since the work I had been involved in over the past year was never completed, but rather from a political perspective, since even those co-workers who til then had been afraid to fault Fascism, began to condemn it openly.

On Sunday I went to Venice to spend time with Marina. It was a sad farewell visit. On the Ponte dell'Accademia she said, "To think that this may be the last time you see Venice." She gave expression to the feelings I had had all day, at every canal, bridge, well, and window.

* * * * *

I went to Florence to say good-bye to my friends and relatives, and to pick up my belongings. Giuliano, my other childhood friend, came to visit me at home. He was despondent. He was Jewish, and he had put all his youthful faith in Fascism. His childhood dreams had not lived up to his precocious expectations. He had studied literature because he loved it, but his family was didn't approve because they had hoped that he would pursue a more profitable profession. But in spite of his honesty, and in spite of the pressure placed on him by Gualtiero and me, he lacked a critical sense and he had allowed himself to be caught up in a trap of facile propaganda.

His first words on that day were, "This is your victory and my defeat." I really think that fear for his own safety and comfort were less important to him than the fact of seeing his entire ideological construct crumble before his eyes. He was a man whose faith had been shattered from one day to the next. "It's easy for you," he said, "you've been thrown out by your enemies. But I've been rejected by my own friends. Your beliefs end up being reinforced, but I am torn by doubts." But despite this, he had not become an antifascist. At times he was comforted by the thought of being an innocent victim who played a necessary role in the struggle for the glory of Italy. Maybe antisemitism was a victory for me. It confirmed my position, and proved the necessity for the fight against antifascism.

I don't think that I'm proud of being born Jewish but, in a certain sense, I'm glad of it because this accident of birth kept me from compromising with Fascism. If I had not been born Jewish, today I might be fighting for Hitler, and in spite of my profound dislike for his system, I would not have behaved much differently from other Italian soldiers. I would have tried to avoid fighting, and given myself up as a prisoner at the first possible opportunity. Instead my Jewishness forced me to break every connection with Fascism. It allowed me to live the life of a free man for which my courage alone might have not have sufficed.

The day when the anti-semitic laws were announced was, I can't deny it, a day of worry since I did not know what lay in the future. But it was also a day of relief because I realized that I would have to confront Fascism in the open. From that day on, I felt spiritually much richer, and finally at peace with my own conscience, which had caused me great remorse for the many small compromises that I had made with my enemy over the course of my life.

After a few days in Florence I returned to Padua with my mother to say good-bye to Marina and to my friends. The doorman from the lab accompanied me to the station to help with my luggage. He was so upset by the injustice of my situation, and his own inability to help me, that I ended up comforting him. My mother went with me to Milan. There, on September 11, 1938, year XVI of the Fascist era, I boarded the train which took me through the Sempion Tunnel on the road to exile.

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