Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943–1951: Politics, Rehabilitation, Identity [1 ed.] 9781003272281, 9781032223551, 9781032223568

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Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943–1951

This book focuses on the experiences of thousands of Jewish displaced persons (DPs) who lived in refugee camps in Italy between the liberation of the southern regions in 1943 and the early 1950s, waiting for their resettlement outside of Europe. It explores the Jewish DPs’ daily life in the refugee camps and what this experience of displacement meant to them. This book sheds light on the dilemmas the Jewish DPs faced when reconstructing their lives in the refugee camps after the Holocaust and how this challenging process was deeply influenced by their interaction with the humanitarian and political actors involved in their rescue, rehabilitation, and resettlement. Relating to the peculiar context of post-fascist Italy and the broader picture of the postwar refugee crisis, this book reveals overlooked aspects that contributed to the making of an incredibly diverse and lively community in transit, able to elaborate new paradigms of home, belonging and family. Chiara Renzo is a Postdoctoral Fellow in History in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and teaches Migration and Media at the University of Florence. Her research deals with different aspects of Jewish migrations from the Holocaust to the decolonization.

Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Italy Edited by Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti (University College London), Marco Mondini (University of Padua and Italian German Historical Institute-FBK Trent), Silvana Patriarca (Fordham University) and Guri Schwarz (University of Genoa)

The history of modern Italy from the late 18th to the 21st centuries offers a wealth of dramatic changes amidst important continuities. From occupying a semi-peripheral location in the European Mediterranean to becoming one of the major economies of the continent, the Peninsula has experienced major transformations while also facing continuing structural challenges. Social and regional conflicts, revolts and revolutions, regime changes, world wars and military defeats have defined its turbulent political history, while changing identities and social movements have intersected with the weight of family and other structures in new international environments. The series focuses on the publication of original research monographs, from both established academics and junior researchers. It is intended as an instrument to promote fresh perspectives and as bridge, connecting scholarly traditions within and outside Italy. Occasionally, it may also publish edited volumes. The sole criteria for selection will be intellectual rigour and the innovative character of the books. It will cover a broad range of themes and methods – ranging from political to cultural to socio-economic history – with the aim of becoming a reference point for groundbreaking scholarship covering Italian history from the Napoleonic era to the present. Debre Libanos 1937 The Most Serious War Crime Suffered by Ethiopia Paolo Borruso Drafting Italy Conscription and the Military from 1814 to 1914 Marco Rovinello Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943–1951 Politics, Rehabilitation, Identity Chiara Renzo

Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943–1951 Politics, Rehabilitation, Identity Chiara Renzo

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Chiara Renzo The right of Chiara Renzo to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Renzo, Chiara, 1988– author. Title: Jewish displaced persons in Italy 1943-1951 : politics, rehabilitation, identity / Chiara Renzo. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Series: Routledge studies in the modern history of Italy | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2023010184 (print) | LCCN 2023010185 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032223551 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032223568 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003272281 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Jewish refugees—Italy—History—20th century. | Refugee camps— Italy—History—20th century | Jewish refugees—Government policy—Italy. | Italy—Ethnic relations—History—20th century. | Italy—History—1945-1976. | Zionism—History—20th century. | Palestine—Emigration and immigration— History—20th century. Classification: LCC DS135.I8 R469 2024 (print) | LCC DS135.I8 (ebook) | DDC 945.004924—dc23/eng/20230404 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023010184 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023010185 ISBN: 978-1-032-22355-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-22356-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-27228-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281 Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

Photos noted as 'Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels' are used in this book by permission from Jean A. Daniels. These photos may not be reproduced or stored by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise) without specific written permission from Jean A. Daniels

To Michele and Federica

Contents

Acknowledgementsix List of acronyms xi List of figures and tables xiii Notes on transliteration and Hebrew terms xv Introduction

1

1 The liberation of southern Italy and the first core of Jewish refugees

10

2 Living in the refugee camps, longing for “a new, quiet, and safe home”

47

3 Plural identities, one shared goal: rebuilding home and family in the refugee camps

93

4 Confronting the past while building the future: long waits, responsibilities, unexpected outcomes

135

Conclusions

178

Tables187 Glossary199 Archives203 Index205

Acknowledgements

This research started when I was an MA student at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, attending the course “History of Palestine and Israel” taught by Marcella Simoni. During one of her classes, I learnt for the first time that the place where I grew up in the heel of Italy has been a key site of transit for thousands of Jewish refugees after the Second World War. This project took a definite shape during my PhD at the joint doctoral program of the Universities of Florence and Siena. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Nicola Labanca, for his support and guidance during both the research and writing phase of the dissertation. I would also like to thank Hagit Lavsky who, as co-supervisor, offered many valuable comments and suggestions to my project. I am pleased to acknowledge the support of many institutions to my research over these years. Without their support, this study would not have benefitted from such a wide array of sources. As a PhD student, I was a EHRI Conny Kristel Fellow at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London (2016) and later I held the Claims Conference Saul Kagan Fellowship in Advanced Shoah Studies (2016-2017). The following years I was the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe Postdoctoral Fellowship at Ca’ Foscari University (20172019) and the Baron Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim Chair for the Study of Racism, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem (2019). Moreover, I was the recipient of a mobility fellowship at the Centre de recherche français in Jerusalem (2018) and a fellowship grant by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (2021-2022). I would also like to thank Fondazione Fossoli, which in 2021 awarded me the PhD dissertation prize named after Francesco Berti Arnoaldi Veli. I wish to thank those who spent some of their time discussing part of this research with me and those who supported me in the realization of this book: Marcella Simoni, Arturo Marzano, Guri Schwarz, Valeria Galimi, and Silvia Salvatici. During my research fellowship at Yad Vashem in 2019, I had the opportunity to share my work with international scholars receiving meaningful feedback and important suggestions on methodology and sources.

x Acknowledgements This research allowed me to meet many ex-displaced persons and their families, who generously shared with me their memories and show me their enthusiasm and support for my work. I would like to thank all of them, in particular, Aharon and Zila Rosenberg, Jack and Nora Hoppe, Danielle Charack and her family, and Rivka Cohen. Finally, I wish to thank the Foundation Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center (Fondazione CDEC), Jean Daniels, and the Aldouby family for having allowed me to include in this book rare photographs from the refugee camps in Italy. Researching and writing about history would be a lonely work without the support of my old friends: I thank them for the countless hours we spent on the phone while I was away and the precious time we keep enjoying together. At the same time, researching gave me incredible chances to travel and meet new friends, I am thankful for the many good memories I was able to collect with them. Last, but not least, I am deeply grateful to my mother for her steadfast encouragement and to Giuseppe, my safe haven.

Acronyms

AUCEI Archivio Storico dell'Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche italiane AAC Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry AC Allied Commission ACC Allied Control Commission ACS Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Roma AJDC Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, New York and Jerusalem AMG Allied Military Government AMGOT Allied Military Government on Occupied Territories ANP Archives Nationales, Paris BAOA Bad Arolsen Online Archives CAHJP Central Archives for the History of Jewish People, Jerusalem CDEC Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea, Milano CZA Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem DELASEM  Delegazione per l'Assistenza degli Emigranti Ebrei DP(s) Displaced Person(s) Foreign Office, UK National Archives, Kew FO IGCR Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees IRO International Refugee Organization JDC American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee MHM Melbourne Holocaust Museum JPEC Joint Palestine Emigration Office OHD Oral History Division, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem OJRI Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy ORT Organization of Rehabilitation through Training PCIRO Preparatory Commission of the International Refugee Organization RSI Italian Social Republic SHAEF Supreme Headquarters Expeditionary Force UCII Union of the Italian Israelitic Communities UJA United Jewish Appeal UNRRA United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Administration

xii Acronyms UNSCOP USHMM WL WO WOA WRB YIVO YVA

United Nations Special Committee on Palestine United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC Wiener Library, London War Office, UK National Archives, Kew World ORT Archives War Refugee Board YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York Yad Vashem Archives

Figures and tables

Figures 1.1 Ferramonti Concentration Camp, Internal Views of the Barracks, presumably 1942, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 5, inv. 283-album05–010A. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano 1.2 Ferramonti Concentration Camp, Pupils and School Teachers, ­presumably 1942 Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 5, inv. 283-album05–018A. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano 1.3 DPs bathing at the beach in Santa Maria al Bagno, 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels 2.1 Refugees entering Italy from Austria, Fondo Israel Kalk, immediate post-war period, Album 11, inv. 283-album11017B. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano 2.2 Rothschild Hospital DP Camp, Vienna, immediate post-war period, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 11, inv. 283-album11011B. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano 2.3 Jewish DPs arriving at Nardò train station (in the vicinity of the Santa Maria al Bagno DP Camp), August 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels 3.1 Polish Jewish DPs working as shoemakers. In the back row on the right, Henry Gerber, Camp Activities Director for the UNRRA Italian Mission in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels 3.2 Children performing “Rain Rain” in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, 1946, Album 27, Photo 2, Zvi Aldouby’s Private Collection 3.3 Jewish DP orphans exercising under Jewish soldiers’ guidance, Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels 3.4 The Tkumah dramatic circle during The Golem premier in the Santa Maria al Bagno, 1946, Album 4, Photo 1, Zvi Aldouby’s Private Collection

14 15 19 54 55 61

109 115 117 119

xiv  Figures and tables 4.1 Refugees at via Unione, Milan, Fondo Israel Kalk, immediate post-war period, Album 12, inv. 283-album12-004.  Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano. 4.2 Refugees trading on the black market around via Unione, Milan, immediate post-war period, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 12, inv. 283-album12-004.  Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

147

149

Tables 1 2 3 4 5 6

Distribution, Type, and Administration of the Refugee Camps in Italy, 1945 187 Results of UNRRA Eligibility Survey, May 1946 190 Estimated Jewish Refugees in the UNRRA Camps, Italy 1946 191 Ships Organized by the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet from Italy 1945–1948191 List of Hakhsharot, 27 March 1947 193 School and Kindergartens in Refugee Camps, 1947 198

Notes on transliteration and Hebrew terms

In this book, I followed a simplified system of transliteration from Hebrew to English based on the Encyclopedia Judaica “General” transliteration rules: alef and ayin are not transliterated (an apostrophe (‘) between vowels indicates that they do not form a diphthong and are to be pronounced separately); “h” stands for “he”; “v” stands for vav when not vowel, “ḥ” stands for het; “t” stands for both tet and tav; “y” stands for yod (but when vowel and at end of words is “i”); “k” stands for both kaf and qof; “ẓ” for tzadi; and “sh” for “shin.” However, in cases where nouns, personal names, place names; and names of political parties and organizations have a standardized spelling in English, I adopted it. Unless otherwise noted, all translation from Italian and Hebrew are mine. To help the reader who is not familiar with the Hebrew terms used in this book, a glossary is provided at the end of the book.

Introduction

On 9 September 1996, Jacob Rosenberg, sitting in front of a camera in his living room in Melbourne, recorded a video testimony of his experiences as a Holocaust survivor for the USC Shoah Foundation. After two hours of painful accounts of his wartime experiences, a smile appeared on his face when he mentioned the displaced persons camp (or DP camp) at Santa Maria al Bagno, on the southern edge of the heel of Italy, where he met his future wife Esther Laufer.1 “Was it difficult to express love again after having become hardened?” asked the interviewer. “No,” Jacob Rosenberg replied firmly. We were just looking for a way to begin again. […]Perhaps this is one of those inborn or natural phenomena like seeing a flower wilting away in winter or autumn, [but then] spring revives it again. Perhaps the same process takes place with people.2 Carrying the burden of the loss of his family at Auschwitz, after liberation, Jacob Rosenberg joined a group of young Jews and crossed the border into Italy, having no reasons to return to his hometown of Łódź. He hoped to enhance his chance to embark for Palestine and to resume his life as soon as possible. In Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, a “strength of hope and rebuilding” motivated Jacob to recover the precious heritage that he had been able to save from the war: his passion for Yiddish literature. Finally, he returned to the language he had spoken at home with his family and started to write poems and scripts for the dramatic circles that the Jewish displaced persons (DPs) had created in the DP camp. It was while he was reciting one of his poems during a wedding that he saw Esther for the first time and invited her to dance. A few months later, in January 1946, they were married. They “wanted to run away from Europe” but in 1948, when their chance of emigrating to Palestine vanished, they opted for Australia as soon as a migration quota was agreed. Jacob Rosenberg’s story draws our attention to Italy as more than merely a place of transit for thousands of Jewish DPs who, like him, were seeking to leave for Palestine after the war. It also urges us to rethink the Italian DP camps as a framework of social interaction, humanitarian practices, political DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281-1

2 Introduction decision-making, and cultural production. The diverging and converging of all these dynamics produced by the encounter between a multitude of international actors shaped the Jewish DPs’ everyday lives in the refugee camps and influenced their decisions about future. Accordingly, the history of the Jewish DPs was entangled in the difficult process of the reconstruction and atonement of Europe, the emergence of a new humanitarian policy for dealing with refugees, and the evolution of the British Mandate on Palestine. In this complex international scenario, what was the impact of this experience of displacement in Italy on Jewish DPs’ lives? Today, it is widely recognized by historians that “the cultural and political history of postwar reconstruction is woefully incomplete if we examine the process taking place within European states without attending to the shadow cast upon them by Europe’s refugees.”3 Through the prism of the DPs’ experiences, in the last decades, historians have examined and interpreted national governments’ responses to the war, the development of the international refugee system, the relationships between states at the onset of the Cold War, the impact of decolonization, and the changes in migratory movements.4 In this flourishing field of research, there are extensive studies dealing with the Jewish DPs, encompassing a wide range of perspectives on the topic. However, most of them privilege Allied-occupied Germany as a geographical focus.5 For a long time, the question of the Jewish DPs in Italy has been almost exclusively analysed in relation to the question of the British occupation between 1943 and 1947 and Italy’s aspiration to find a place in international politics once its sovereignty was regained.6 In fact, between 1945 and 1948, Italy was one of the main embarkation points for illegal migration to ­Palestine (aliyah bet), when the British Mandate implemented a policy that imposed a strict limitation on Jewish immigration with the White Paper of 1939. For this reason, Italy has been depicted as the waystation for Jewish DPs eager to reach Palestine, but recent studies have demonstrated that it represented more for them than the “Gate to Zion.” These studies have set the stage for new perspectives for investigating the Jewish DPs’ experiences in Italy.7 Drawing on key features highlighted in international historiography and on an extensive set of unedited sources, this book aims to explore the ­Jewish DPs’ temporary stay in the refugee camps in Italy and what this experience of displacement meant to them. This investigation sheds light on the dilemmas the Jewish DPs faced when reconstructing their lives in the refugee camps after the Holocaust and how this slow and challenging process was deeply influenced by their interaction with the humanitarian and political actors involved in their rescue, rehabilitation, and resettlement. The voices of the Jewish DPs that intertwine with the analysis of institutional sources emphasize the “inborn strength of hope” characterizing Jewish life in the refugee camps (to use Jacob Rosenberg’s words) as another central factor in the ­Jewish DPs’ collective and individual rebirth.

Introduction  3 This book consists of four chapters organized chronologically and dealing with a wide array of topics that should be understood as pieces of the same puzzle. The first chapter situates the origin of the Jewish DPs’ emergence in Italy with the Allies’ arrival in the southern regions over the summer of 1943. At that time, the Allied army liberated almost 2,000 non-Italian Jews from the Fascist concentration camp of Ferramonti di Tarsia. This chronological framework directly links this first group of Jewish DPs, described as “old refugees,” to the consequences of the Fascist migratory and occupation policy and the implementation of internment and anti-Jewish provisions during the war. The liberation of Ferramonti also marked the first meeting between the Jewish DPs and the Jewish soldiers from Palestine, who had landed in Italy on the heels of the Allied forces. They were mainly young men, graduates of Zionist youth movements and members of kibbutzim, who had enlisted in the British army as volunteers in North Africa in 1942 and merged into the Jewish Brigade in 1944. The meeting between the old refugees and the Jewish soldiers in Ferramonti represented the starting point of a new phase of Jewish life. While the northern part of the country was still under Axis control and humanitarian organizations were not yet allowed to begin their missions in Europe, the Jewish soldiers in southern Italy laid the groundwork for the Jewish DPs’ immediate relief and for the creation of facilities and programmes aiming to prepare them for aliyah. Indeed, with the Jewish soldiers’ support, the Jewish DPs rejected repatriation and demanded the recognition of their Jewish identity along national lines. The second chapter will reveal that it was only the arrival of the “new refugees” at the end of the war that catalysed the Jewish DPs’ efforts to define who they were and what they wanted after the Holocaust as a collectivity. The Brichah, the underground movement of Jews escaping from Europe to Palestine, brought some prominent figures from the founding groups of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah, former partisans, and ghetto leaders to Italy. At this stage, encouraged by the Jewish soldiers, the Jewish DPs established the Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy (OJRI), whose elected leadership cemented their identification as Holocaust survivors and their political orientation towards Zionism. Besides exploring the paradigms that shaped the Jewish DPs’ collective identity, this chapter illustrates the reality of the assembly centres in Italy. In 1945, the Allies handed over the administration of the refugee camps to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which assisted the DPs by sponsoring their selforganization and self-representation as a model of active welfare – a novelty in the history of international humanitarianism. In tackling hunger and the lack of essential aid in the overcrowded Italian refugee camps, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was notable for its commitment to ameliorating the dire conditions of the Jewish DPs. The third chapter explores political representation and cultural revival as the pillars of the Jewish DPs’ endeavours to recover from their traumas, build a temporary communal life in the DP camps, and reconstruct their personal

4 Introduction lives. A deeper analysis of the Jewish DPs’ struggle for political ­representation shows the fragmented reality that characterized the refugee camps and the constellation of hakhsharot, the collective farms or training centres where the Jewish DPs received the necessary preparation for aliyah. Indeed, following the arrival of the shlichim, the emissary from the political parties composing the Jewish Agency at that time, the initial intention of preserving political unity in the name of Zionist ultimate project was short-lived. This fragmentation, which actually reflected the diversity of the European Jews, deconstructs the representation of the Jewish DPs as a monolithic entity that indiscriminately embraced Zionist ideology on the way to Palestine. In the more nuanced context depicted here, Zionism emerges as a driving force in the refugee camps, but not as a univocally understood political ideology. Finally, this chapter highlights the Jewish DPs’ collective involvement in the wide-ranging educational programme implemented by the rescue network as part of their rehabilitation, along with their commitment to cultural revival. The last chapter of this book addresses the question of Italian responsibility towards the Jewish DPs in the wake of the constitution of the Italian Republic and the tormented political scenario leading up to the negotiation of the peace treaties and the end of the British occupation. From the second half of 1946, the increasing number of Jewish DPs sneaking into the country was seen as a dangerous threat to national stability. Despite promising the British their cooperation, the Italian authorities continued to turn a blind eye to the Jewish DPs’ underground movement to Palestine. Their evacuation became crucial to Italy, which at that time was dealing with the tragic consequences of the war and a deep economic crisis. Looking with great concern at the refugee movements generated by the loss of its African colonies and its territories in the Istrian peninsula, Italy aimed to reduce the number of Jewish DPs, who constituted the largest group of foreign refugees on its soil between 1945 and 1948. Moreover, aligning with T ­ ruman – who supported the Jews’ migration to Palestine as the immediate solution to the problem of the Jewish refugees – Italy wished to strengthen its ties with the United States in the coming Cold War and to improve its position in international politics. However, when the International Refugee Organization (IRO) asked for the Italian government’s cooperation in handling the refugee crisis in Italy, it rejected any moral and material responsibility towards foreign refugees (a category that in Italy was still mainly composed of Jews). In a hasty attempt to atone for the country’s recent fascist past, the Italian authorities reiterated the image of Italy as a hospitable country for the Jews, but national and international political tensions directly or indirectly echoed in the refugee camps, making the Jewish DPs’ lives increasingly frustrating. This impasse was broken by the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which led to the departure of almost all the Jewish DPs of the Italian refugee camps. However, this chapter shows that after that date, some categories of Jewish DPs were still being housed in refugee camps: transients, hard-core cases, candidates for resettlement in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and an unexpected group of Libyan Jews.

Introduction  5 Revealing overlooked aspects and circumstances that contributed to the making of an incredibly diverse and lively community in transit, this book interprets the refugee camps as an arena where national and international politics intertwined with the Jewish DPs’ everyday lives and their hopes for the future. Determined to rebuild their lives while interacting with political forces and humanitarian organizations, the Jewish DPs in Italy elaborated new paradigms of home, belonging, and family. Notes 1 Jacob Rosenberg was born in Łódź in 1922. He grew up as the youngest member of a working-class Bundist family. Following the Nazi occupation of Poland, he was confined in the Łódź ghetto with his parents, two sisters, and two young nieces. The entire family was deported to Auschwitz and murdered on the day of their arrival, except for Jacob and his sister, who committed suicide a few days later. He remained in Auschwitz for two months and was then moved to ­Mauthausen and Ebensee, before being liberated in May 1945. He died in 2008 at eighty-six years of age in Melbourne. Towards the end of his life, Jacob Rosenberg became well known in Australia for his writing and poetry. In 2007, he won the National Biography Award for his memoir East of Time (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007). 2 USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Los Angeles (hereafter USC Shoah Foundation VHA), Jacob Rosenberg, 9 September 1996, Interview 20686, Tape 5, 8:45–10:10 (accessed January 2022). 3 Anna Holian, Between National Socialism and Soviet Communism: Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011), 2–3. 4 Among the many publications, see Pamela Ballinger, Memory and Identity at the Border of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); ­Ballinger, The World Refugees Made: Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2020); Silvia Salvatici, Senza casa e senza paese. Profughi europei nel secondo dopoguerra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008); Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); Daniel G. Cohen, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011); Peter Gatrell, Free World? The Campaign to Save the World’s Refugees 1956–1963 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). For a bibliography on the subject of the DPs, see Bibliography on Displaced Persons - Arolsen Archives (arolsen-archives.org) (accessed January 2022). 5 See, for instance, Judith Tydor Baumel, Kibbutz Buchenwald: Survivors and ­Pioneers (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997); Michael ­Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Post War Germany (­Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 89–99; Angelika Königseder and Juliane Wetzel, Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-World War II ­Germany (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001); Arieh J. Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Zeev Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002); Atina Grossmann, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied

6 Introduction Germany (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), 131–82; Avinoam J. Patt, Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009); ­Avinoam J. Patt and Michael Berkowitz, ed., “We Are Here:” New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010). 6 The most comprehensive study of Italy as a departure point for the aliyah bet is Mario Toscano, “La porta di Sion:” L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). Toscano’s analysis was anticipated by Jacob Markovizky, “The Italian Government’s Response to the Problem of the Jewish Refugees, 1945–48,” Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society and Culture 19, no. 1 (1988): 23–39; Maria Grazia Enardu, “L’immigrazione illegale ebraica verso la Palestina e la politica estera italiana, 1945–48,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali 1 (1986): 147–66; Enardu, “L’aliyah beth dall’Italia, 1945–48,” in Italia Judaica. Gli ebrei nell’Italia unita 1870–1945, vol. 4 (Rome: Ministero Beni Culturali e Ambientali, 1993), 514–32. 7 Twenty years after the publication of Toscano’s “La porta di Sion,” research on the Jewish DPs in Italy was resumed by Cinzia Villani, “‘We Have Crossed Many Borders’: Arrivals, Presence and Perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy (1945–1948),” in Tamid Kadima, Immer vorwärts. Der Jüdische Exodus aus Europa 1945–1948, ed. Sabine Aschauer-Smolik and Mario Steidl (Innsbruck, Vienna and Bozen: Studien Verlag, 2010), 261–77; Villani, “Milano, via Unione 5: un centro di accoglienza per displaced persons ebreenel secondo dopoguerra,” Studi Storici 50, no. 2 (2009): 333–70; Sara Vinçon, Vite in transito. Gli ebrei nel campo profughi di Grugliasco 1945–1949 (Turin: Silvio Zamorani, 2009); ­Stefania Pirani, Storia dell’haksharà di Fano dal 1945 al 1948 attraverso i documenti e le interviste ai testimoni (Bologna: Patron Editore, 2008); M ­ artina Ravagnan, “I  campi Displaced Persons per profughi ebrei stranieri in Italia (1945–1950),” Storia e Futuro 30 (2012): 2–29; Chiara Renzo, “‘Our Hopes Are Not Lost Yet’: The Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy. Relief, Rehabilitation and Self-Understanding (1943–1948),” Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History 12, no. 2 (2017): 89–111; Renzo, “‘To Build and Be Built’: Jewish Displaced Children in Post-War Italy, 1943–48,” in Child Migration and Biopolitics: Old and New Experiences in Europe, ed. Beatrice Scutaru and Simone Paoli (London: Routledge, 2021), 105–23; Federica Di Padova, “Rinascere in Italia. Matrimoni e nascite nei campi per Displaced Persons ebree 1943–1948,” Deportate, esuli, profughe 36 (2018): 1–19; Arturo Marzano, “Jewish DPs in Post-War Italy: The Role of Italian Jewry in a Multilateral Encounter (1945–1948),” in Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, Bridging Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. Francesca Bregoli, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, and Guri Schwarz (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), 151–72; Marzano, “Relief and Rehabilitation of Jewish DPs after the Shoah. The Hachsharot in Italy (1945–48),” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 18, no. 3 (2019): 314–29; Chiara Renzo, ““Attraversarono il mare su terra asciutta”: gli ebrei di Libia nei campi profughi in Italia e nel regime internazionale dei rifugiati (1948–1949),” Italia ­Contemporanea 295 (2021): 193–221; Danielle Willard-Kyle, “When the Waters of the Mediterranean Parted: Jewish Libya and the Trajectory of Escape,” Sephardic Horizons 11, no. 1–2 (2021).

Bibliography Ballinger Pamela, Memory and Identity at the Border of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).

Introduction  7 Ballinger Pamela, The World Refugees Made: Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2020). Baumel Tydor Judith, Kibbutz Buchenwald: Survivors and Pioneers (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997). Brenner Michael, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Post War ­Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), https://doi.org/10.1515/ 9780691232201. Cohen Daniel G., In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Di Padova Federica, “Rinascere in Italia. Matrimoni e nascite nei campi per Displaced Persons ebree 1943–1948,” Deportate, esuli, profughe 36 (2018): 1–19. Enardu Maria Grazia, “L’aliyah beth dall’Italia, 1945–48,” in Italia Judaica. Gli ebrei nell’Italia unita 1870–1945, vol. 4 (Rome: Ministero Beni Culturali e ambientali, 1993), 514–32. Enardu Maria Grazia, “L’immigrazione illegale ebraica verso la Palestina e la politica estera italiana, 1945–48,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali 1 (1986): 147–66. Gatrell Peter, Free World? The Campaign to Save the World’s Refugees 1956–1963 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Grossmann Atina, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied ­Germany (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), https:// doi.org/10.1515/9781400832743. Holian Anna, Between National Socialism and Soviet Communism: Displaced ­Persons in Postwar Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011), https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.1146201. Kochavi Arieh J., Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). ­ ersons Königseder Angelika and Wetzel Juliane, Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced P in Post-World War II Germany (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001). Lavsky Hagit, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002). Mankowitz Zeev, Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), https://doi. org/10.1017/CBO9780511497100. Markovizky Jacob, “The Italian Government’s Response to the Problem of the Jewish Refugees, 1945–48,” Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society and Culture 19, no. 1 (1988): 23–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/13531049808576117. Marzano Arturo, “Relief and Rehabilitation of Jewish DPs after the Shoah. The Hachsharot in Italy (1945–48),” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 18, no. 3 (2019): 314–29, https://doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2018.1559555. Marzano Arturo, “Jewish DPs in Post-War Italy: The Role of Italian Jewry in a Multilateral Encounter (1945–1948),” in Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, Bridging Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. Francesca Bregoli, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, and Guri Schwarz (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), 151–72, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89405-8_8. Patt Avinoam J. and Berkowitz Michael, ed., “We Are Here:” New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010). Patt Avinoam J., Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009).

8 Introduction Pirani Stefania, Storia dell’haksharà di Fano dal 1945 al 1948 attraverso i documenti e le interviste ai testimoni (Bologna: Patron Editore, 2008). Ravagnan Martina, “I campi Displaced Persons per profughi ebrei stranieri in Italia (1945–1950),” Storia e Futuro 30 (2012): 2–29. Renzo Chiara, “‘Our Hopes Are Not Lost Yet’: The Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy. Relief, Rehabilitation and Self-Understanding (1943–1948),” Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History 12, no. 2 (2017): 89–111, https://doi.org/10.48248/ issn.2037-741X/822. Renzo Chiara, “‘To Build and Be Built’: Jewish Displaced Children in Post-War Italy, 1943–48,” in Child Migration and Biopolitics: Old and New Experiences in Europe, ed. Beatrice Scutaru and Simone Paoli (London: Routledge, 2021), 105–23. Renzo Chiara, “Attraversarono il mare su terra asciutta”: gli ebrei di Libia nei campi profughi in Italia e nel regime internazionale dei rifugiati (1948–1949),” Italia Contemporanea 295 (2021): 193–221, https://doi.org/10.3280/ic295-oa1. Rosenberg Jacob, East of Time (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007). Salvatici Silvia, Senza casa e senza paese. Profughi europei nel secondo dopoguerra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008). Shephard Ben, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011). Toscano Mario, “La porta di Sion:” L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). Villani Cinzia, “Milano, via Unione 5: un centro di accoglienza per displaced persons ebreenel secondo dopoguerra,” Studi Storici 50, no. 2 (2009): 333–70. Villani Cinzia, “‘We Have Crossed Many Borders’: Arrivals, Presence and Perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy (1945–1948),” in Tamid Kadima, Immer vorwärts. Der Jüdische Exodus aus Europa 1945–1948, ed. Aschauer-Smolik Sabine and Steidl Mario (Innsbruck, Vienna and Bozen: Studien Verlag, 2010), 261–77. Vinçon Sara, Vite in transito. Gli ebrei nel campo profughi di Grugliasco 1945–1949 (Turin: Silvio Zamorani, 2009). Willard-Kyle Danielle, “When the Waters of the Mediterranean Parted: Jewish Libya and the Trajectory of Escape,” Sephardic Horizons 11 no. 1–2 (2021). Zahra Tara, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).

1 The liberation of southern Italy and the first core of Jewish refugees

The origin of the Jewish displacement in Italy The collapse of the Fascist regime

The problem here is tremendous so that whatever little one does to ­remedy a part of it, it stands out. Although the number of people involved is relatively small, their suffering is great and the outlook of the future none too bright. […] You must be prepared to see people constantly hungry, ill-clad and terribly disillusioned. All had hoped that as soon as the Allies came, all would be well. […] They thought there would be work for everyone, an end to discrimination and tension and insecurity. They also naively thought there would be an opportunity to return either to the countries from which they came or that they would find a warm welcome in a new land in which their industry and skill and willingness would help to make a better world. Instead, they find in many cases that the only place where they get enough to eat is the same concentration camp which they dreamed of leaving, but which is now operated by sympathetic Army officers and which they may leave at will. They also realize that […] it takes more than a victory to excise the cancer of discrimination and hate so methodically cultivated for many years.1 With a long informal letter to one of his colleagues, in October 1944, Arthur Greenleigh shared his first impressions of Italy and his concerns about the condition of the Jews displaced in Italy. He was appointed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) as head of the Italian office few months earlier. In those days, the JDC delegate – one of the first officials from an international civilian organization to be allowed to enter Italy – was travelling behind the southern side of the Gothic Line to set up what was expected to be a long and challenging humanitarian mission. Historiography has usually taken 1945 as the starting point for the analysis of the history of the Jewish DPs in Europe. However, if we look at the specific case of Italy, a core of Jewish refugees was already in the country by DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281-2

The liberation of southern Italy  11 the time the Allied army first set foot in southern Italy in 1943, while violence against the Jews and deportation were still being perpetrated in the rest of the country and in the part of Europe that was under Axis control. In the summer of 1943, with Operation Husky or what it is commonly known as the invasion of Sicily, the Allies began their campaign for the liberation of the so-called European theatre, crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa. What followed between summer and autumn 1943 marked a watershed in Italian national history. On 24 July 1943, the Fascist Grand Council (the supreme body of the Fascist Party) held a motion of no confidence in Mussolini, whose resignation was requested by King Vittorio ­Emanuele the next day. Mussolini was arrested, and the monarchy, determined to maintain a military dictatorship, appointed Marshall Badoglio as head of a provisional government.2 After the collapse of the Fascist regime, the monarchy began secret negotiations with the Allies which led to the signing of an armistice that was forcibly announced by Badoglio in a radio broadcast on 8 September 1943. Italy declared its unconditional surrender, though by virtue of its status of ­co-belligerent country, it was not allowed to become one of the Allies.3 Instead, it became an occupied country, and its liberated regions came under the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMGOT). Until September 1947, the British Allies administered Italian-occupied territories by means of a network of sub-committees, headed by an Allied Control Commission (ACC), which later changed its name to the Allied Commission (AC).4 Within three months, Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata, and part of C ­ ampania had been occupied by the Allies, while at the same time, the terrible shadow of Axis rule fell over the rest of Italy.5 The internal political situation became even more complicated when the monarchy found refuge in Puglia and established the Kingdom of Southern Italy, while Mussolini, supported by the Germans, escaped from prison and founded the Italian Social Republic (RSI). This condition split the country in two, from the military, political, and social points of view. On the one hand, anti-Fascist parties started to plan the organization of a new government and partisan groups coordinated the resistance opposing Fascism and its internal allies in the north of the country.6 On the other hand, the renewed alliance between Mussolini and Hitler intensified violence, persecutions, and death in the region still under NaziRSI rule.7 Here, the situation of the Jews was radically altered by the beginning of mass killings and deportations to Nazi concentration camps. Between 1943 and 1945, 6,806 Jews have been deported from Italy, comprising 4,148 ­Italians and 2,444 foreigners. A scant 837 survived.8 Historians have extensively focused on the last phase of the Second World War, analysing both the development of the Resistenza and the evolution of the Fascist racial policy in Mussolini’s RSI, but they have overlooked what was simultaneously happening to the newly liberated internees in southern Italy, among them many non-Italian Jews.9

12  The liberation of southern Italy On 14 September 1943, when the Allies liberated the Ferramonti di Tarsia concentration camp in Calabria, they found around 2,000 Jews interned by the Fascist government during the war. This concentration camp was transformed into the first refugee camp in liberated Italy, and its former internees turned to be the first core of Jewish refugees, known as “old refugees.”10 They were the result of desperate attempts by Jews to escape Nazi territories, the Italian migratory and occupation policy, and the internment system implemented during Mussolini’s dictatorship. Therefore, this study situates and frames the origin of the Jewish refugees’ problem in post-war Italy against the backdrop of these circumstances and their transnational consequences. Old refugees, a Fascist legacy

The policy of excluding some minorities from social, political, and cultural life pursued by the National Socialist Party led 400,000 refugees to leave the Reich between 1933 and 1939, 360,000 to 370,000 of whom were Jews.11 This situation worsened when the international community failed in its attempts to find a safe haven for them, and any international efforts on behalf of the refugees from the Reich proved to be inadequate.12 As it is well known, even the Évian Conference, called by the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 in order to negotiate the emigration of refugees from Germany and Austria, was completely ineffective. Although most countries expressed sympathy for the refugees, they also stated numerous reasons for not changing immigration regulations or admitting more Jews. Thus, the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR), which was established at the end of the Évian Conference with the task of facilitating the resettlement of the refugees, never provided a workable solution to this humanitarian crisis.13 In this dramatic picture, not even Palestine was a viable escape route for European Jews, due to the restriction on aliyah implemented by the British Mandate from 1939.14 Hence, in their desperate endeavour to escape the Reich, Jews chose their destinations essentially based on practical considerations: the likelihood of accessing the target country, the prospect of transferring personal assets, and the possibility of working or studying there. In this hopeless international scenario, Italy ended up as one of the very few ways for Jews to escape Nazi persecutions.15 Indeed, until the promulgation of the racial laws in 1938, with many exceptions, Italy accepted foreign Jews as immigrants, allowing them to work and study, and draw on their own economic resources.16 However, Fascist Italy migratory regulations should not be regarded as an open policy in response to the Jews’ dramatic situation in countries under Nazi rule. Its apparent solidarity can be attributed to less ideological and humanitarian reasons. Since the late nineteenth century, Italy had been drawing on a liberal tradition of migration policy which was initially continued by the Fascist regime.17 In many cases, the large degree of autonomy enjoyed by local prefects at the borders, their reluctance to abandon bureaucratic routine, and their

The liberation of southern Italy  13 laissez faire attitude facilitated corruption and more personal, ­individualized ­treatments in the Jewish exiles’ favour.18 The situation changed after the German occupation of Austria and Hitler’s visit to Italy in May 1938, when the Italian press reinforced its anti-Semitic campaign and the Fascist regime started to intern political opponents and enemy aliens for security reasons to maintain social control. Moreover, in August 1938, a census of the Jews in the country was conducted, and on 18 September 1938, Mussolini announced the racial laws in Trieste. This “pro-Nazi shift” redefined Italian citizenship along racial lines and political loyalties, thus preparing the ground for the exclusion of Italian Jews from Italian society and the subsequent expulsion of all foreign Jews from Italy.19 From that moment, the Fascist government’s ambivalence turned into growing discrimination, finally becoming open hostility when Italy joined the war in June 1940.20 The fourth article of Royal Legislative Decree no. 1381, which was enacted on 7 September 1938, stated that all foreign Jews who had arrived after January 1919 would have to leave Italy and her colonies within six months, that is, before March 1939. At that time, around 11,000 foreign Jews were residing in Italy, and the 9,000 of them who had arrived after 1919 were now threatened by the expulsion decree.21 Nevertheless, Mussolini, eager to benefit from the tourist industry, though closing Italy’s borders to Austrian Jews after the Anschluss, introduced a tourist visa from 27 February 1939 for those who could demonstrate that they were in transit towards other destinations or travelling for health or business reasons. Within six months, around 5,000 Jews had managed to enter Italy as tourists, and between 1938 and 1940, around 10,000–11,000 non-Italian Jews succeeded in leaving Italy while civil maritime traffic was still open.22 In June 1940, when Italy joined the war, there were 3,800 non-Italian Jews in the country. Those affected by the expulsion decree who had not managed to leave Italy were classified as “enemy aliens” and were interned in the concentration camps or isolated in “free internment” (internamento libero, a sort of house arrest) in small rural towns.23 This occurred in the framework of a series of preventive measures adopted by the Fascist government to control those people who were considered a threat to national security. These provisions determined the internment of a wide range of categories of civilians, including 400 Italian Jews and more than 6,000 foreign Jews during the war.24 Of the 3,877 non-Italian Jews residing in Italy, 2,412 had already been interned in either camps (74%) or towns (25%) by October 1940.25 Not unexpectedly, this number tripled in spring 1943, when the Red Cross reported that there were 6,386 foreign Jews interned in Italy.26 They were located all over the peninsula, in both urban and remote areas: 2,828 in the north, 1,560 in the central regions, and 1,998 in the south. More than 70% of the internees were living in “free internment” in more than 150 towns, while the remnants were in the concentration camps: mostly (22%) in

14  The liberation of southern Italy

Figure 1.1 Ferramonti Concentration Camp, Internal Views of the Barracks, presumably 1942, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 5, inv. 283-album05–010A. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

Ferramonti di Tarsia (Calabria, Cosenza province), the largest concentration camp designed and built ad hoc by the Fascist government in order to intern civilians (Figure 1.1).27 The living conditions of the Jewish internees, who were provided with a monthly subsidy of 8 lire by the Italian government, varied from one case to the next and ranged from bearable to harsh. However, a network of Jewish charities and humanitarian organizations made all efforts to ameliorate their situation. Collecting funds from local private donors and American Jewish philanthropic organizations, Italian Jews’ self-help committees, such as the Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants (Delegazione per l'assistenza agli emigranti ebrei, DELASEM) and Israel Kalk’s “Children’s Canteen,” supplied food and clothes and organized educational activities (Figure 1.2). Especially in the Ferramonti concentration camp, Italian Jews’ charities have been able to support canteens, schools for children, a synagogue, and a Zionist club, allowing the Jewish internees to develop a sort of communitarian life within the concentration camp.28 Between 1940 and 1943, this remote and badly reclaimed area in southern Italy was the unwanted home of Jews of many different nationalities. In June 1940, the first Jews to be sent to Ferramonti by the Fascist regime were those non-Italian individuals and families who had arrived in Italy especially from Germany and Austria in the 1930s.29 By September of the same year, there were already 700 internees, including a group of 300 Jews who had been arrested in Libya, which at that time was an Italian colony. These were Jews who had been gathered in Benghazi by an underground Zionist group that was supposed to bring them to British ­Palestine illegally on a Bulgarian steamboat. Unfortunately, the plan

The liberation of southern Italy  15

Figure 1.2 Ferramonti Concentration Camp, Pupils and School Teachers, p ­ resumably 1942, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 5, inv. 283-album05–018A. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

failed, and the Jews were arrested and interned in Libya as “enemy aliens” on ­Italian territory and transferred to Ferramonti di Tarsia at the end of the summer of 1940.30 They were not the only group of Jews who were arrested and then interned following a failed attempt to reach British Palestine. In 1942, 495 Jews from different Central and Eastern European countries who had survived the Pentcho shipwreck were transferred to Ferramonti from the ­Italian-occupied territories of Greece.31 In a few months, Ferramonti registered 1,668 internees, who became 2,016 when the Italian occupation of other territories in the Balkans and Greece brought new civilians into the camp.32 This international group of Jewish internees liberated in 1943 gradually increased as Allies advanced in Italy. Eventually freed, but stuck in refugee camps, they became the first core of Jewish refugees, whose responsibility went under Allies’ administration. Jewish DPs in southern Italy The refugee emergency in liberated Italy

“There was no special refugee problem in Italy until the eve of the Second World War,” wrote Jacques Vernant, the expert in charge of a private survey commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1951. However, a few paragraphs later, he specified that “after the war Italy

16  The liberation of southern Italy became one of the chief refugee assembly centres in continental Europe.”33 Indeed, only a few days after the Allies had landed in Sicily in July 1943, a military memorandum reported “a statistic refugee problem in a number of towns,” mostly consisting of internal movements.34 This was the result of civilian evacuations arranged by the government from coastal areas and southern Italy towards the centre and the north of the country, as well as counter-movements of populations from rural districts to the cities and vice versa because of bombings. In addition to these internal movements, the Allied accounts gave reports of civilians who had been evacuated from North Africa, mostly Italians. Finally, the armistice of 8 September 1943 and the Allied army’s advance into continental Italy contributed to the further intensification of the refugee problem through the liberation of both civilians and prisoners of war (PoWs) interned by the Fascist government, and the arrival of new refugees in Puglia from the Balkans.35 The mass movements in liberated Italy critically interfered with the Allies’ logistics and were seen as a major threat to the conduct of their military plans. Therefore, in view of an expected growth in the number of refugees at the end of the military operations, the AMGOT Special Committee on Migration suggested that they should be immediately registered and classified in order to avoid possible disorder resulting from crowding on the roads. On 20 July 1943, the committee distributed a secret outline regarding the adoption of policies to be uniformly followed first by the military authorities in control of the territory and subsequently by designated civilian representatives. According to the Allies’ guidelines, the refugees’ nationality would determine the status and rights of different types of refugees and establish the responsibilities of the Allies and each single nation in assisting them. Allied headquarters made a clear division between DPs, that is, Allied nationals and those persecuted for religious, racial, or political reasons during the war, regardless of their nationality, and refugees originating from enemy countries. The former group was recognized as eligible for international help and protection, while the latter was entrusted to their national governments.36 In order to place the civilians uprooted by the war into these two categories, the outline spread by the Special Committee on Migration instructed the Allied officers to examine their political loyalties and finally to facilitate their repatriation or their return home whenever war conditions permitted it. Nevertheless, the ongoing war, the difficulties in collaborating with local authorities, and the drastic damages to the communications network severely impeded the swift fulfilment of these goals.37 Thus, starting from October 1943, the ACC formulated “an orderly and humane programme for the care of these individuals” on site and entrusted the task to two separate sub-­commissions. A DPs Sub-Commission was established in order to assist DPs, providing them with accommodation, food, clothing, welfare, health services, and employment (whenever possible). Furthermore, another subcommission responsible for Italian refugees was set up in cooperation with the Italian authorities in December 1943.38

The liberation of southern Italy  17 According to a report from the DPs Sub-Commission from 11 November 1943, there were 4,759 civilians, of whom fewer than 500 were women, displaced in three regions of southern Italy: Sicily, Calabria, and Puglia. In particular, Sicily – the first liberated Italian region – hosted only eighty DPs, almost all of them of Yugoslav origin. In Calabria, specifically in Cosenza province (where Ferramonti was located), the DPs Sub-Commission registered 1,438 DPs, mostly from Yugoslavia (553), Czechoslovakia (454), Austria (250), and Germany (133). Among them were 739 men and 229 women, as well as ninety-six children under sixteen years of age. Finally, the DPs Sub-Commission estimated that there were 3,241 DPs in Puglia (2,801 men and 398 women), more than 3,000 of whom were Yugoslavs who had either arrived from the Balkans or been liberated from internment in Italy.39 The Allies and the Jewish DPs

The data depicted above classified the refugees according to their nationality and did not detail how many of them were Jews. It was only in January 1944 that the Allied DPs Sub-Commission first circulated a report which explicitly referred to the problem of the Jewish DPs in the country and also revealed that more than 60% of the DPs in Italy were non-Italian Jews. The document elaborated on the information received from liberated regions and stressed some critical obstacles in the management of the Jewish DPs. First, the report specified that “no Jewish problem, as understood in other European countries, exists in Italy.” These somewhat comforting words were meant to inform Allied headquarters that there was no evidence of brutal treatments and atrocities in Italian regions that were under Allied control. At that time, the DPs Sub-Commission handled approximately 3,000 Jewish DPs who had been liberated from free internment and from the Fascist concentration camps alike. They were both native Italians and foreigners from Germany, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the Dalmatian Islands who had reached Italy before and during the war. Besides the Ferramonti DP camp, they were distributed in refugee camps and towns located in proximity of the former concentration camps or Allied military sites in Puglia, Basilicata, and Campania.40 Despite its real estimations, the DPs Sub-Commission supposed that their number was even higher in the liberated areas of Italy, around 5,000 to 6,000. Indeed, many Jews were still in the remote districts where they had hidden themselves before the armistice and – fearing to disclose their i­dentity – were only gradually revealing themselves on seeing Jewish soldiers in the Allied forces.41 These were Palestinian Jewish volunteer soldiers who had joined the British Army in North Africa in 1942 and who had arrived in Italy in the autumn of 1943, thus inaugurating the Yishuv’s participation in the liberation of the European Jews.42 By October 1943, approximately 1,000 Palestinian Jewish soldiers had reached Italy in independent units, growing to 10,000 in the following year with the foundation of the Jewish Brigade.43

18  The liberation of southern Italy The number of Jewish DPs grew as the Allies advanced in continental Italy and because of a significant movement of refugees escaping Croatia by the sea. These were especially Jews liberated from the concentration camp for civilians on the island of Arbe (Rab) built by Fascist Italy during the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. During the war, the racial policies adopted by ­Germany, Italy, and the Ustaša have been particularly cruel in those areas, tragically affecting the existence of the Jewish communities there.44 In particular, from 1941, the Fascist government transferred and interned in Italy thousands of Jews who had reached the Yugoslav territories under Mussolini’s control desperately hoping to eventually enter Italy in order to escape mass murders and deportations in the German-occupied territories of Yugoslavia and the Independent State of Croatia under Ustaša rule.45 However, between 1942 and 1943, for strategic reasons, Mussolini decided to not leave the Jews to his allies and first interned them in several locations along the Dalmatian coast, whereas later, he transferred them to the concentration camp of Arbe.46 Infamous for its high rate of famine deaths, the Arbe concentration camp was liberated by Tito’s National Front for the Liberation of Croatia ­following Italy’s capitulation in September 1943, and its inmates came under the ­partisans’ protection. Of the 9,537 liberated civilians, there were 2,144 Jews (1,027 men, 930 women, and 287 children). Following the departure of the vast majority of internees, only 250 Jews remained on Arbe island, among them elderly and sick people as well as women with children. After the Nazi occupation, they were moved to the concentration camp of Risiera di San Sabba (Trieste) and were then deported to Auschwitz.47 As testified by Ivo Herzer, a Jew from Zagreb interned in Arbe with his family, only he and a small group of Jews had managed to leave Arbe for the next island, Vis, just before the deportation, whence they were transported to Puglia by an Allied ship.48 From that moment, the Adriatic Sea was a gateway to freedom: it has been estimated that from Italy’s capitulation in September 1943 to ­October 1944, 36,000 men, women, and children (included hundreds of Jews) reached Puglia from the Balkans.49 Due to liberated Italy’s limited capacity to welcome such an unprecedented number of refugees, Yugoslavs were divided into different groups. Those who supported the Tito’s Yugoslav National Liberation Army and who wished to join the Overseas Brigade were accommodated and trained in the DP camps all over Puglia; those who did not wish to be repatriated or who did not join Tito’s resistance were transferred to the refugee camps of El Shatt and Khatatba in Egypt.50 According to Klaus Voigt, of the 1,300 to 1,400 Jews who had been evacuated from Yugoslavia to liberated Italy by the end of the war, only 132 were transferred to Egypt (out of a total of 28,000 Yugoslavs).51 These circumstances increased the number and changed the demographic profile of the Jewish DPs in Italy. While they were a mixed group of Polish, Yugoslav, German, Austrian, and Czech origin at

The liberation of southern Italy  19 the liberation of Ferramonti in September 1943, by the beginning of 1944, almost 77% of them were Yugoslavs.52 In order to accommodate the refugees, the Allied army selected dozens of locations in liberated Italy in which to set up assembly centres and refugee camps.53 In particular, Puglia, the heel of Italy, became a key site for the ­Jewish DPs, who had mainly distributed in Bari and Lecce provinces, in refugee camps established in two completely different spots. On the one hand, in the Bari area, the Allies re-opened the former Camp for Prisoners of War in Bari Carbonara.54 This camp, renamed DP Transit Camp n.1, was located on the periphery of Bari and was intended for refugees of mixed nationalities, who stayed there as long as was necessary for them to be returned to their homes, resettled, or transferred to static refugee camps.55 On the other hand, the DP camps in Lecce province were established following the requisition of clusters of houses and villas used as summer holiday residences by local wealthy owners in four villages along the coast named Santa Maria al Bagno, Santa Maria di Leuca, Santa Cesarea Terme, and Tricase Porto (Figure 1.3).56 Notwithstanding the Allies’ effort, at the beginning, the management of the refugee problem was still chaotic and unorganized, as this letter written by a Palestinian Jewish soldier demonstrates: In general the refugee problem in Italy weighs heavily upon our minds. […] Upon our arrival here […] we met the first refugees and had to face the burden of help, which even now doesn’t seem to be anybody’s baby. We formed an inter-unit committee collected [more than £1,000 in twenty-four hours,] and proceeded to give such help and assistance

Figure 1.3 DPs bathing at the beach in Santa Maria al Bagno, 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels.

20  The liberation of southern Italy as were within the scope of our financial and organizational ability. […] There is however no general policy towards the refugee problem, so that when, for instance, the Bari camp inmates receive a full army ration, clothing, and blankets, Ferramonti receives only a small supply of foodstuffs [that is barely enough] to keep them above the starvation line. […] This problem must be tackled from the outside.57 However, in 1944, the military operations prevented the involvement of any external civilian humanitarian mission, and the rescue and control of the refugees was completely in military hands. In this context, the Jewish soldiers in the Palestinian units and the Jewish chaplains came to Jewish DPs’ attention as the first contact with reliable and helpful people after terror and suspicion of mankind. Informal aid networks and the Jewish DPs’ training for aliyah Jewish soldiers and chaplains’ organizational efforts

By October 1943, hundreds of Jews from Palestine serving in the British Army in independent units of 250 to 300 soldiers had reached liberated Italy. Most of them were active Zionists, members of kibbutz movements or the ­Haganah,58 who from 1942 had been employed in military divisions operating in North Africa for their professional skills (as engineers, plumbers, cartographers, carpenters, and so on). Their ideological, social, cultural, and political background and their mission among the destitute Jewish communities of North Africa influenced and determined the direction of their programmes among the Jewish DPs in Italy and in post-war Europe more generally. In his testimony, Yehiel Duvdevani – a leading figure in the ­Palestinian Solel Boneh unit who reached Italy in 1943 – explained that on seeing the Libyan Jews returning home from the concentration camps,59 the Jewish soldiers pursued four main goals: providing economic help and organizing local Zionist education facilities, pioneering associations, and aliyah.60 Duvdevani emphasized that the Palestinian units were cooperating with ­Jewish soldiers of other ­nationalities enrolled in the Allied army, and with the Jewish chaplains in particular. Among them were Rabbi Edward ­Ellenbogen, Rabbi Earl Stone, and Rabbi Samuel Teitelbaum, who had been the first to meet a small group of Jews in Sicily in July 1943.61 After the Italian armistice, once they have been able to reach continental Italy, Rabbi Teitelbaum reported to Rabbi Philip Bernstein, executive director of the Committee on Army–Navy ­Religious Activities, that the Jews they had encountered were in “dire straits.”62 The Jewish chaplains were aware that the responsibility for relief work lay with the humanitarian organizations, which at that time were not allowed to enter Italy because of its status of co-belligerent country. Therefore, for months, Jewish DPs were almost entirely reliant on voluntary

The liberation of southern Italy  21 donations of money, clothes, and canned food from Jewish chaplains and soldiers. A prominent figure among the Jewish chaplains has been Rabbi Efraim E. Urbach, serving the 8th British Army, who played as a direct channel of communication between the military authorities and the disoriented Jewish DPs in the Italian refugee camps. Rabbi Urbach, a well-respected Jerusalem intellectual, had joined the British Army in Sicily from North Africa and had been sent to Puglia a few days after Rosh Hashana in 1943.63 Urbach highlighted the peculiarity of the “Jewish problem” to the Allied military authorities, arguing that “Jews are not simple refugees […] only Jews can understand their spirit and know how to guide them and deal with them.”64 For this reason, the Jewish elements in the Allied army strove to obtain permission to run an independent and specialized rescue programme for the Jewish DPs, while seeking the involvement of other international Jewish organizations. With the final goal of providing them with the most effective assistance possible, this improvised aid network followed two lines of action: at an institutional level, the Jewish soldiers and chaplains acted as mediators between the Jewish DPs and the Allied military authorities, while on a more practical level, they simultaneously undertook independent enterprises to find any possible means of helping their fellows in Italy. They travelled throughout the DP camps, cities, and villages in order to register those Jews who had survived in Italy as well as those arriving every day from territories still in RSI and Nazi hands. Jewish chaplains and soldiers promptly did all they could to respond to the immediate needs of the first survivors, rescuing them, arranging temporary solutions, or suggesting alternative approaches to the Allies in order to ameliorate the living conditions in the refugee camps. In his reports and letters, Rabbi Urbach constantly documented the “plight of the Jewish refugees”65 in an attempt to persuade the Allies to request external help: I have done everything to get in touch with Jewish institutions abroad in order to receive assistance, especially with regard to clothing and medical supplies […] meanwhile, those poor people are suffering from cold and rain, the more so because the lack of shoes and overcoats is very badly felt. Would it be possible to obtain a few hundred pairs of shoes and a number of greatcoats from the Army Stores?66 Meanwhile, a Jewish Soldiers’ Fund for Refugees was launched, which collected £1,200 in less than a month and distributed comforts arriving from collections organized by Jewish communities abroad, especially from South Africa.67 This difficult situation lowered the spirits of the Jewish DPs, whose main concern was emigration. According to Rabbi Urbach, between October and November 1943, around 200 people submitted applications to join the

22  The liberation of southern Italy Palestinian units in order to fight against Nazism, and many more wished to be resettled in Palestine.68 This attitude was also confirmed by a note from the Allied DPs Sub-Commission: Jews, individually and as Communities, have been emphatic that they have no interest and no wish to take part in either local or national political life. On the contrary, most express a strong desire to be allowed to enter Palestine, where they expect to be free from political influences and persecution.69 The Allied military officers were extremely aware of the potential consequences of the uncontrolled movement of civilians and were instructed to collect information concerning any national organizations that had been joined or founded by the refugees and to monitor the attitudes of the different national groups.70 In particular, among all the civilian groups, the Jewish DPs had been identified by the Allies as a threat to the social order. The DPs Sub-Commission persistently asked its local officers to furnish detailed personal data about the Jews in the refugee camps in Italy and whether they had obtained a certificate permitting them to enter Palestine, even if “for reasons of their own they may be reluctant to disclose this information.”71 Indeed, while most of the Jews had been hesitant to reveal their Jewish identity when the Allies had first arrived (at least without the mediation of the Jewish soldiers), from late 1943, they were openly requesting to be recognized as Jews rather than by their national origin. In this struggle, the Jewish DPs in Italy were supported by the Jewish soldiers, who forcefully encouraged them to demand that the Allies permit them to resettle in British Palestine. In his oral testimony, Marcel Friedman, a survivor of the Pentcho shipwreck and an ex-internee of Ferramonti, said that the Palestinian units “started organizing people to go to Palestine” only three weeks after the liberation of the concentration camp. The Jewish soldiers were telling stories about their lives as pioneers in the Yishuv and their stimulating involvement in the state-building process, encouraging the DPs to migrate to Eretz Israel. Friedman remembered that suddenly, “images of Herzl, Jabotinsky, and Weizmann appeared on the walls of the shacks” in Ferramonti.72 Two months after the liberation of the camp, Rabbi Urbach reported that ­Ferramonti ­ex-inmates have organized themselves in committees to solicit the ­British Allies to allow them to make aliyah. With the help of the Jewish soldiers, DPs have improved the facilities which already existed in the camps and established new ones: three synagogues, a school, a Talmud Torah, a Zionist club, a branch of the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), and a Youth Zionist Organization, which comprised several Zionist youth movements. After his visit in Ferramonti, Urbach reported: The most important question for the Zionists at Ferramonti and for all those who were freed by the Allied Powers is [to immigrate] to Eretz

The liberation of southern Italy  23 Israel as soon as possible. […] all these men have the ardent wish that they may be enabled to return to normal life, to start a new life in Eretz Israel [as] members of the Jewish Nation, and to contribute to the construction of the Jewish Home.73 However, aliyah – promoted by the Jewish soldiers as the safest and most viable way of leaving Europe – brought a simultaneous climax of excitement and anxiety among the DPs. In this respect, during a meeting between Jewish soldiers and chaplains which took place in Bari at the end of January 1944, Rabbi Morton Berman warned the soldiers to not “disseminate illusions” in the refugee camps with the promise that aliyah was a quick and easy solution to the Jewish DPs’ situation. Instead, he recommended educating the Jewish DPs to put up “a stubborn fight for their right to make aliyah” and helping them organize their “political struggle.”74 Notwithstanding the limits implemented on Jewish migration to Palestine by the British Mandate and riding the Jewish DPs’ widespread enthusiasm for making aliyah, in late 1943, the soldiers had already established two Palestine offices in Ferramonti and Bari with the purpose of registering all the Jewish DPs who wished to emigrate to Eretz Israel. On 14 December 1943, the two offices merged into the Joint Palestine Emigration Committee (JPEC), whose board members were chosen from the Jewish DPs in the Ferramonti and Bari DP camps.75 All of them were either active Zionists or had played important roles in Zionist institutions in their countries of origin.76 According to the DPs Sub-Commission, at the beginning of January 1944, there were 1,300 Jewish DPs who had registered for aliyah in Ferramonti, Bari, and the surrounding areas.77 The Merkaz Ha-Plitim and the Jewish DPs’ training for aliyah

In order to shape a structured rescue and rehabilitation plan for the increasing numbers of Jewish survivors in Italian liberated territories, the Jewish soldiers and chaplains decided to create a Committee for Refugees’ Affair. In January 1944, representatives of the Jewish units met in Bari and established the Merkaz Ha-Plitim (Refugee Center), envisioned as “a central body in charge of the care of the [Jewish] refugees and responsible for their preparation in view of their trip to Eretz Israel.” The Merkaz Ha-Plitim based its headquarters in Bari, in Palazzo De Risi at via Garruba 63, a building which served as a club for the Jewish soldiers, and equipped with a canteen, a clinic, a synagogue, a dormitory, a school for children, and a meeting room for the youth movements.78 The Merkaz Ha-Plitim essentially focused on rescuing needy Jews, especially the DPs, assisting them in the refugee camps, and preparing them for aliyah. It coordinated a bottom-up training programme which permeated all aspects of Jewish DPs’ daily life, from education to recreation, in the attempt to cementing their bond around a collective identity. The accomplishment

24  The liberation of southern Italy of these goals was simultaneously heartening and challenging for the Jewish soldiers, as reported by one of them, Zeev Bar-Shiah, in February 1944: The task of organizing the social lives of adults is very difficult –guiding them in building cells of mutual aid, uniting them all under the same roof in order to create a shared community, establishing the Merkaz Ha-Plitim to take care of those who had survived and those who still need to be saved, establishing Zionist organizations, the Palestinian office, the Histadrut [the Zionist Trade Union in British Palestine] and finding the right representative for each organization – as much as the primary task of organizing the youth and educating the children. […] Many are Zionists because they were part of Zionist movements in their home countries and everyone is willing to make aliyah, but their Zionist consciousness is disconnected from the current problems of Eretz Israel.79 The Merkaz Ha-Plitim worked as an independent body, but it maintained close and systematic contacts with the Yishuv. The extensive correspondence and reports to the Jewish Agency from Zvi Leiman, head of the Merkaz Ha-Plitim, reveals that the organization aimed to train the Jewish DPs in collective farms – better known as hakhsharot (sing. hakhsharah) in Hebrew – where they would have learned mainly agricultural work and manual labour in view of the (promised) emigration to Eretz Israel. In the hakhsharot, everything should be carried out collectively and for the benefit of the community, according to the ideals of self-help and mutual aid typical of the kibbutz lifestyle.80 In launching their Zionist-oriented rehabilitation programme, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim gave priority to the rehabilitation of orphans as well as that of children with parents “who do not have time for them, nor the capacity to create an educative environment for them.”81 At the end of January 1944, Zvi Leiman selected the first nucleus (gar’in) of twenty children up to eighteen years old from the 120 in Ferramonti for the creation of the first hakhsharah. This was named Rishonim (The First Ones) and placed in Bitetto, near Bari. It was created on the model of the Youth Aliyah (Aliyat Ha-No’ar) villages operating in Eretz Israel at that time, where children spent half a day in class (where they particularly focused on studying Hebrew and subjects connected to Eretz Israel and Zionism) and half a day in the workhouse, doing agricultural work and recreational activities or having meetings.82 In his oral testimony, Zvi Ankuri – the Jewish soldier who run Rishonim – asserted that this first hakhsharah was initially envisioned as an ad hoc solution for the youth of Ferramonti, but it was later “institutionalized” by the Merkaz Ha-Plitim as the main tool for preparing the Jewish survivors for future life in Palestine.83 Indeed, few weeks later the establishment of Rishonim, Leiman requested the Jewish soldiers to look for other suitable

The liberation of southern Italy  25 locations for placing other three nuclei, each of twenty DPs.84 In a short time, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim opened the following hakhsharot: Dror (­Freedom) in Bitetto, which hosted seventeen DPs of up to twenty-five years of age; Ha-No’ar (Youth) in Bitetto, for sixteen children around fifteen years old; and Ha-Bonim (The Builders), housing forty-five children between sixteen and eighteen years old from the DP camp of Santa Maria al Bagno.85 There was also a religious hakhsharah (Datit) in Ferramonti, whose members were transferred to Santa Maria al Bagno before summer 1944.86 By July 1944, Rishonim and Ha-no’ar had increased their respective membership to thirty and twenty-five children between fourteen and eighteen years old, while the average age at Dror increased to between twenty and twenty-five years old. To respond to the increasing Jewish DPs’ interest in hakhsharot, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim opened another one near the Santa Maria al Bagno DP Camp – defined by Leiman as “a new form of Halutz [pioneer] education” – called Baderekh (On the Way), which included twenty members aged between thirty and fifty-five, both individuals and families with children.87 In parallel to the hakhsharah programme, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim took over the management of schools both in and outside the DP camps, where many Jewish soldiers autonomously began teaching Hebrew and other general subjects to children whose studies had been interrupted because of the war. By the end of March 1944, there were four classes of nine students in Bari, four classes of fourteen students in Ferramonti, and five classes of ten students in Santa Maria al Bagno.88 This educational programme was entirely run by the Jewish soldiers, but the northward movement of the army forcing them to follow the battlefront represented a real threat to the continuation of the educational activities. Hence, while pressing the Jewish Agency to send more political emissaries of the Zionist youth movements (shlichim), guides and leaders (madrikhim), and teachers to Italy, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim also organized seminars to train the Jewish DPs themselves to serve as personnel for hakhsharot and schools.89 Despite the outstanding efforts by Jewish soldiers and chaplains in the Allied army in shaping a plan for the relief of the Jews in Italy and the resourcefulness of many Jewish DPs in reorganizing their lives in the new context of the refugee camps, external help was essential. The task of securing food, clothes, healthcare, accommodation, and a repatriation scheme or resettlement for millions of men, women, and children uprooted by the war was tremendous. This humanitarian crisis with no precedence in history could only be tackled through a joint international enterprise; however, in 1944, only the American and British Committees of the Red Cross were allowed to cooperate with military forces to assist the refugees. Finally, following the Four Days uprising in Naples and the Allies’ liberation of the city on 1 October 1943, the Jewish soldiers and chaplains could cooperate with the Neapolitan Jewish community – the first to be liberated in Italy.

26  The liberation of southern Italy National and international early responses The Italian Jews’ help committee and the JDC mission

The joint efforts of Italian Jews and the Merkaz Ha-Plitim in Naples led to the immediate re-establishment of the local synagogue and communitarian institutions, including the branches of the Zionist Federation and the DELASEM. In that period, Naples became a key site of political renovation for Italy and rebirth for Italian Jewry. While anti-Fascist and republican parties – reunited in the Action Party (Partito d’Azione) – discussed the organization of a new anti-Fascist government, the Jews (Italians, refugees, and soldiers from the Allied army) laid the groundwork for a more systematic relief network. This political, humanitarian, and spiritual fervour was vividly described by Nino Contini, an Italian Jew interned by the Fascist government in southern Italy from 1940. He fled the warfront in 1943 and found refuge in liberated Naples, where he was personally involved in the national political debate and cooperated with the Jewish soldiers to rescue and assist local and foreign Jews in liberated Italy. His diary shows the appetite for freedom, the satisfaction of playing an active role after having experienced a sense of powerlessness for years, and the feeling of rebirth that can be found in many other Jews’ testimonies and memories of that time: 28 December 1943. Hanukkah celebration at Arenaccia [Naples]. A party of soldiers, soldiers from all over the world, Jews from all over the world in the Allied army. A party of the Jews of Naples […] who now are living the unique and historical experience of being in the first city in Europe, in Hitler’s Europe, that of the racial law, that of “Jews out of Europe,” where 1,500 Jews are meeting to celebrate Hanukkah, freed and armed, not in a concentration camp – as the Captain of Palestinian unit used to say.90 Despite these glimpses of hope for the future, the Jews in liberated Italy were critically in need of help. The Neapolitan branch of the DELASEM (led by Guido Cantoni) asked for the help of a loyal supporter of the Italian Jewish organization, the JDC. On 11 November 1943, he addressed a heartfelt letter to the American Red Cross War Relief in Italy asking them to inform the JDC about the presence of 7,000 Jews in liberated regions who needed “all kinds of material and moral assistance.” Guido Cantoni highlighted that only Jews from Allied nations were receiving international assistance from the Allies: Both the Allied Military Government and the American Red Cross, at least for this moment, are not in the position to be of complete help to those Jews who are citizens of enemy Nations, as Germans, Austrians, Rumanians and so on, including the Italians; in few words about the half of the above-named interned Jews, that is 4000 poor chaps, must be aided by our Organization.91

The liberation of southern Italy  27 Indeed, initially, the Allies’ guidelines for the rescue of civilians in the ­European theatre excluded all those coming from enemy countries, as well as those who had left their country of origin before the outbreak of the war. Therefore, many Jews, though unquestionably victims of anti-Semitism and war circumstances, did not receive any assistance and instead became the burden of voluntary organizations, such as the DELASEM and the Merkaz Ha-Plitim.92 A report outlining the DELASEM’s activities between the armistice of September 1943 and mid-May 1944 explained this organization’s endeavour and commitment to rescue and support 2,232 Jewish refugees and 300 Italian Jews in the liberated area of the country and the endless problems in accomplishing this mission. At the Allies’ arrival, the DELASEM took on the responsibility for finding accommodation for the Jews who had been released from internment or evacuated from the warzone, distributing individual subsidies to them until it became impossible on so large a scale. The DELASEM also helped many non-Italian Jews who did not have residency permits to obtain a ration card, which gave them access to goods and groceries instead of buying them on the black market.93 Another obstacle to the organization of the rescue of the refugees was the fact that any chance of being repatriated or resettled was almost non-existent at this stage of the war. The Allied authorities were slow to authorize the intervention of an intergovernmental body in liberated Italy, which was fundamental to negotiating immigration quotas with possible candidate countries. Only in February 1944 did the deputy director of the IGCR, Patrick Murphy Malin, visited Italy, confirming the urgency of establishing a local office to the IGCR Director, Herbert Emerson. Malin appointed Sir Clifford Heathcote Smith – formerly general consul in Alexandria – as the local IGCR representative.94 In this framework, a JDC representative was also allowed to enter the country and to work under IGCR supervision. The chosen JDC delegates were Max S. Perlman and Arthur Greenleigh. The former, already in charge of the JDC’s activities in North Africa, was sent to Bari, whereas the latter established a second JDC office in Rome at the end of July.95 A sense of uncertainty is identifiable in the JDC reports regarding its activities in Italy during the second half of 1944, which reflect the lack of a precise relief plan.96 In this phase, the JDC exclusively subsidized the local Jewish communities and the Jewish refugees who were not assisted by any diplomatic missions because they either came from enemy countries or were stateless. As the Jewish chaplains, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim, and the Italian DELASEM had done in the previous months, the JDC continuously stressed the need for international cooperation and called for direct actions from the Allied governments in rescuing the Jews in refugee camps and those who, more tragically, were still in Nazi- or RSI-controlled areas. By the end of 1944, Max Perlman and Arthur Greenleigh came back to the United States and were replaced in Italy by Reuben Resnik and Israel Jacobs.

28  The liberation of southern Italy Rethinking about their first six months of work in Italy, the JDC delegates felt frustrated to see liberated Jews living in utter devastation, hunger, nakedness, suffering, and uncertainty. At the same time, they recognized the close cooperation of the rescuers: One of the most encouraging things, incidentally, about the entire relief situation in Italy is the amount [of support being offered by] all groups. The governmental and intergovernmental agencies now operating in Italy are all doing what they can to alleviate the situation. Despite that, the needs are so great that the work of private agencies such as the JDC is both urgent and essential.97 The situation gradually improved after the liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944, when the Allied army finally entered the city and defeated the Nazis after 271 days of occupation. This event marked the liberation of the home of Italy’s biggest Jewish community, the core site for Italian Jewish institutions, and the reconstruction of the leading communitarian organizations.98 The United Nations, the Italian Government, and the War Refugee Board

The liberation of the capital city sparked also a new stage in the evolution of national politics, which in turn affected the management of the refugee crisis in the country. On 18 June 1944, with the establishment of a coalition government of anti-Fascist parties headed by the moderate Ivanoe Bonomi – who was already president of the National Liberation Committee (Comitato di Liberatione Nazionale – CLN) – Italy began to take responsibility for its national refugees, thus alleviating the workload of the military authorities.99 The Bonomi government created the High Commission for Refugees (Alto Commissariato Profughi), which took over the administration of thirty-eight Italian refugee camps, leaving only ten camps under ACC control.100 The main threat to the resolution of the refugee crisis in the country was the fact that, during 1944, it was still not certain whether Italy would be allowed to be included in the rescue programme planned by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). This agency was established by the United Nations in November 1943 in order to lead the countries affected by the war to political, social, and economic re-stabilization through both immediate relief and long-term rehabilitation programmes. As part of this plan of reconstruction, the UNRRA would also have had the task of handling the refugee crisis at the end of the military operations in Europe. UNRRA policy, however, excluded enemy countries from international assistance. Hence, Italy’s position was under discussion by the Council of UNRRA from March 1944, when it proposed to set up an observer mission to be sent to Italy in order to evaluate the situation in the country. “In the midst of this destruction, disorganization, and understandable despair,” the UNRRA observers arrived in Italy in July 1944, headed by

The liberation of southern Italy  29 Spurgeon M. Keeny and his advisors Antonio Sorieri, Guido Nazdo, and William G. Welk.101 Travelling for ten months, Keeny and his colleagues collected data through direct observation and informal interviews, focusing mainly on the regions of Rome, Naples, and Bari. In his letters to Michail M. Menshikov, vice director-general and responsible for the UNRRA Bureau of Areas, Keeny described a poor and devastated country with a concentration of DPs predominately in the Bari area.102 In order to discuss possible strategies for the implementation of an UNRRA plan, Keeny highlighted the importance of strengthening their contacts with the Italian government in his correspondence with Menshikov and initiated a discussion with Guido De Ruggero, Ministrer of the Public Education, and Tito Zaniboni, High Commissioner for War Refugees, under the Bonomi government.103 Convinced that they would meet the conditions for negotiating and signing an agreement with the Italian government, Keeny’s team recommended helping Italy at the UNRRA Second Council Session, held in Montreal in September 1944. The UNRRA Council approved international aid for Italy but limited it to food supplies, medical help, welfare services for children and mothers, and assistance in the care and repatriation of an estimated 20,000 UN DPs in Italy who were eligible for UNRRA aid. “After some puzzling hesitations,” the agreement with the Italian government was signed on 8 March 1945, but the shipment of supplies began already in October 1944 with a first total expenditure estimated at 94,800,000 dollars.104 Through a system of mandates, the UNRRA started to coordinate its relief programmes for the refugees with dozens of voluntary organizations – among whom the JDC – providing accommodation, food, clothes, and medical care and delivering welfare services which covered childcare, education, recreational activities, vocational training, and employment opportunities for DPs. In Italy, the JDC and UNRRA started their collaboration “in a very friendly and cooperative atmosphere,” although initially they clashed over the categories of refugees that were eligible for international assistance.105 Perlman and Greenleigh requested UNRRA to include under its mandate not only those Jews who had been forced to leave their homes during the war but also those who had been forced to flee their countries before the war and those who had been persecuted by the Axis governments, but who had not moved from their original residence. However, at this time, the UNRRA only assumed responsibility for the first group. Indeed, in an UNRRA memo regarding the JDC’s request, the UNRRA general consul assistant Alexander Hawes wrote to Keeny that those who had left before the war had broken out raised “a question of interpretation.” From Hawes’ point of view, they were not within the UNRRA mandate because they could not be considered people who had been forced to move from their residency by action of the enemy since “the term ‘enemy’ [was] not properly applicable to the Axis Governments prior to the outbreak of the war.”106 Even if first the League of Nations and then the UN had been debating the problem of the refugees escaping Nazi-controlled territories since the early

30  The liberation of southern Italy 1930s, by 1944, and part of 1945, international regulations regarding the allocation of refugee status seemed to ignore the fact that thousands of civilians had been forced to leave their countries of origin before the outbreak of the war, exactly because of that policy adopted by dictatorial governments that was to led Europe to the Second World War. In this static scenario which did not allow the refugee to repatriate nor to be resettled, the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944, in order to quiet growing public outcries following the failure of the Bermuda Conference.107 The WRB was an independent government agency working under the Executive Branch of the US government, charged with the development of plans to rescue, maintain, and assist the victims of enemy oppression and establish temporary refuges for them.108 When news of the opportunity to be transferred to a temporary refugee shelter in the United States reached the Italian refugee camps, approximately 3,000 people applied for admission to the WRB rescue plan. However, only 982 refugees – 93% of them Jews – have been able to leave southern Italy for the Emergency Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario, Oswego, NY, in August 1944.109 These group of refugees was supposed to be returned to their countries of origin in Europe at the end of the war, but, after Roosevelt’s sudden death, the newly elected US president Harry S. Truman closed the Fort Ontario shelter, approving the refugees’ legal entry into the country in February 1946. Almost all of them chose resettlement in the United States, except for a group of sixty-six refugees who chose to be repatriated to Yugoslavia in August 1945. The final hurdles? Q: Let me ask you something. On the one side when you talk about the Italians, [you say that] they are wonderful. On the other side, you get put into a concentration camp, you were certainly on the run, and in really terrible circumstances for at least a year, if not longer. That’s still in the context of Italy, so is Italy a sort of a puzzle to you? A: No. Q: It’s not? A: Italy is wonderful. If it wasn’t for Italy we wouldn’t be alive. They helped us, the people we knew were wonderful. There were some sons-of-a-gun that wanted to have our neck, okay, the heck with them. But most of the people were helpful, most of the people were ­understanding. They were wonderful, that’s all I can tell you. They warned us, you know. They fed us whenever they could. Now, there were some people that had, but didn’t want to show that they had so they didn’t give, because they were afraid for themselves, maybe. I  don’t know. But  they’re wonderful people, they really are. I love them dearly, I really do.110

The liberation of southern Italy  31 With these words, Evelyn Arzt Bergl recalled her family’s long experience in Italy. They arrived as exiles from Vienna when the war broke out, and in 1940, they were interned by the Fascist regime in the town of Viggiano (Potenza, Basilicata) and later in the concentration camp of Ferramonti. In late 1942, the Arzts were moved as free internees to Civitella Paganico, a small village in southern Tuscany, where they avoided deportation by hiding in the Appenine forest with the help of locals. After the liberation, they continued to live in Italy as refugees until their resettlement in the United States in 1947. Similar memories can easily be found in many other old refugees’ testimonies and memoirs, where the “compassion of the Italians” and the “fairly good” conditions of their internment are often stressed as the main factors that alleviated their war-time life.111 They often do not hesitate to emphasize their gratitude towards the Italian government for allowing them into the country during the war, even if this entailed their internment, the deprivation of their rights and freedom, and an unusual and uncomfortable sort of routine. However, what eventually turned Fascist Italy into foreign Jews’ unpredictable safe heaven was the early arrival of the Allied army in the southern regions, or their tireless efforts to escape deportation in the Italian territories under Nazi and RSI rule. These kinds of memories contributed to shaping an image of Italy and Italian society as benevolent towards the Jews during and immediately after the war.112 However, Fascist Italy did not welcome foreign Jews in order to de facto protect them. Between the 1930s and 1945, Italy combined tolerance and discrimination: it admitted Jewish refugees while paving the way for their persecution. Indisputably, Mussolini’s acceptance of the Jews from Nazi-controlled territories was not motivated by any special humanitarian commitment. One piece of evidence for this is his refusal to take part in the Évian Conference.113 Instead, Italy’s initial ambiguous policy towards the Jews and its developments after the implementation of the racial laws (and particularly in 1940, when Italy joined the war) are crucial indicators of the fact that the issue of refugees became a tool for negotiating foreign relations. From this perspective, Mussolini’s strategy until 1940 reflected his wish to gain a position in the international field by working towards Italy’s relations with Great Britain and France while at the same time consolidating his alliance with ­Germany. On the one hand, Mussolini hoped to make a decisive impression on Great Britain and France by opening the door to fleeing migrants, but on the other hand, he emphasized the ideological tie he shared with Nazism.114 From 1941, even in the Italian-occupied territories of Yugoslavia, the Fascist regime adopted an ambiguous policy towards the Jews: it did not directly persecute them, but – once they arrived at the border with Italy – the Italian police forced their repatriation. Even Mussolini’s decision to leave them in Nazi and Ustaša hands and his choice to intern them in the Italian concentration camps or on the island of Arbe between 1941 and 1943 are further proof that Fascist Italy used the Jewish refugees for its aims in the international field.115

32  The liberation of southern Italy As a legacy of the Fascist migration, repression, and internment ­policies, by December 1944, there were 5,000 non-Italian Jewish refugees in the Allied-occupied zone of the country.116 They were essentially stuck in Italy, mostly in refugee camps, and many of them were still awaiting the recognition of their right to international assistance as victims of the war. From the Italian armistice of September 1943 to the end of 1944, the rescue and relief operations for the civilian refugees were exclusively managed by the Allied military authorities, in cooperation with the Red Cross. Besides these, Jews in liberated Italy mainly relied on the limited support offered by the voluntary enterprises run by the Jews enrolled in the Allied army, the Italian Jewish DELASEM, and Jewish voluntary organizations such as the JDC. As for possible resettlement options, both the Allied governments and intergovernmental agencies remained almost helpless, advocating the attitude of inaction that had already been shown from the Évian Conference in 1938. In 1944, while still maintaining centralized control, the military authorities progressively entered into agreements with national institutions, intergovernmental refugee agencies, and international humanitarian organizations, sharing with them the responsibility for the post-war refugee crisis. In Italy, the emerging anti-Fascist coalition looked at the care of the refugees not only as an immediate emergency but also as a premise for the political, social, and moral reconstruction of the country. The negotiations between the Italian government and the UNRRA delegates showed that the former was most anxious to reformulate the draft of the agreement in such a way as to underline its joint character, thereby emphasizing Italy’s participation on equal terms in a UN undertaking.117 Under different circumstances and for different reasons, the issue of ­refugees became again for Italy a tool for negotiating foreign relations. On the one hand, dealing with national refugees would help Italy to rebuild its identity, recover its domestic economy, rethink its welfare system, and finally affirm its national sovereignty over the British military occupation. On the other hand, Italy’s involvement in the management of the international refugees would offer it the opportunity to redefine and renew its position in international politics.118 As demonstrated by historiography, the growing number of Jewish DPs in the refugee camps in post-war Italy would be approached by the Italian government as a chance to atone for the country’s recent past. Later, moreover, by silently supporting the Jewish DPs’ illegal departures organized by the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet, the anti-Fascist leadership aimed to gain the goodwill and aid of the United States, a relationship seen as vital for economic recovery and advancement both in the international forums and in the peace negotiations. Indeed, the occupation and the conditions offered to the Italians in the peace treaty made the British very unpopular and motivated the Italian government to not interfere with the underground activities of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet under the assumption that this would help to align Italy with the United States.119

The liberation of southern Italy  33 In this context, Italy became the main target of many Jewish survivors, most of whom saw Palestine as a concrete opportunity to start a new life. After the end of the war, about 2,000 Jewish DPs per month managed to cross the Italian borders, often with the help from Jewish soldiers. The “new refugees” were Eastern European Holocaust survivors, mostly of Polish origin, who contributed to making the Jewish DPs the biggest and most challenging group of international refugees in Italy between 1945 and 1948. Notes 1 Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, New York and Jerusalem (hereafter AJDC), Excerpts from Letter from Arthur Greenleigh, 22.10.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716, Italy, Administration, General, 1943-1945 2 Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (London: Penguin, 1990), 11–17. 3 For an in-depth analysis of the facts that led to the armistice of 8 September 1943, see Elena Aga-Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando. L’armistizio italiano del settembre 1943 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993). 4 Besides supervising the execution of the terms of the armistice agreement, the ACC aimed to organize military government operations in direct support of combat troops, providing immediate help to civilians in order to prevent disease and unrest, preparing the governmental administration and economy for a return to civilian control, and mediating between the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and the Italian government. David W. ­Ellwood, L’alleato nemico. La politica dell’occupazione anglo-americana in Italia 1943–1946 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1977), 43–47. 5 Under the ACC, liberated Italy was gradually divided into three main control areas: (1) Southern Italy, including Sicily, Calabria, part of Puglia, Basilicata, and Campania, with headquarters in Naples; (2) Central Italy, including ­Sardinia, rest of Puglia, Molise, Lazio, Umbria, Tuscany, Abruzzi, and Marche, with headquarters in Rome; and (3) Northern Italy, including Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Piedmont, Lombard, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Trentino-Alto Adige, with headquarters in Milan. See Archivio Centrale di Stato, Rome [­Central Archives of the State] (hereafter ACS), A.C.C. P.W. & U. Sub. Com., Control Areas and Regions, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 5B, Displaced Persons Sub-Commission, October 1943–February 1944. 6 Claudio Pavone, A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance, trans. Peter Levy and David Broder (London and New York: Verso, 2014). 7 The Atlas of Nazi and Fascist massacres traces more than 5,000 episodes, see www.straginazifasciste.it/ (accessed January 2023). 8 On deportation from Italy between 1943 and 1945, see Michele Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to Persecution, trans. John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 178–211; Liliana Picciotto Fargion, Il libro della memoria: Gli ebrei deportati dall’Italia (1943–1945) (Milan: Mursia, 2002), 28, and its related database www.cdec.it/ ebrei-vittime-della-shoah-in-italia-1943–1945 (accessed January 2023); Liliana Picciotto, “The Anti-Jewish Policy of the Italian Social Republic,” Yad Vashem Studies 17 (1986): 17–49. 9 It would be impossible to provide a complete bibliography of the existing studies of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish persecutions in Italy here. Among others, see the bibliographical review in Enzo Collotti and Marta Baiardi, ed., Shoah

34  The liberation of southern Italy e deportazione. Guida bibliografica (Rome: Carocci, 2011); for an essay that analyses the development of the historiographical debate on the Fascist antiJewish persecution after the Second World War, see Ilaria Pavan, “Gli storici italiani e la Shoah,” in Storia della Shoah in Italia, ed. Simon Levis Sullam, Enzo Traverso, Marie Anne Matard Bonucci, and Marcello Flores (Turin: Utet, 2010), 133–64; for a study that emphasizes the need to include the examination of racial policy and anti-Jewish persecutions within the history of Fascism, see Enzo Collotti, Il fascismo e gli ebrei. Le leggi razziali in Italia (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 2003); onthe origins and evolution of the anti-Jewish persecution in Italy, see Michele Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione (Turin: Einaudi, 2018 [a translation of the previous edition of this book is available in English: Sarfatti, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy]); see also Shira Klein, Italy’s Jews: From Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 85-130. For the Jewish internment and deportation from the RSI to Nazi concentration camps, see Matteo Stefanori, Ordinaria amministrazione. Gli ebrei e la Repubblica sociale italiana (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 2017); Simon Levis Sullam, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018); and Picciotto, Il libro della memoria. 10 Non-Italian Jews liberated in Italy before the end of the war were known as “old refugees,” a term which distinguished them from the “new refugees,” arriving after May 1945. This definition was first used by the Palestinian Jewish soldiers serving in the Allied Army to refer to those Jewish refugees who were in Italy before 1945, afterwards it was adopted by this group of Jewish refugees to refer to themselves. 11 Eugene M. Kulischer, Europe on the Move: War and Population Changes, 1917–47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), 191; John Hope ­Simpson, The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 139–42 and 148–49. 12 Immediately after National Socialism’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, the League of Nations formed temporary commissions in order to handle problems related to refugees escaping from German-controlled territories. In O ­ ctober 1933, the League of Nations founded the High Commission for Refugees ­Coming from Germany. This commission was in charge of negotiating and executing an international plan to solve the problems caused by the increasing influx of German refugees (and, from 1938, Austrians) into neighbouring countries. However, the high commissioner, James McDonald, was unable to find a solution, and this impasse led him to resign in 1935. See Jacques Vernant, The ­Refugee in the Post-War World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953), 24–26. 13 For the Évian Conference, held in Évian-les-Bains, France, on 6–15 July 1938, see Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 170–72 and 214–16; Paul R. Bartrop, The Evian Conference of 1938 and the Jewish Refugee Crisis (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); Diane Afoumado, Indésirables 1938: la conférence d’Évian et les réfugiés juifs (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2018). For the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, see Marrus, Unwanted, 171; Vernant, Refugee, 26; Tommie Sjöberg, The Powers and the Persecuted: The Refugee Problem and the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) 1938–1947 (Lund: Lund University Press, 1991). 14 After the failure of both the proposed partition of Palestine in 1937 by the ­British Royal Commission headed by William Robert Peel and the St. James ­Conference in 1939, the British government decided to act unilaterally with regard to the Arab revolts in Palestine at that time. The 1939 White Paper announced the ­British policy until the end of the Mandate: it limited aliyah for the following five

The liberation of southern Italy  35 years to 75,000 individuals, 15,000 per year. On illegal immigration to Palestine during the Second World War, see Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939–1944 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 15 On the Jewish migration in Italy during the 1930s and the early 1940s, see: Klaus Voigt, Il rifugio precario. Gli esuli in Italia dal 1933 al 1945, vol. 1 (­Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1993). 16 Entrance into Italy was denied to those who were listed in the registro di frontiera (border register), which, after 1936, included names supplied by the ­German Gestapo, mainly political opponents. See Voigt, Rifugio, 1:36–47. On the work situation of Jewish exiles in Italy, see Voigt, Rifugio, 1:42–44 and 150–86. For an overview of the situation of the non-Italian Jewish students, see Voigt, Rifugio, 1:220–28. On the impact of anti-Semitic legislation on Jewish foreign students in Italy, see, for example, Valeria Galimi and Procacci Giovanni, ed., “Per la difesa della razza.” L’applicazione delle leggi antiebraiche nelle università italiane (Milan: Unicopli, 2009). On the Nazi policy regarding exports of capital and currency, see Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933–1943 (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1989). On the bilateral agreement between Germany and Italy and its development, see Voigt, Rifugio, 1:29–36. 17 For a detailed analysis of the Italian refugee and migration policy from unification to the collapse of the Fascist regime, see Marij Leenders, “From Inclusion to Exclusion: Refugees and Immigrants in Italy Between 1861 and 1943,” Immigrants & Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora 14 (1995): 115–38. 18 Voigt, Rifugio, 1:12, 40; Leenders, “From Inclusion to Exclusion,” 132–33. 19 Paul Baxa argues that this shift in the Fascist government’s policy began with Hitler’s visit to Italy in March 1938: see Baxa, “Capturing the Fascist Moment: Hitler’s Visit to Italy in 1938 and the Radicalization of Fascist Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 42 (2007): 228. 20 Michele Sarfatti, I confine di una persecuzione. Il fascismo e gli ebrei fuori dall’Italia (1938-1943), (Rome: Viella, 2023), 81-88. 21 Leenders, “From Inclusion to Exclusion,” 132; Alessandra Minerbi, “Il decreto legge del 7 settembre 1938 sugli ebrei stranieri,” La rassegna mensile di Israel 73 (2007): 169–186 (special issue in the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the promulgation of the racial law). 22 Klaus Voigt, Il rifugio precario. Gli esuli in Italia dal 1933 al 1945, vol. 2 (­Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1996), 2–3. 23 Voigt, Rifugio, 2:2–3. 24 The Fascist government implemented two forms of civilian internment. The first was the so-called internamento libero (“free internment”), which consisted of the obligation to reside in certain localities, typically small villages located in the most remote and impoverished areas of the country. Internees in villages had limited freedom of movement and were required to go to the local carabinieri (police) station every day to sign a register in order to certify their presence in the designated internment location. The second option, internment in concentration camps, forced internees to move to specific structures: either buildings that had been converted for this purpose or real camps with barracks. Between 1940 and 1943, the Ministry of the Interior operated approximately fifty concentration camps for civilians, twenty of which were opened after 1942 in order to intern civilians deported from the Italian-occupied territories in Yugoslavia. For an analysis of the Fascist system of civilian internment and a map of the Fascist concentration camps in Italy, see Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, I campi del duce. L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista (1940–1943) (Turin: Einaudi,

36  The liberation of southern Italy 2004) (English version: Mussolini’s Camps: Civilian Internment in Fascist Italy (1940–1943), trans. Norma Bouchard and Valerio Ferme [London: Routledge, 2019]). On Fascism and the Jews in Italian-occupied territories and colonies, Sarfatti, Confini; Davide Rodogno, Il nuovo ordine mediterraneo: le politiche di occupazione dell’Italia fascista (1940–1943) (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002), 397–431. 25 Voigt, Rifugio, 2:89. 26 Voigt, Rifugio, 2:94. For statistics and lists of non-Italian Jews interned in Italy and Italian-occupied territories, see Anna Pizzuti’s databases available at www. annapizzuti.it (accessed January 2023). 27 Voigt, Rifugio, 2:94. 28 DELASEM was originally established by the Union of Italian Jewish Community (UCII) in 1939 in order to help Jewish migrants escaping the Nazi territories, as the result of previous self-help committees established by Italian Jewry since the early 1930s to help Jews escaping Nazi-controlled territories. For the history of DELASEM, see: Settimio Sorani, L’assistenza ai profughi ebrei in Italia (1933–1941). Contributo alla storia della DELASEM (Roma: Carucci, 1983); Sandro Antonini, DelAsEm: storia della più grande organizzazione ebraica italiana di soccorso durante la seconda guerra mondiale (Genova: De Ferrari, 2000). Israel Kalk (1904–1980) was a Lithuanian Jew emigrated to Italy in the 1920s in order to have access to academic studies who eventually established himself in Milan, where he founded the “Children’s Canteen” in order to provide help to Jewish children and their families between 1940 and 1943, see: Klaus Voigt, Israel Kalk e i figli dei profughi ebrei in Italia (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1990). About the help provided by Italian Jewry to internees in Ferramonti, see Voigt, Rifugio, 1:375–416. 29 In Ferramonti di Tarsia, the Fascist regime predominantly interned non-Italian Jews, who always made up at least 75% of the camp’s population. According to Voigt, in August 1941, there were 1,208 Jews, mostly Germans and Austrians (40%), while two years later, there were 1,505 Jews. See Voigt, Rifugio, 2:202–03. For a detailed analysis of the concentration camp at Ferramonti di Tarsia, see Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, Ferramonti. La vita e gli uomini del più grande campo d’internamento fascista (1940–1945) (Florence: Giuntina, 1987). 30 Capogreco, Ferramonti, 56–62. 31 The Pentcho was a Bulgarian steamboat that had been equipped to sail to ­Palestine by the leader of the Betar (a Revisionist Zionist movement), Alexander Citrom. With hundreds of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe on board, it left Bratislava at the end of April 1940. After months of difficult navigation on the Danube River, the ship reached the Black Sea in October 1940. Soon afterwards, due to a mechanical failure, the Pentcho was shipwrecked near the small Greek island of Kamilonisi. All the passengers succeeded in reaching the shore, while a small group of them took to sea in a lifeboat in order to seek help. An Allied naval convoy found the lifeboat and debarked the small group of Jews in Alexandria (Egypt) while sending out an SOS to rescue the survivors on the Greek island. On 18 October 1940, an Italian Army ship reached Kamilonisi: the shipwrecked people were deported to a makeshift camp in Rhodes and then interned on another small Greek island. The Jewish refugees remained there until early 1942, when the Italian government decided to transfer them to Italy. They arrived in Bari in two convoys – the first in February and the second in March 1942 – and from there, they were moved to Ferramonti. Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust, 85–88; Capogreco, Ferramonti, 99–108. 32 Capogreco, Ferramonti, 114. 33 Vernant, Refugee, 182–83. 34 ACS, Amgot Fantox, 24.7.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A, AMGOT, Refugees, July 1943–October 1943.

The liberation of southern Italy  37 35 ACS, Displaced Population and Groups in Italy, 5.7.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A; ACS, Amgot Fantox, 24.7.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A. 36 Although in the following years, the UN refugee agencies slightly changed these guidelines, nationality was the consistent criteria determining eligibility or ineligibility for receiving international or national assistance. 37 ACS, Displaced Population and Groups in Italy, 5.7.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A. 38 ACS, Provisional Directive Governing the Functions of Internees and Displaced Persons Sub-Commission, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A. 39 ACS, Internees and Displaced Persons Sub-Commission, 11.11.943, UA – ­Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A. 40 ACS, Conditions of the Jews in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, 30.1.1944, Reel n. 104F, Jews in Italy, December 1943–March 1944. 41 ACS, Conditions of the Jews in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, 30.1.1944, Reel n. 104F. 42 On the arrival of the Jewish soldiers in Libya, see Maurice M. Roumani, The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement (Brighton: Sussex Academy Press, 2008), 41–45. For the history of the Jewish volunteers from ­Palestine that enlisted in the British Army, see Yoav Gelber, Toldot Ha-Hitnadvut [The History of Volunteering] (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 1979). For a broader overview on the response of the Yishuv to the Holocaust and its rescue policy, see Dina Porat, The Blue and Yellow Stars of David: The Zionist Leadership in Palestine and the Holocaust, 1939–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990); Dina Porat, Israeli Society, the Holocaust and Its Survivors (London and Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008); Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust. 43 In October 1944, some of the Jewish units merged into the Jewish Brigade, finally authorized by an agreement signed by Churchill and Roosevelt in S­ eptember 1944 at the request of the Jewish Agency. For the history of the Jewish Brigade, see Morris Beckman, The Jewish Brigade: An Army with Two Masters, 1944– 1945 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1998); see moreover Yehuda Bauer, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970), 62–64. 44 In April 1941, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria invaded Yugoslavia. In particular, Germany annexed northern and eastern Slovenia and occupied Serbia; Hungary annexed Vojvodina; and Bulgaria occupied Macedonia. In May 1941, Italy annexed three separated territories in Yugoslavia: Fiume (now Rijeka) and its south-eastern coast, the southern part of Slovenia, including Ljubljana, and part of the Dalmatian coast, including Zara, Split, and the islands. Italy attached Kosovo-Metohija to Albania, which it had annexed in April 1939. At the time of the Axis occupation, the widest and most cohesive independent political entity in Yugoslavia was the Independent State of Croatia led by the Ustaša, a Fascist, racist, and ultranationalist movement.. 45 While in January 1941, almost half of the Jews interned by the Fascist regime were Germans and Austrians, in the last stage of the internment (spring 1943), more than one-third of the Jews interned in Italy were Yugoslavs: see Voigt, Rifugio, 2:97. For the attitude of the Fascist government towards Jewish refugees in Italian zones of occupation in Yugoslavia, see Rodogno, Nuovo ordine, 447–59. 46 Carlo Spartaco Capogreco, “L’inferno e il rifugio di Arbe. Slavi ed ebrei in un campo di concentramento italiano, tra fascismo, Resistenza e Shoah,” Mondo contemporaneo 2 (2017): 35–85. For an analysis of the negotiations between the Italian government and the Nazis/Ustaša related to this group of Croatian Jews, see Rodogno, Nuovo ordine, 453–59. 47 Capogrepo, Campi del Duce, 269–71.

38  The liberation of southern Italy 48 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. (hereafter USHMM), Oral History Interview with Ivo Herzer, 13.09.1989, RG Number: RG-50.030.0097, tape 2, 00:57–05:20 (accessed January 2023). Ivo Herzer was also a researcher on the role of Italians in saving Jews from the Holocaust, see Ivo Herzer, The Italian Refuge: Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust (­Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989). 49 Voigt, Rifugio, 2:524. 50 Yugoslav refugees who had been transferred to Egypt came under the mandate of the Middle East Relief and Refugee Administration (MERRA): see Voigt, Rifugio, 2:524; for the Yugoslav partisans in liberated Puglia, see Francesco ­Terzulli, “Torre Tresca a Bari: Un campo per displaced persons di lunga durata (1943–1950),” in Bari rifugio dei profughi nell’Italia libera. Campi e centri di raccolta tra emergenza e normalizzazione (1943–1951), ed. Anna Gervasio, Vito Antonio Leuzzi, Raffaele Pellegrino, Francesco Terzulli, and Cristina ­Vitulli (Bari: Edizioni dal Sud, 2018), 107–29; Vito Antonio Leuzzi, “Occupazione alleata, ex internati ebrei e slavi in Puglia dopo l’8 settembre 1943,” in La Puglia dell’accoglienza. Profughi, rifugiati e rimpatriati nel Novecento, ed. Vito ­Antonio Leuzzi and Giulio Esposito (Bari: Progedit, 2006), 87–88; for the Yugoslavs moved to Egypt, see Florian Bieber, “Building Yugoslavia in the Sand? Dalmatian Refugees in Egypt,” Slavic Review 79 no. 2 (2020), 298–322. 51 Voigt, Rifugio, 2:526. 52 ACS, Internees and Displaced Persons Sub-Commission, 11.11.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A. 53 For an overview of the refugee camps in Italy, see Costantino Di Sante, “I campi profughi in Italia (1943–1947),” in Naufraghi della pace: Il 1945, i profughi e le memorie divise d’Europa, ed. Guido Crainz, Raoul Pupo, and Silvia Salvatici (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2008), 143–56. 54 Vito Antonio Leuzzi, “Le strade della liberazione. Bari centro dei profughi di diverse nazionalità,” in Bari rifugio, 21–26. 55 This was established in an area of the city called Torre Tresca. In 1946, the Allies opened Bari Palese Transit Camp n. 197 with the purpose of hosting the Jewish DPs who had been moved from the DP camps in Lecce province, which closed in spring 1947. Moreover, there were also camps for Tito’s partisans in Gravina e Altamura, a transit camp in Tuturano (closed in July 1944) for Jews in Yugoslavia waiting to be transferred to static DP camps in Lecce province, an embarkation camp in Taranto for ships departing for Egypt. See Terzulli, “Torre Tresca,” 80–82; Cristina Vitulli, “Profughi ebrei nei campi di Palese, Trani, Barletta,” in Bari rifugio, 251–92. 56 In many archival sources, the village “Santa Maria al Bagno” is referred to as “Santa Maria di Bagni” and “Di Bagni,” or “Santa Croce,” which indicates a specific area in the village. Throughout this book, I use the name “Santa Maria al Bagno.” 57 AJDC, Extract from a Letter Written by a Captain in a Palestinian Jewish ­Military Unit in Italy, 18.12.1943, NY AR 193344/4/36/2/720, Italy, Refugees, General, 1943–1945. 58 Haganah, which means “defence” in Hebrew, was the main paramilitary organization of the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948. 59 On the implementation of the racial law and the Jewish internment during the Italian occupation of Libya, see Renzo De Felice, Ebrei in un paese arabo. Gli ebrei nella Libia contemporanea tra colonialismo, nazionalismo arabo e sionismo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1978), 259–284 and the most recent contribution by Jens Hoppe, “The Persecution of Jews in Libya between 1938 and 1945: An Italian Affair?,” in The Holocaust and North Africa, ed. Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 50–75.

The liberation of southern Italy  39 60 Archives of the Oral History Division of the Hebrew University of ­Jerusalem (hereafter OHD), Yiehiel Duvdevani’s Interview, 16.11.1965, 4 (70), H ­ a-Brichah, 39:00 (accessed online in January 2023). 61 For an analysis of the role played by the American Jewish chaplains among the Jewish survivors in Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, see Alex Grobman, Rekindling the Flame. American Jewish Chaplains and the Survivors of European Jewry, 1944–1948 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 12. 62 AJDC, The Following Is an Excerpt from a Letter Written by Chaplain Samuel Teitelbaum, Dated the 21st of April, 1944, and Addressed to Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein…, 4.10.1943, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720. 63 Efraim Elimelech Urbach was born in Poland in 1912. Though he belonged to a Hasidic family, he received a general education, and at the age of eighteen, he enrolled at the Breslau Rabbinic Seminary. In 1933, because of the Nazi rise to power, Urbach moved to Italy, where he completed his doctorate in 1935. He returned to Breslau to teach at the seminary until 1938, when he left for Palestine. He entered the country by means of a certificate stating that he was a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Rabbi Urbach joined the Haganah, and in 1941, he enlisted to join the British Army as a volunteer. Encouraged by Moshe Shertok and Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog, Urbach became a British Army chaplain in July 1942. For his experience in North Africa and Italy during and after the Second World War, see his memoirs: Efraim Elimelech Urbach, Reshimot be-yemei ha-milḥamah: yomano shel rav ereẓ -isra’eli be- ẓavah ha-briti, 1942–1944 [Notes on Days of War: Diary of a Rabbi from Eretz Israel in the British Army] (Tel Aviv: Midrash Ha-Bitaḥon, 2008). 64 USHMM, Pratei-kol mi-yeshivat va’adat ha-plitim ha-ezori asher hitkayemah be-29.1.44 [Reports of the Meeting of the Regional Committee Which Took Place on 1 January 1944], R.G. 2011.427.10 Documents Related to Displaced Persons in Italy; Central Archives for the History of Jewish People, Jerusalem (hereafter CAHJP), Urbach to Berman, 17.10.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5: Correspondence and memorandums (August 1943–February 1944); CAHJP, Urbach to Rabinowitz, 10.10.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5. 65 ACS, Jewish Refugees, 8.10.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 599B, Disposal Jewish Refugees, October 1943–February 1944. 66 CAHJP, Urbach to AMGOT, 21.11.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5. 67 CAHJP, Urbach to Brodie, 10.10.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5; CAHJP, Brodie to Urbach, 12.11.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5; CAHJP, Urbach to Rabinowitz, 14.11.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5. 68 CAHJP, Urbach to Brodetzky, 31.10.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 6: Refugees (October 1943–February 1944); CAHJP, Urbach to AMGOT, 21.11.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 5. 69 ACS, Conditions of the Jews in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, 30.1.1944, Reel n. 104F. 70 ACS, Italy: The Problem of the Displaced Persons, 27.7.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 9A. 71 ACS, Jewish Ex-Internees and Refugees, 26.12.1943, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 599B; ACS, Jews in Italy, 12.2.1944, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel n. 599B. 72 USHMM, Oral History Interview with Marcel Friedman, 12.09.1984, RG Number: RG-50.091.0020. 73 CAHJP, The Committee of Relations from the Pentcho Shipwreck in Palestine, 6.12.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11: Memorandum, bollettini e protocolli vari (December 1943–August 1944); CAHJP, The Jewish Agency Jerusalem, 6.12.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11. 74 USHMM, Pratei-kol mi-yeshivat va’adat ha-plitim ha-ezori asher hitkayemah be-29.1.44, RG 2011.427.10.

40  The liberation of southern Italy 75 ACS, Conditions of the Jews in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, 30.1.1944, Reel n. 104F; CAHJP, Joint Palestine Emigration Committee for Italy, Ferramonti, 14.12.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11. 76 The president of the JPEC was Elias Grünschlag, an Austrian Jew accommodated in Bari, who had been president of both the Gratz Jewish community and the Gratz Zionist organization and also a delegate of the 20th Zionist Congress (1937). The vice-president was Josef Milhofer, a Yugoslavian Jewish ex-internee of Ferramonti, who had been secretary of the Zionist Association in Yugoslavia and among the leaders of the Association of Jewish Youth in Yugoslavia. The secretaries were Branko Grossmann and Dragutin Fried (both from Zagreb), who had been committee members of the Zionist organization in Zagreb and the ­ aestro League of Working Palestine. Other members of the JPEC were Josef M (treasurer), a Yugoslavian Jew, already a member of the Keren Kayement ­le-Isreal (KKL; i.e., the Jewish National Fund) and the Zionist Organization in Yugoslavia; Usher Dominitz, who had been a member of the Zionist Organization in Karlovy Vary (then in Czechoslovakia); Herbert Landau, a Jew from Fiume who played a leading role in the Ferramonti camp’s DPs community; and David A. Levi-Dale, secretary of the Union of the Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, vicepresident of the Zionist Organization in Belgrade, and editor of several Jewish newspapers. CAHJP, Members of the Joint Palestine Emigration Committee for Italy, 14.12.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11; ACS, Joint Palestine Emigration Committee Ferramonti, 2.1.1944, Reel n. 104F. 77 ACS, Conditions of the Jews in Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, 30.1.1944, Reel n. 104F. 78 According to a report from the Jewish soldiers in Bari, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim was established in mid-January 1944. See USHMM, Pratei-kol mi-yeshivat va’adat ha-plitim ha-ezori asher hitkayemah be-29.1.44, R.G. 2011.427.10; Hanokh Patishi, Maḥteret ba-madim: ha-“Haganah” ha-ereẓ-isra’eli be-ẓavah ha-britim 1939–1946 [Underground in Uniforms: The Haganah from Eretz Israel in the British Army 1939–1946] (Tel Aviv: Misrad Ha-Bitaḥon, 2006), 170–71; CAHJP, La-merkaz ha-yinianei ha-plitim be-yeḥidot ha-ivriot, Bari [To the Committee for Refugees’ Affairs at the Hebrew Units in Bari], 23.1.1944, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11. 79 USHMM, Ha-tipul be-no’ar be-Bari [Youth Care in Bari], 8.2.1944, R.G. 2011.427.10. 80 Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter CZA), Din ve-reshbon me-pe’ulot Merkaz Ha-Plitim be-Bari, Yanu’ar –Mertz 1944 [Reports of the Activities of the Merkaz Ha-Plitim in Bari from January to March 1944], S25/4719, Plitim ­me-‘Italiyah [Refugees from Italy], 1943–1944. 81 USHMM, Ha-tipul be-no’ar be-Bari, 8.2.1944, R.G. 2011.427.10. 82 CZA, Din ve-reshbon me-pe’ulot Merkaz Ha-Plitim be-Bari, Yanu’ar –Martẓ 1944, S25/4719. Youth Aliyah was started in Germany in 1932 by Recha Freier in order to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. In 1933, it was adopted as a special programme by the Jewish Agency under the direction of Henrietta Szold. By 1945, Youth Aliyah had brought around 25,000 children to Palestine, and between 1945 and 1948, another 16,000 managed to make aliyah (most of them illegally). See Brian Amkraut, Between Home and Homeland: Youth Aliyah from Nazi Germany (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006). 83 OHD, Zvi Ankuri’s Interview, June 1974, 8 (147), 1–3; CZA, Report on the Jewish Activities in Italy, 8.1.1945, S25/5279, Maẓav yehudei Italiah [Situation of the Jews in Italy] 1944–1945. 84 USHMM, Pratei-kol mi-yeshivat va’adat ha-plitim ha-ezori asher hitkayemah be-29.1.44, R.G. 2011.427.10. 85 USHMM, Skirah al-bikur be-maḥanot ha-plitim [Summary on the Visit to the Refugee Camps], 1.2.1944, R.G. 2011.427.10; CZA, Duaḥ me-peʿilut Merkaz

The liberation of southern Italy  41 Ha-Plitim be-Bari me-15 be-yanuar 1944 ad-15 be-marẓ 1944 [Report on the Activities of the Merkaz Ha-Plitim in Bari from 15 January to 15 March 1944], 28.3.1944, S25/4719. 86 CZA, Situation and Activities after the First Transport to Palestine, 8.7.1944, S25/22512, Tik Reuven Shiloach. Duḥot Mi-et Reuven Shiloach [Reuven Shiloach’s Folder. Reports from Reuven Shiloach] 1944. 87 CZA, Situation and Activities after the First Transport to Palestine, 8.7.1944, S25/22512. 88 USHMM, Duaḥ me-peʿilut Merkaz Ha-Plitim be-Bari me-15 be-yanuar 1944 ad-15 be-marẓ 1944, R.G. 2011.427.10. 89 USHMM, Pratei-kol mi-yeshivat va’adat ha-plitim ha-ezori asher hitkayemah be-29.1.44, RG 2011.427.10; CZA, Situation and Activities after the First Transport to Palestine, 8.7.1944, S25/22512. 90 Nino Contini (1906–1944): Quel ragazzo in gamba di nostro padre. Diario dal confino e da Napoli liberata, ed. Bruno Contini and Leo Contini (Florence: Giuntina, 2012), 244. 91 AJDC, Letter from Comitato Assistance to the American Red Cross War Relief in Italy, 11.11.1943, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720. 92 AJDC, Relief Work in Liberated Italy Is being Stepped Up, Joseph C. Hyman, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee…, 1.7.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720; CAHJP, Attività della DELASEM dopo l’8 settembre, 16.5.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11. 93 CAHJP, Attività della DELASEM dopo l’8 settembre, 16.5.1943, E.E. Urbach Archives P118, Folder 11. 94 AJDC, Letter from Patrick Murphy Malin to Sir Herbert Emerson, 24.2.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716, Italy. 95 AJDC, Memorandum: Inter Governmental Committee on Refugees in Italy and the Joint Distribution Committee, 9.6.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720. 96 This consideration is based on the analysis in AJDC, Letter from Max S. Perlman to Dr. Joseph Schwartz, Subject: Report for July, 28.8.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716; AJDC, Letter from Arthur D. Greenleigh to American Joint Distribution Committee, Lisbon, Subject: Report on Joint Distribution Committee Activities during Month of August 1944, 25.9.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716; AJDC, Letter from American Joint Distribution Committee, Rome to American Joint Distribution Committee, Lisbon, Subject: Financial and Statistical Report for Month of October, 1944, 9.11.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716; AJDC, Letter from Arthur D. Greenleigh to Allied Force Headquarters G-5 Section, Subject: Activities of the American Joint Distribution Committee in Italy, 19.9.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716. 97 AJDC, The Enormity of the Task Facing Relief Organizations in Liberated Europe Is Underscored by the Achievements of the Joint Distribution Committee…, 13.12.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720. 98 For an analysis of the re-establishment of the leadership of Italian Jewry after the liberation of Rome, see Guri Schwartz, Ritrovare se stessi. Gli ebrei nell’Italia postfascista (Bari: Laterza, 2004), 28–35; Guri Schwartz, “The Reconstruction of Jewish Life in Italy after World War II,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 8 (2009), 360–77. 99 On the establishment of the post-war government in Italy, see Elena Aga-Rossi, L’Italia nella sconfitta: Politica interna e situazione internazionale durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1985), 125–90. 100 One year later, the responsibility for Italian DPs passed to the Ministry of PostWar Relief, which by the second half of 1946 was administering eighty camps and had assisted 46,382 Italian refugees, half of whom were from North Africa and the other half of whom were Italians who had been internally displaced

42  The liberation of southern Italy because of the conflict. See Antonio D’Andrea, “Campi profughi, centri di ­lavoro, di ­studio e di educazione professionale,” in Atti del Convegno per studi ­ arzorati di assistenza sociale (Tremezzo, 16 settembre–6 ottobre 1946) (Milan: M Editore, 1947), 599–600. 101 This quotation comes from the official historiography of the UNRRA; see Woodbridge, UNRRA, 2: 257. For a profile of the UNRRA Observers’ Mission to Italy, see Salvatici Silvia, “‘Not Enough Food to Feed the People.’ L’UNRRA in Italia (1944–1945),” Contemporanea. Rivista di storia dell ‘800 e del ‘900 (2011): 86–90. 102 Silvia, “Not Enough Food,” 86–90. 103 Michele Affinito, ed., La storia della missione esplorativa dell’UNRRA in Italia (1944–1945) (Naples: Università degli studi Suor Orsola Benincasa, 2012), 221; Salvatici, “Not Enough Food,” 93. 104 See “Summary Report of the UNRRA Observer Mission to Italy, 15 September 1944, 11–17,” in Woodbridge, UNRRA, 2: 259. Wiener Library (hereafter WL), M 317/S36, UNRRA in Italy, ed. UNRRA (London: European Regional Office, 1946), 3. 105 AJDC, Letter from Arthur D. Greenleigh to Moses A. Leavitt, Subject: Unrra Negotiations, 20.11.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716. 106 AJDC, Letter from Alexander S. Hawes to S. M. Keeny, Subject: Request of Joint Distribution Committee, 9.11.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/716. 107 On the history of the War Refugee Board, see Rebecca Erbelding, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (New York: Doubleday, 2018). 108 AJDC, Establishing a War Refugee Board, 22.1.1944, NY AR194554/2/1/7/2052, Series: U.S. War Refugee Board, Folder: Reports, 1945. 109 The Fort Ontario group consisted of 369 Yugoslavians, 237 Austrians, 146 Poles, 96 Germans, 41 Czechs, and a smattering from among a dozen other nationalities; see Harvey Strum, “Fort Ontario Refugee Shelter, 1944–1946,” American Jewish History 73 (1984): 407. 110 USHMM, Oral History Interview with Evelyn Arzt Bergl, 13.11.2005, RG Number: RG-50.030.0498, Tape 6, 08:39–10:05 (accessed Janury 2023). 111 See, for instance, the following oral testimonies (accessed January 2023): USHMM, Oral History Interview with Ida Rudley, 5.4.1984, RG Number: RG-50.462.0097, tape 2; USHMM, Oral History Interview with Zdenka Levy, 25.3.1990, RG Number: RG-50.477.0339; USHMM, Oral History Interview with Walter Greenberg, 6.8.1994, RG Number: RG-50.413.0024. 112 On the attitude of the Italian society towards non-Italian Jews under Fascism, see Valeria Galimi, Sotto gli occhi di tutti. La società italiana e le persecuzioni contro gli ebrei (Florence: Le Monnier, 2018), 37–57; on the myth of the “good Italian” see Bidussa David, Il Mito del Bravo Italiano (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1994) and Filippo Focardi, Il cattivo tedesco e il bravo italiano. La rimozione delle colpe della seconda guerra mondiale (Rome and Bari, Laterza: 2013). 113 Claudena M. Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 209. 114 Voigt, Rifugio, 1:37. 115 According to Rodogno, Mussolini’s policy in occupied territories was always influenced by his relationship with Hitler. Moreover, the Fascist government considered deportation to be a factor that could deeply damage Italian prestige in Europe and represent an anti-propagandistic move for the Balkan occupation policy; see Rodogno, Nuovo ordine, 432–35 and 459. 116 War Office (hereafter WO, accessed via “Post-war Europe: Refugees: Exile and Resettlement 1945–1950,” the digital collection of the UK National Archives at the Wiener Library, London), Replacement of Arthur Greenleigh and Max

The liberation of southern Italy  43 Perlman (JDC), October 22, 1944, WO 204/2759; AJDC, The Enormity of the Task Facing Relief Organizations in Liberated Europe Is Underscored by the Achievements of the Joint Distribution Committee…, 13.12.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720. 117 Woodbridge, UNRRA, 2: 261; for the agreement between UNRRA and the ­Italian government, see AJDC, Final Summary Report of the Executive Director, War Refugee Board, 15.9.1945, 61–69, appendix 7, NY AR194554/2/1/7/2052. 118 Pamela Ballinger, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the ­Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); Silvia Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 3 (2014): 514–536. 19 Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the 1 Emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 20–21.

Bibliography Affinito Michele ed., La storia della missione esplorativa dell’UNRRA in Italia (1944–1945) (Naples: Università degli studi Suor Orsola Benincasa, 2012). Aga-Rossi Elena, L’Italia nella sconfitta: Politica interna e situazione internazionale durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1985). Aga-Rossi Elena, Una nazione allo sbando. L’armistizio italiano del settembre 1943 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993). Amkraut Brian, Between Home and Homeland: Youth Aliyah from Nazi G ­ ermany (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0008938907000945. Antonini Sandro, DelAsEm: storia della più grande organizzazione ebraica italiana di soccorso durante la seconda guerra mondiale (Genova: De Ferrari, 2000). Ballinger Pamela, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the ­Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). Barkai Avraham, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933–1943 (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1989). Bartrop Paul R., The Evian Conference of 1938 and the Jewish Refugee Crisis (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcz007. Afoumado Diane, Indésirables 1938: la conférence d’Évian et les réfugiés juifs (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz984. Battini Michele, “Sins of Memory: Reflections on the Lack of an Italian Nuremberg and the Administration of International Justice after 1945,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9, no. 3 (2004): 349–62, 10.1080/1354571042000254764. Bauer Yehuda, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970). Baxa Paul, “Capturing the Fascist Moment: Hitler’s Visit to Italy in 1938 and the Radicalization of Fascist Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 42 (2007): 227–42, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009407075544. Beckman Morris, The Jewish Brigade: An Army with Two Masters, 1944–1945 ­(Staplehurst: Spellmount, 1998). Bidussa David, Il Mito del Bravo Italiano (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1994). Bieber Florian, “Building Yugoslavia in the Sand? Dalmatian Refugees in Egypt,” Slavic Review 79 no. 2, (2020), 298–322, https://doi.org/10.1017/slr.2020.85. Capogreco Carlo Spartaco, “L’inferno e il rifugio di Arbe. Slavi ed ebrei in un campo di concentramento italiano, tra fascismo, Resistenza e Shoah,” Mondo contemporaneo 2 (2017): 35–85, 10.3280/MON2017-002002.

44  The liberation of southern Italy Capogreco Carlo Spartaco, I campi del duce. L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista (1940–1943) (Turin: Einaudi, 2004) (English version: Mussolini’s Camps: Civilian Internment in Fascist Italy (1940–1943), trans. Norma Bouchard and Valerio Ferme [London: Routledge, 2019]), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429446207. Capogreco Carlo Spartaco, Ferramonti. La vita e gli uomini del più grande campo d’internamento fascista (1940–1945) (Florence: Giuntina, 1987). Collotti Enzo and Baiardi Marta, ed., Shoah e deportazione. Guida bibliografica (Rome: Carocci, 2011). Collotti Enzo, Il fascismo e gli ebrei. Le leggi razziali in Italia (Rome and Bari: ­Laterza, 2003). Contini Bruno and Contini Leo, ed., Nino Contini (1906–1944): Quel ragazzo in gamba di nostro padre. Diario dal confino e da Napoli liberata (Florence: Giuntina, 2012). D’Andrea Antonio, “Campi profughi, centri di lavoro, di studio e di educazione professionale,” in Atti del Convegno per studi di assistenza sociale (Tremezzo, 16 settembre – 6 ottobre 1946) (Milan: Marzorati Editore, 1947), 599–600. De Felice Renzo, Ebrei in un paese arabo. Gli ebrei nella Libia contemporanea tra colonialismo, nazionalismo arabo e sionismo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1978). Di Sante Costantino, “I campi profughi in Italia (1943–1947),” in Naufraghi della pace: Il 1945, i profughi e le memorie divise d’Europa, ed. Guido Crainz, Raoul Pupo, and Silvia Salvatici (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2008), 143–56. Ellwood David W., L’alleato nemico. La politica dell’occupazione anglo-americana in Italia 1943–1946 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1977). Erbelding Rebecca, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (New York: Doubleday, 2018). Focardi Filippo, Il cattivo tedesco e il bravo italiano. La rimozione delle colpe della seconda guerra mondiale (Rome and Bari, Laterza: 2013).. Galimi Valeria, Sotto gli occhi di tutti. La società italiana e le persecuzioni contro gli ebrei (Florence: Le Monnier, 2018). Galimi Valeria and Giovanni Procacci, ed., “Per la difesa della razza.” L’applicazione delle leggi antiebraiche nelle università italiane (Milan: Unicopli, 2009). Gelber Yoav, Toldot Ha-Hitnadvut [The History of Volunteering] (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 1979). Ginsborg Paul, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (London: Penguin, 1990). Grobman Alex, Rekindling the Flame. American Jewish Chaplains and the Survivors of European Jewry, 1944–1948 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 12. Herzer Ivo, The Italian Refuge: Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989). Hoppe Jens, “The Persecution of Jews in Libya between 1938 and 1945: An Italian Affair?,” in The Holocaust and North Africa, ed. Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 50–75, https://doi. org/10.1515/9781503607064. Klein Shira, Italy’s Jews: From Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108539739. Kulischer Eugene M., Europe on the Move: War and Population Changes, 1917–47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948). Leenders Marij, “From Inclusion to Exclusion: Refugees and Immigrants in Italy between 1861 and 1943,” Immigrants & Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora 14 (1995): 115–138, https://doi.org/10.1080/026192 88.1995.9974857.

The liberation of southern Italy  45 Leuzzi Vito Antonio, “Occupazione alleata, ex internati ebrei e slavi in Puglia dopo l’8 settembre 1943,” in La Puglia dell’accoglienza. Profughi, rifugiati e rimpatriati nel Novecento, ed. Vito Antonio Leuzzi and Giulio Esposito (Bari: Progedit, 2006), 75–103. Levis Sullam Simon, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018), https://doi. org/10.1515/9780691184104. Marrus Michael R., The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Minerbi Alessandra, “Il decreto legge del 7 settembre 1938 sugli ebrei stranieri,” La rassegna mensile di Israel 73 (2007): 169–186. Ofer Dalia, Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939–1944 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Patishi Hanokh, Maḥteret ba-madim: ha-“Haganah” ha-ereẓ-isra’eli be-ẓavah ­ha-britim 1939–1946 [Underground in Uniforms: The Haganah from Eretz Israel in the British Army 1939–1946] (Tel Aviv: Misrad Ha-Bitaḥon, 2006). Pavan Ilaria, “Gli storici italiani e la Shoah,” in Storia della Shoah in Italia, ed. Simon Levis Sullam, Enzo Traverso, Marie Anne Matard Bonucci, and Marcello Flores (Turin: Utet, 2010), 133–64. Pavone Claudio, A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance, trans. Peter Levy and David Broder (London and New York: Verso, 2014). Picciotto Fargion Liliana, Il libro della memoria: Gli ebrei deportati dall’Italia (1943–1945) (Milan: Mursia, 2002). Picciotto Liliana, “The Anti-Jewish Policy of the Italian Social Republic,” Yad Vashem Studies 17 (1986): 17–49. Porat Dina, Israeli society, the Holocaust and Its survivors (London and Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008). Porat Dina, The Blue and Yellow Stars of David: The Zionist Leadership in Palestine and the Holocaust, 1939–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Rodogno Davide, Il nuovo ordine mediterraneo: le politiche di occupazione dell’Italia fascista (1940–1943) (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002). Roumani Maurice M., The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement (Brighton: Sussex Academy Press, 2008). Salvatici Silvia, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 3 (2014): 514–36. Sarfatti Michele, I confini di una persecuzione. Il fascismo e gli ebrei fuori dall’Italia (1938-1943), (Rome: Viella, 2023). Sarfatti Michele, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione (Turin: Einaudi, 2018). Sarfatti Michele, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From Equality to Persecution, trans. John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). Schwartz Guri, “The Reconstruction of Jewish Life in Italy after World War II,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 8 (2009): 360–77, http://doi. org/10.1080/14725880903263093. Schwartz Guri, Ritrovare se stessi. Gli ebrei nell’Italia postfascista (Bari: Laterza, 2004). Silvia Salvatici, “‘Not Enough Food to Feed the People.’ L’UNRRA in Italia (1944– 1945),” Contemporanea. Rivista di storia dell ’800 e del ‘900 (2011): 86–90, https://doi.org/10.1409/33679.

46  The liberation of southern Italy Simpson John Hope, The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1939). Sjöberg Tommie, The Powers and the Persecuted: The Refugee Problem and the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) 1938–1947 (Lund: Lund University Press, 1991). Skran Claudena M., Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Sorani Settimio, L’assistenza ai profughi ebrei in Italia (1933–1941). Contributo alla storia della DELASEM (Roma: Carucci, 1983). Stefanori Matteo, Ordinaria amministrazione. Gli ebrei e la Repubblica sociale italiana (Rome and Bari, Laterza, 2017). Strum Harvey, “Fort Ontario Refugee Shelter, 1944–1946,” American Jewish History 73 (1984): 398–421. Terzulli Francesco, “Torre Tresca a Bari: Un campo per displaced persons di lunga durata (1943–1950),” in Bari rifugio dei profughi nell’Italia libera. Campi e centri di raccolta tra emergenza e normalizzazione (1943–1951), ed. Anna Gervasio, Vito Antonio Leuzzi, Raffaele Pellegrino, Francesco Terzulli, and Cristina Vitulli (Bari: Edizioni dal Sud, 2018), 69–232. Urbach Efraim Elimelech, Reshimot be-yemei ha-milḥamah: yomano shel rav ereẓ  -isra’eli be- ẓavah ha-briti, 1942–1944 [Notes on Days of War: Diary of a Rabbi from Eretz Israel in the British Army] (Tel Aviv: Midrash Ha-Bitaḥon, 2008). Vernant Jacques, The Refugee in the Post-War World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953). Vitulli Cristina, “Profughi ebrei nei campi di Palese, Trani, Barletta,” in Bari rifugio dei profughi nell’Italia libera. Campi e centri di raccolta tra emergenza e normalizzazione (1943–1951), ed. Anna Gervasio, Vito Antonio Leuzzi, Raffaele Pellegrino, Francesco Terzulli, and Cristina Vitulli (Bari: Edizioni dal Sud, 2018), 251–92. Voigt Klaus, Il rifugio precario. Gli esuli in Italia dal 1933 al 1945, vol. 1 (Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1993). Voigt Klaus, Il rifugio precario. Gli esuli in Italia dal 1933 al 1945, vol. 2 (Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1996). Voigt Klaus, Israel Kalk e i figli dei profughi ebrei in Italia (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1990). Zertal Idith, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the ­Emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), https://doi. org/10.1525/9780520921719.

2 Living in the refugee camps, longing for “a new, quiet, and safe home”

The liberation of the concentration camps: a time of balance between life and death The impossible return home

We saw the Germans running back and forth. We knew that it was over, that this was the end. The only thing we didn’t know was what was going to happen afterwards. Were we going to make it or were we going to perish? […On the morning of 1 May 1945] we had a look far away, we saw tanks and uniforms […]. We had been looking for the American airplanes for so many months […]. We couldn’t believe ourselves that this could be the American army. We crawled through two kilometres of snow until we were at the edge of the road when we saw the first American. The tragedy hits you then and there. Then we knew that we had lost a lot. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to attend, that was all that was left.1 With these words, Moshe Fizsman – a Polish Jew born in 1921 – described his liberation from Dachau: a time of “balance between life and death,” a brief moment of excitement that soon turned into pain and loneliness. Since the German invasion of Poland, he had been forced to live in the ghetto in Radom (his hometown) and to perform forced labour to help his family survive. In August 1942, he was deported to the forced labour and extermination camp of Majdanek, near Lublin, where he spent the following two years until the summer of 1944. At that time, the Majdanek concentration camp was forcibly evacuated due to the rapid advance of the Red army, and Moshe Fizsman took part in several death marches which finally brought him to Dachau. When he was liberated in May 1945, he knew that only his oldest brother Samuel had survived of his entire family. Moshe did not even try to go back home, as many Jews who survived the concentration camps vainly attempted after liberation. Instead, he smuggled himself into Italy, sneaking into a group of Italian veterans who were returning home. He spent four years there as a DP, and hoping to leave Europe as soon as possible, he DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281-3

48  Living in the refugee camps applied for resettlement in Argentina, the United States, or Australia. Only in 1949 was he finally able to start a new chapter of his life in Melbourne. Historians have estimated that the around 90,000 Jews who were in the concentration camps at the moment of liberation represented less than onethird of the total number of prisoners liberated by the Allied army in 1945. Thousands of them continued to die from starvation and disease even after the Allies’ arrival, leaving between 60,000 and 70,000 remaining. More or less the same number survived the war in the forced labour camps, in hiding, or thanks to the help of Jewish partisans. In addition, there were another 250,000 of the approximately 400,000 Eastern European Jews who had fled into the Soviet Union, especially to Central Asia, whom the Soviets had allowed to return home at the end of the war.2 For those who had survived, the end of the war did not mean either the natural recovery of their pre-war life or the immediate reconstruction of a new existence. The return to daily life was a long and complex process influenced by several factors: individual needs, the global geopolitical evolution of the post-war years, and the emerging international politics of dealing with war refugees and humanitarian issues. In 1945, there were some twenty million people on the move in Europe. They were the result not only of the six-year conflict but also of the peace treaties, redefinitions of state borders, and establishment of new national governments in post-war Europe. In this context, the Allies were facing the largest refugee crisis in history, coping with about twelve million ethnic Germans who had been expelled from their homelands east of Germany’s 1937 borders and around another seven million people who were classified as DPs, the majority of whom were found in the refugee camps of Germany, Austria, and Italy. However, by summer 1945, the collaboration between the Allies and the UNRRA sped up the repatriation procedure, and impressively, by September 1945, around six million DPs had been repatriated, leaving “only” one million in the refugee camps.3 The non-repatriable DPs were mainly (1) nonJews from Poland and the Soviet territory who had been deported by the Nazis to the forced labour camps during the war and who now opposed repatriation because of their political differences with the new regimes in their home countries; (2) Eastern Europeans (Poles, Ukrainians, Russian, and Balts) who had volunteered to work for the Nazis during the war and who now feared persecution in their countries of origin; and (3) Jews, who – as reported by the UNRRA – whatever their country of origin form[ed] a particular group, in that with the awful knowledge that they [were] practically the sole survivors of their people […] their only thought [was] to leave Europe for ever, and to start anew, if possible in Palestine.4 For the last million DPs, the Allies and the UNRRA set up the refugee camps that varied in size and location. The military authorities adapted the former

Living in the refugee camps  49 concentration camps, requisitioned hotels, private buildings, monasteries, hospitals, sanatoriums, and schools and assembled barrack and tent cities. These transit sites became temporary homes to non-repatriable DPs, who started to settle into their new lives, receiving the necessary care from UN agencies in cooperation with a network of humanitarian organizations. When UNRRA started its mission in Italy, in March 1945, there were 5,000 to 6,500 DPs accommodated in the refugee camps located in the southern regions and another 6,000 DPs who were receiving assistance in the form of either cash or supplies outside the camps. However, the number of people receiving assistance inside and outside the camps grew considerably.5 In liberated Europe, thousands of Jews who had survived the war in one way or another tried to return home during summer 1945 but poured into the refugee camps on realizing that their communities had been annihilated, their properties had been occupied, their relatives had died or been displaced, and that anti-Semitism was still so widespread that it would be extremely unsafe and painful for them to resettle there. In the Allies’ definition, these were the so-called infiltrees or post-hostilities refugees, whose status had been differently interpreted according to the administration of the occupation zones in Europe. A minority of them were former partisans, while a larger number were Polish Jews who had survived in the Soviet Union and returned home in 1945 and 1946, most of whom were attempting to reach the American zones of occupation in order to obtain DP status.6 As a consequence, in the autumn of 1945, the Jewish DP population in the refugee camps had completely changed its profile: concentration camp survivors constituted a minority, while the majority were Eastern European Jews who had endured other traumatic experiences during the war outside of the Nazi camps. Henceforth, Jews in the refugee camps made up an increasingly noticeable portion of the DP population and were beginning to strengthen their representative organizations, which had already emerged underground in the concentration camps in the last phase of the war. She’erit Ha-Pleitah and the Harrison Report By the end of 1944, when the German collapse was coming to be perceived as a palpable possibility, groups of Jews in the concentration camps began to establish underground organizations for mutual help, looking forward to their liberation by the Allies. These initiatives stemmed from young activists, partisans, and Zionists, who between late 1944 and the end of the war paved the way for the ideological foundation of what is known as the She’erit ­Ha-Pleitah. This term was used for the first time in Nitzotz (“the Spark”), the underground bulletin of the Irgun Brit Zion youth movement in the Kovno (Kaunas) ghetto, which appeared in Kaufering (a sub-camp in Dachau) in late 1944.7 On that occasion, She’erit Ha-Pleitah was used by the Jews who had been deported from Kovno to refer to “those who would hopefully survive.” Later, on the eve of liberation, this biblical formula was adopted and updated

50  Living in the refugee camps by Jews in the refugee camps in order to ambivalently refer to themselves as “the surviving remnant” and “the saved remnant.”8 In the immediate aftermath of the war, moreover, the term “She’erit Ha-Pleitah” was enlarged to refer to the collective identity of those who had survived the Holocaust and who were striving to rebuild their lives outside Europe. According to Zeev Mankowitz, the constitution of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah was the result of the tireless resistance of the survivors of the Lithuanian ghettos, who had been deported westward by the Germans in the face of the Red army’s advance between the second half of 1944 and the beginning of 1945. At that time, clandestine groups began to operate in Buchenwald, among whom a group of Jews managed to establish a Jewish organization, which founded a mutual aid committee soon after the liberation. This was named the Jewish Self-Help Committee, providing care in a temporary hospital, assisting children, and supplying food and accommodation to survivors.9 Similarly, in Dachau, the deportees from the Kovno ghetto set up an underground organization aiming to maintain morale and to plan for the future, establishing a rescue centre in the nearby monastery of St. Ottilien. Among the prominent figures in the Kovno group was Leib (Leon) Garfunkel, who in November 1945 became the leader of the Organization of the Jewish ­Refugees in Italy (OJRI).10 From May 1945, the arrival of Allied Jewish soldiers and chaplains sped up the organization of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah in Germany. In particular, Rabbi Abraham Klausner was a moving force in this regard: he fully grasped the Jewish survivors’ need to reunite families whenever possible and to establish an official representative organization that was able to express their requests and desires through a sound and unifying leadership. On 1 July 1945, forty-one Jewish DPs met in Feldafing and elected the representative body of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah. Only a few weeks later, on 25 July, the First Conference of Representatives of the Surviving Jews in Germany took place in St. Ottilien, gathering ninety-four delegates representing about 40,000 Jews scattered among forty-six centres in Germany and Austria.11 In the conference resolutions, the delegates of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah focused primarily on the demand for free and immediate immigration to British Palestine. Second, in view of an extended stay in the refugee camps, the representatives of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah claimed for the recognition of the Jews as a separate group and for them to be concentrated in separate camps where they could be trained for aliyah. Furthermore, as a result of a broader grassroots movement of Jewish survivors, the resolutions of the St. Ottilien conference recommended the collection of testimonies and evidences through the creation of historical commissions and documentation centres in the DP camps.12 Shortly afterwards, the indecent conditions that the Jews were facing in the refugee camps of Germany and Austria became known to the wider public and turned into a burning issue which deteriorated in the relationship

Living in the refugee camps  51 between the British and American allies. Indeed, in this initial phase of the rescue operations, the joint efforts of the Jewish DPs and the Jewish soldiers had been instrumental in spreading the news about the shocking facts of the war and the Holocaust. Newspapers, photographs, and newsreels showed the desperate state of hundreds of thousands of Jews who were unable to go back home. Most alarming was the news about the treatment of the Jewish DPs in the refugee camps, where anger, prejudices, and episodes of humiliation and misunderstanding between Jews and the military authorities were often documented.13 Furthermore, letters from soldiers writing home and appeals from Jewish chaplains and officials to Jewish and international institutions shed light on the urgent need for humanitarian interventions and political decisions regarding the Jewish DPs’ much-debated resettlement to Palestine. At that time, the Allies had not yet formulated a specific policy on how to deal with Jewish refugees. Like all other DPs, the Jews were expected to return to their countries of origin and pick up their lives there. The first turning point in the amelioration of the condition of the Jewish DPs in the refugee camps was the publication of the Harrison report. This was the result of an inquiry into the circumstances in the refugee camps that US president Harry Truman had commissioned from Earl G. Harrison, who served as the American Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization and represented the United States in the IGCR. As has been extensively documented, this investigation was insistently requested by the US State Department in order to establish the needs of non-repatriable Jews so that they could verify to what extent those needs were being met by the Allies and recommend resolutions for ameliorating and solving the Jewish DPs’ problems.14 The final report was submitted to President Truman on 24 August 1945, receiving wide coverage in the media. Harrison’s words regarding the condition of the Jews shocked the public opinion.15 “They have been liberated more in a military sense than actually,” he wrote in his introductory letter to Truman, and he explained in the report: Generally speaking, three months after the V-E Day and even longer after the liberation of individual groups, many Jewish displaced persons and other possibly non-repatriables are living under guard behind barbed-wire fences in camps […], including some of the most notorious of the concentration camps, amid crowded, frequently unsanitary and generally grim conditions, in complete idleness, with no opportunity, except surreptitiously, to communicate with the outside world, waiting, hoping for some word of encouragement and action in their behalf. […] With a few notable exceptions, nothing in the way of a program of activity or organized effort toward rehabilitation has been inaugurated and the internees, for they are literally such, have little to do except to dwell upon their plight, the uncertainty of their future and, what

52  Living in the refugee camps is more unfortunate, to draw comparisons between their treatment “under the Germans” and “in liberation.”16 The Harrison report recommended modifications to Britain’s 1939 White Paper, as well as the admission of a larger quota of Jews to the United States, in the hope that this action would encourage other countries to keep their doors open. Finally, Harrison exhorted the United States to support the Jewish Agency’s request to the British government to grant 100,000 additional immigration certificates to Palestine. The first important outcome of the publication of the Harrison report was US public support for the Jewish DPs’ resettlement in Palestine, which created a definite link between the situation of the Jews who had been liberated in Europe and the evolution of the British Mandate on Palestine. Other significant changes were fulfilled in the US zones of occupation, where Jewish DPs, at their request, were finally also accommodated in separate refugee camps, whereas Clement Attlee, Britain’s newly elected prime minister, both dissented from the view that the Jewish DPs should be recognized as a group per se and refused any far-reaching change to the immigration policy on Palestine. This friction was only the beginning of a long-standing British– American dispute over the territorial solution for the Jewish DPs, which was ultimately to affect the British Mandate on Palestine.17 Though the Harrison inquiry did not investigate the condition of the Jewish DPs in Italy, its repercussions were powerful enough to influence the situation of the Jews in the peninsula. As has been noted, at the end of 1945, the refugee camps became “magnets for Jewish survivors fleeing renewed persecution in the homelands to which they had briefly returned and for Zionist organizers seeking to prepare them for aliyah to Palestine.”18 The impossibility of the Jewish survivors being able to return to their lives in their countries of origin, the widespread anti-Semitism, Truman’s public expression of concern for the Jewish DPs, and some internal autonomy being granted to Jews in the DP camps persuaded many Jews to join Zionist groups in order to smuggle themselves first into the refugee camps of Germany and Austria and then into Italy. As we shall see, another decisive factor for the Jewish survivors’ decision to step back into the refugee camps was their encounter with the J­ ewish soldiers soon after the liberation. Jewish soldiers and chaplains sought to foster unity and to minimize factionalism among the Jewish groups, strengthening their affiliation to Zionism. Especially in the refugee camps, this drive to unity was furtherly stimulated by gatherings, commemorations, and documentation projects, which had the effect of bonding the Jewish DPs around their common experiences of survival, loss, and traumatization along with promoting their awareness and self-understanding as a community in transit towards the “Land of Israel.” Moreover, drawing on this accomplishment, Jewish soldiers quickly became the leading force of that initially spontaneous movement of Eastern European Jews towards the refugee camps, known as Brichah (“flight” in Hebrew).

Living in the refugee camps  53 The “new refugees” and the struggles of daily life in the DP camps Brichah

The Brichah was launched in the second half of 1944 by small groups headed by Zionist leaders or partisans finding themselves in the area that had been liberated by the Red army at the end of the war, who started to plan how to reach possible embarkation points for Palestine. Already at the end of summer 1945, the meetings between groups of Jews in search of routes for leaving Europe and the Jewish soldiers turned the Brichah into what was probably the great clandestine mass movement up until that point.19 Not surprisingly, the Palestinian units in Italy played a major strategic role in this regard, directing the Jewish DPs to Italy, which – for many of them – became the last stop before their (illegal) aliyah. In October 1944, the Palestinian units merged into the Jewish Brigade, whose foundation was finally authorized by an agreement signed by ­Churchill and Roosevelt in September 1944 at the request of the Jewish Agency. Following the establishment of the Jewish Brigade, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim was moved to Rome, and its name was changed to Merkaz La-Golah Be-Italiah (the Centre for the Diaspora in Italy, also known as the Merkaz La-Golah).20 The restructuring of the Merkaz La-Golah was agreed in Rome at a meeting of the representatives of the Palestinian units in order to institutionalize and extend the scale of the Jewish soldiers’ assistance and rescue activities in view of the forthcoming Nazi surrender. Zvi Leiman, formerly head of the Merkaz Ha-Plitim, was replaced by Yehiel Duvdevani, and other chief roles were occupied by Yitzhaq Ben Dor and Yitzhaq Levi; all members of the first Palestinian units arrived in Italy in 1943.21 During the founding meeting that took place in Rome on 29 October 1944, the Merkaz La-Golah determined its new goals. It now aimed not only to provide relief to Jewish refugees and communities but also to establish contacts with Italian institutions and partisans fighting Fascism, to centralize the information available on survivors in order to reunite Jewish families, to lay the foundations for Zionist activities, and to formulate training projects in view of the DPs’ immigration to Palestine.22 After a period of training in Fiuggi and Palestrina (in the Rome area), the 10,000 soldiers of the Jewish Brigade moved northward to the war front in Emilia-Romagna, and – following the end of the war – they were stationed in Tarvisio, on the border with Austria and Yugoslavia (Figure 2.1).23 Historiography reported about the meetings between Jewish survivors and soldiers from the Jewish Brigade during summer 1945 which motivated the latter to organize an escape route through Tarvisio. On 31 May 1945, a group of ninety-eight Jewish refugees was found in the city of Villach, just over the Austrian border from Tarvisio, and the next day, another group, this time made up of emissaries from Romanian Jewish survivors, also reached the Jewish Brigade at the Italian border.24 Further evidence of the Brichah’s

54  Living in the refugee camps

Figure 2.1 Refugees entering Italy from Austria, Fondo Israel Kalk, immediate postwar period, Album 11, inv. 283-album11-017B. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

operations was given to the Jewish soldiers who had been sent from Tarvisio to the Zionist conference organized by the She’erit Ha-Pleitah in Landsberg (Germany) during summer 1945, where they met a group from the Dror Zionist youth movement from Poland who had been sent to spy out the land.25 From that point, the Jewish Brigade in Tarvisio – notwithstanding the thread of their imminent transfer to Holland and Belgium – began to see the refugee camps of Germany and Austria as staging areas in view of the Jewish DPs’ infiltration in Italy, where another clandestine organization, the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet, was setting up its headquarters in order to plan their resettlement in British Palestine (Figure 2.2). Indeed, between 1945 and 1948, the Jews’ illegal entries into Italy, though irregular, had been a permanent characteristic of the Jewish DPs’ presence in the peninsula. These mainly involved two areas of the country on the north-eastern border with Austria and Yugoslavia, whose post-war attribution has been controversial for a long time: namely, South Tyrol, which came back under Italian control in 1946, and Friuli, which only rejoined Italy, along with the rest of “Zone A” in 1954.26 Between June and August 1945, 15,000 Jews had been able to reach Italy, mainly using two Alpine passages.27 From the autumn, local and Allied authorities in Austria and Italy reported that hundreds of suspected returnees were crossing the border in order to enter Italy.28 As a matter of fact, in this first phase, the Brichah took advantage of the passage of hundreds of thousands of people who were transiting

Living in the refugee camps  55

Figure 2.2 Rothschild Hospital DP Camp, Vienna, immediate post-war period, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 11, inv. 283-album11-011B. Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

through Italy as returnees.29 For instance, on 17 October 1945, the Allied Field Security had checked a train carrying 189 DPs claiming Italian nationality at Tarvisio: None had any identity documents and very few could speak Italian. It was obvious that nearly all were Jewish of Central European extraction. Their probable aim was to make their way eventually to Palestine. As the permit was in order they were allowed to proceed.30 In many cases, Jewish survivors who had been attempting to return home from the concentration camps or their wartime shelters were intercepted by the Jewish Brigade, often through the help of local Zionist movements. On realizing that they would find only destruction and death, many survivors decided to join the Brichah and to travel with false documents as civilians returning home in transit through Italy. They were organized in groups and moved in convoys along the few railway lines that connected Eastern and Western Europe until they reached the DP camps in southern Germany or Austria. Sometimes, they were provided with “sufficient papers not to be stopped,”31 but in other cases, the journey was more hazardous.

56  Living in the refugee camps Sarah Saaroni – a Polish Jew from Lublin who survived the Holocaust by ­pretending to be a Christian – recalled the motivations that pushed her to leave post-war Poland and her experience with the Brichah: I wanted to leave Poland as quickly as possible because it wasn’t home for me anymore. The only place that we could think of as home at that time was Palestine. I remember a man from the Jewish Brigade came to visit us; at that time, I was in Warsaw. […] We couldn’t just leave, because legally we were Poles and our home was Poland. To be able to leave, we had to pretend that we were Greeks [retuning home]. [The Jewish soldiers] told us a few words in Hebrew, like iparon [pencil], shulchan [table], ima [mum], aba [dad], a few words and we [spoke using only those few words, making up all kinds of expressions by our own imagination]. Nobody could understand us; we couldn’t understand ourselves. That was how we had to communicate.32 The Jewish soldiers instructed Sarah Saaroni and her group on how to behave during their long journey from Poland to Bratislava, where their false identity was almost discovered, and afterwards to Prague, where they pretended to be Austrians until they were finally smuggled into the Foehrenwald DP camp in Bavaria. From there, Sarah was able to reach Italy, where she found her elder brother.33 The increased population of Jewish DPs in the refugee camps of Austria and Germany, as well as the sudden disappearance of such large groups of them from the same camps, concerned the Allies. They considered this movement to be “almost certainly nefarious.”34 Hundreds of records from the British occupation forces and the Italian border police demonstrate the fluid movement of the Jewish DPs across European borders and their hope of sailing to Palestine from Italy. This was the case for a group of 104 male Polish Jews who arrived in the Trofaiach DP camp (Austria) on 19 December 1945. “Unescorted and uninvited,” they claimed to be Nazi death camp survivors who had come back to Poland after liberation and then moved to Budapest, where they joined a Jewish organization that would allegedly bring them to Italy. Following a demonstration by the DPs against the British White Paper of 1939, the Trofaiach camp was put under observation by the Allies, who described its Jewish inhabitants as apathetic, untrustworthy, and selfish: The camp is regarded by all the inhabitants as [a] transit camp, and they are firmly convinced that they will not be here long. When they are told that they will be here for months, they say that is not so. They will get to Palestine somehow. Already over one thousand people have left the camp unofficially since its opening nine weeks ago.35 In January 1946, the British Allies were aware that Trofaiach, as well as Judenberg, Innsbruck, and Salzburg, was being used by Eastern European

Living in the refugee camps  57 Jews as the main escape routes for reaching Italy.36 Between May and ­October 1945, the British Foreign Office estimated that 15,000 Jews had arrived in Salzburg, 2,000 of whom had been directed to Germany and 13,000 to Italy. Later, between November 1945 and May 1946, the Brichah brought another 14,000 Jews to Salzburg, though only 2,300 were transferred to Italy.37 The Brichah was influenced by several factors. The first was the wave of anti-Semitism which infested post-war Europe and culminated in the Kielce pogrom in July 1946, during which forty-two Jews were murdered.38 While approximately 1,000 Jews per month were leaving Poland between July 1945 and June 1946, the numbers spiked dramatically immediately afterwards: by September of that year, over 60,000 Jews had fled Poland, mostly with the Brichah’s help.39 The second factor that influenced the Brichah operation related to whether it was Allied or Italian forces who controlled the borders. At the end of 1945, the Brenner Pass came under British control and the Brichah started to look for new ways: the Resia Pass eastward and the Tauern Pass westward. In the short period in which the Resia Pass was managed by the Italians in April 1946 before being once more handed over to the British, more than 1,600 Jews arrived in Italy. According to the JDC, there was a decrease in clandestine entries during summer 1946, but between September and December of the same year, the Brichah helped 7,250 to enter Italy.40 Moreover, the fact that the Brichah could rely on many “helpers,” as reported in a survey by the British Intelligence Service in January 1946, was another important element that affected the unauthorized movements and clandestine activities of the Jewish DPs across the Alpine borders. Besides the Jewish Brigade stationed in Tarvisio, Jewish personnel in the British units and headquarters – such as chaplains, censorship staff, interpreters, and so on – were reported by the British Intelligence as facilitating the illegal movement of Jews into Italy “from time to time.” However, for the British Intelligence Service the most alarming data was related to the involvement of members of the UNRRA, the International Red Cross, and the JDC operating in Italy.41 In order to accommodate the Jewish DPs arriving through Tarvisio, the Jewish Brigade quickly set up a reception centre in nearby Pontebba. Here, three masonry buildings surrounded by wooden huts served as refuges, canteens, kitchens, latrines, recreation areas for children, and dental and medical clinics. A second reception centre was organized in the tuberculosis sanatorium (TBC Sanatorium) in Merano, which was close to the Brenner Pass. This facility, which had been seriously damaged during the war, was renovated soon afterwards thanks to the JDC, the Central British Fund, and the South African War Appeal in order to treat Jewish survivors who were suffering from tuberculosis.42 Although it was only officially inaugurated in October 1946, already in May, the Allies suspected that it was being used as a transit point for illegal Jewish immigration into Italy.43

58  Living in the refugee camps Finally, another most strategic and central reception centre was set up in Milan, at Odescalchi Palace, which was mostly known by the name of the street where it was located, “via Unione 5.” The building, which had formerly served as a club for a company of the Black Brigade (the auxiliary military corps of the RSI), was handed over to the Italian Jewish community in May 1945. Via Unione was set up to welcome Italian Jews who were returning home and non-Italian Jews awaiting registration and accommodation in the refugee camps. Throughout the immediate post-war years, it also served as the headquarters for the coordination of several activities: from the development of rehabilitation and recovery programmes to the planning of strategies related to the aliyah bet.44 Eligibility and distribution of the DPs

In the wake of this large influx of “new refugees,” significant changes began to make themselves felt in the Italian refugee camps. From September to December 1945, the Jewish DPs population in the UNRRA camps grew to 8,000.45 However, a report by the Merkaz La-Golah from the same period estimated that at that time, there were as many as 15,000 displaced Jews in Italy, scattered both among the refugee camps and in cities or towns.46 Following a monumental screening process conducted by the DP SubCommission in collaboration with the Italian government and the UNRRA between September and November 1945, the latter delegated the responsibility for its national refugees to Italy and began to administer exclusively the refugee camps hosting UN national DPs. UNRRA distinguished between “transit camps” accommodating DPs awaiting their fairly swift repatriation, and “static camps” which housed refugees who opposed repatriation or who could not be repatriated immediately for political and/or bureaucratic reasons. Table 1 offers an overview of the distribution and diverse population of the refugee camps in Italy, as well as their destination, condition, and administration a few months after the end of the war. In general, the transit camps were located near the Alpine borders (e.g., the Grugliasco, Trieste, Bolzano, and Udine camps), in proximity to seaports (e.g., the Bari and Genoa camps), or in strategic areas for the movement of the DPs from camp to camp (e.g., the Milan, Bologna, and Cinecittà camps). In contrast, the static camps included the four refugee camps in Lecce province, the Modena and Reggio Emilia DP camps in the Emilia-Romagna region, the Cremona DP camp in the Lombardy region, and several camps scattered in the Marche region.47 By March 1946, the UNRRA took over the management of seventeen DP camps, almost all for static DPs.48 The British Allies’ reports reveal that in the overcrowded Italian refugee camps, there were still many Italians waiting to be resettled home, as well as many non-Italians of mixed nationalities. The latter were mostly Jews and “dissidents,” a term used by the Allies to refer

Living in the refugee camps  59 to those refugees who for political reasons refused repatriation in their home countries, which had fallen under communist rule. Initially, only UN nationals and those who, notwithstanding their nationalities, had been obliged to leave their countries or who had been deported therefrom by enemy action during the war were considered eligible. However, in 1946, the UNRRA introduced other criteria which allowed them to classify as eligible part of the so-called post-hostilities refugees.49 According to the Allied DPs Sub-Commission, this extension of the UNRRA eligibility policy privileged almost exclusively Jewish refugees, driving “many poor and destitute men, women and children out of ­Refugee ­Centres.”50 Indeed, the first available UNRRA eligibility survey, dated May 1946, confirmed that more than half of the refugees interviewed by the UNRRA were left under the Allies’ responsibility. From this survey, it resulted that out of a total 18,562 DPs interviewed in twenty-two refugee camps in Italy, the UNRRA considered only 7,920 – mostly Jews – to be eligible for international care, while 10,642 were considered ineligible. As shown in Table 2, eligible DPs were mainly distributed among four DP camps in Lecce province (4,689); in the transit camps of Bari (301) and Cinecittà (370); and in the northern regions, especially in Cremona (1,042) and in Turin province (887).51 However, a few days after the publication of the UNRRA survey, another memorandum of the Allied Headquarters estimated that the number of both eligible and ineligible DPs in the country was higher. Out of a total DP population of 26,000 in the DP and refugee camps, 18,000 were outside the mandate of UNRRA. Besides, in addition to the almost 8,000 eligible DPs mentioned above, there were another 17,000 living outside the refugee camps who were being partially supported by UNRRA.52 Living conditions

A few months after the end of the war, dissatisfaction and frustration prevailed among the Jewish DPs in Italy. In particular, they appeared to be disappointed by the level and type of humanitarian aid provided by international organizations. At the end of 1945, the American Jewish Daily Forward informed Josef Hyman, then executive director of the JDC, of a letter that had arrived from the DP camps in Italy. It was written in Hebrew, supposedly by a thirteen-year-old Jewish DP in Italy, who stated: We are the young remnants of the refugees in Italy. You, men of means, are in a position to help us. You are well aware of the grief [that] we lived through, and still there is no help. First, we have not enough food to eat, nor sufficient clothing. Many of our [fellow]-Jews walk about almost entirely naked and barefoot. Second, we have no medical aid […]. The representatives of the “Joint” do not help us at all. They drive, eat well, dress well, and do not even look at us.53

60  Living in the refugee camps This feeling of distress was also shared by the chaplain Marvin M. Reznikoff, who was serving in southern Italy in the autumn of 1945. He expressed his discontent in a short note to his friend Rabbi Philip Bernstein: Where in the same hill is all the money the U.J.A. [United Jewish Appeal] collects going? In Southern Italy especially, and in all Italy generally, refugees are in dire straits. American Israel appears not to be giving a damn. That hurts deeply.54 The most commonly reported problems concerned the overcrowding of the camps, the lack of food, and the urgent need for clothes. For instance, already in June 1945, the Cinecittà transit camp, established by the Allied army in requisitioned Italian film studios, was reported as being “packed to capacity.” During a visit to the camp, which had just been handed over to the UNRRA, the JDC representative Benjamin Brook found approximately 1,800 refugees: Every bit of available bedding, tents and supplies had been used to lighten the burdens and living conditions of the refugees. Even so, conditions were quite hard. Space was at a premium. Entire families and single men were crowded together. A blanket and a [matress] stuffed with straw had been issued to each refugee. Lines of these blankets were stretched on the stone floors separated by a distance of two feet.55 Similarly, one month later, the chaplain Nachman S. Arnoff, who held a service for the refugees in the synagogue of the Modena refugee camp, informed the JDC officer Reuben Resnik about the conditions of the Jews in that camp. There were 4,500 refugees there and more were arriving daily, among them sick people who required special care or hospitalization, cases of tuberculosis, pregnant women, and undernourished children: The people are restless. All of them are complaining. The camp, they say, is not better than the concentration camps they left behind. […] The social problem among the refugees is also evident. These people require care, readjustment to their new conditions and surroundings, and guidance. […] Something must be done.56 The bedding conditions in Modena were quite similar to those described for Cinecittà, where many refugees needed clothes, shoes, underwear, and socks. As a matter of fact, clothes were lacking in almost every refugee camp in Italy. Again, the appeals and transnational networks of the Jewish chaplains were instrumental in the collection of these goods. They often involved ­Jewish communities worldwide in these kinds of charitable activities, as the US chaplain Harold Goldfarb did in August 1945. He requested help from the Community Temple in Cleveland (Ohio) in making up a parcel of

Living in the refugee camps  61 clothing to send to Italy, aware that no matter how much they received, it would not be enough.57 The movement of the refugees from the north to the south of Italy was another factor that contributed to the deterioration of the delicate stability of the first camps established by the Allied army in Lecce province. This was the case for the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, where the arrival of the new refugees, mostly concentration camp survivors of Polish origin, aroused “a good deal of friction” between the old group and the new one. If in February 1945, the JDC estimated a population of 541 Jewish DPs (mostly Yugoslavs), including 115 children under fifteen years of age, by July of the same year, there was a population of 2,600 (mostly Poles), including 300 boys and girls aged twelve to sixteen.58 The JDC officer who visited the camp noticed that the youngest of the refugees in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp were obviously malnourished.59 In his frequent and detailed letters to his family in the United States, Henry P. Gerber, UNRRA Camp Activities Director in Santa Maria al Bagno, continuously reported about the arrival of hundreds of “new refugees” over the summer of 1945. On 15 July, he described the arrival of 320 children between twelve and eighteen years old, almost all of them Polish and some Greeks. Ten days later, while he was waiting at the closest train station in Nardò for a group of four hundred Jewish DPs to be accommodated in Santa Maria al Bagno, Gerber wrote: “Well, we are about filled here in Santa Maria […]. We have no straw and very few beds so many will sleep on the floor” (Figure 2.3).60

Figure 2.3 Jewish DPs arriving at Nardò train station (in the vicinity of the Santa Maria al Bagno DP Camp), August 1945. Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels.

62  Living in the refugee camps The food situation was inadequate not only in this camp but almost e­ verywhere, and the Jewish DPs never stopped “fight[ing] for better food.” From the late summer of 1945, Jews in the refugee camps in the south were allowed to run their own kitchens using JDC funds. In August of that year, there was a community kitchen in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp serving 350 to 400 lunches every day, and two kosher kitchens were organized for orthodox Jews.61 One year later, the JDC had expanded the kosher kitchen programme to all refugee camps in Italy at a total cost of more than four million lira per month.62 Later, however, the JDC noticed that allocating extra money to kosher-eating refugees had allowed this group to greatly improve their diet, but indirectly, the food in the regular kitchens remained mediocre. As a result, those who were not receiving the special subsidies complained that they were being discriminated against. “I feel strongly,” reported Sarah Weksler, who was responsible for the JDC in the southern regions, “that we cannot divide people into two and put one group on a better feeding state than other, even if we are a Jewish organization, and as such, have to give every possible help for religious purposes.”63 The food rations provided for the refugees were often insufficient, and the diet quite monotonous. On the one hand, this problem was linked to the unavailability of raw materials in Italy, which at that time was dependent on international aid in the form of food supplies from abroad. On the other hand, it was also a consequence of the inefficient coordination between the UNRRA, in charge of providing food to the refugees, and the JDC, who supplemented the UNRRA food programme for the Jewish DPs. Despite the joint efforts of the two aid organizations, the situation improved only intermittently. One year later, in July 1946, a JDC officer visiting the southern camps still reported that the bread “was so bad that all the UNRRA staff including the Medical Officer stated that it is not suitable for human consumption.”64 It was only at the end of 1946 that the JDC could ascertain a slight general improvement in this field, when the UNRRA finally established a new ration scale to secure 2,450 daily calories for the refugees.65 Healthcare

Like nutrition, health conditions among the Jewish DPs also depended on the high mobility and distribution of the refugees in the country, as well as on the lack of supplies and medical personnel. Sometimes – it was said by JDC social workers – the reluctance of some groups to comply with sanitation rules was another factor affecting the Jewish DPs conditions in the refugee camps. Hence, it would be impossible to provide a systematic overview of the health situation in the Italian refugee camps; rather, the results shown here are intended to offer a general picture. Already in November 1945, the JDC reported that all camp representatives in southern Italy “were emphatic in their statement that UNRRA had no medical supplies and was not meeting the medical need.” The JDC

Living in the refugee camps  63 Health Division decided to allocate special welfare funds to fill this gap, and strengthened its medical committee, appointing the Lithuanian DP Dr Chaim Finkelstein to provide medical attention to the refugees who had come from the concentration camps.66 After his four-day visit to the UNRRA camps of southern Italy, Dr ­Finkelstein was able to report that the conditions of the refugee camps were “neither too black nor too optimistic,” and he invited the JDC not to “look at them through a microscope so that tiny things might turn out as mountains.”67 According to the information collected by Dr Finkelstein, no special problems related to medical diseases were registered. The about 2,200 DPs who were living in UNRRA Camp n. 34 at Santa Maria al Bagno in 1945 were cared for by an “excellent medical team” of four doctors and one dentist.68 Headed by Dr Nacht, “an experienced physician, who does his best to improve the health conditions of his camp,” they maintained a 35-bed hospital that accepted only light and intern cases and one ambulatorium, which was visited by forty to sixty persons a day. In Santa Maria al Bagno, skin diseases (scabies, dermatitis, furunculosis, etc.) were widespread among Jewish DPs, but they did receive the necessary treatment. Similarly, in Santa Maria di Leuca, there were five doctors to look after around 1,800 refugees. Here, the UNRRA ran a very well-equipped hospital, with a capacity of 140, and some Jewish refugees with previous medical or nursing experience were added to the staff. In contrast, the medical facilities in the Tricase and Santa Cesarea UNRRA camps, which at that time housed 700 Jewish DPs, provided a “rather poor impression” to Dr Finkelstein, even if there were no instances of serious disease.69 The situation in the central and northern areas was more complex due to the irregular distribution of the hakhsharot. In order to supervise and improve medical services and facilities in these areas, the JDC, in cooperation with the UNRRA, established three sanitary districts near Rome and in the northern regions. Each district was provided with physicians, nurses, and a well-equipped dispensary. Regardless, these measures were judged as “unsatisfactory” by the supervisors of the JDC Health Department, mostly because of the lack of medical personnel as well as the excessive distance between the hakhsharot and the medical facilities. Even if the number of sick people among the Jewish DPs in Italy was under control, health security in the hakhsharot was always quite precarious. In his medical report for August 1946, Dr J. M. Shapiro of the JDC Health Department stated that this scattering of Hachsharot puts an enormous strain on the Medical and Sanitary Dept., if they are to exercise good control of the work; additional staff – both medical and technical would be required to do real justice to the work, and such staff is not easily available. If I may be permitted to say, we are having a luxurious system of distributing and placing of the people with service adequate to cover only the most essential needs.70

64  Living in the refugee camps The UNRRA and the JDC made every effort to prevent the circulation of epidemics in the refugee camps. At that time, the main threat to health security was tuberculosis, but fortunately, only sporadic cases had been recorded among Jewish DPs in Italy. Preventive measures, medical exams, and first aid practices adopted in the UNRRA camps proved to be efficient to contain the spread of tuberculosis, and the specialized sanatorium in Merano was described by the JDC as “the best project in Italy.”71 Despite their hard work, medical personnel sometimes encountered suspicion and hesitation in regard to clinical examinations and preventive ­measures from the Jewish DPs. Dr Finkelstein assumed that this attitude was the result of their recent past: I found out that the people do not want to be inoculated and that they do not come for the medical control. This has its reasons in reminiscences of the concentration camps and people are still suspicious. Therefore, I propose that the Joint send a doctor down to the camps who shall give lessons which easily can be understood and explanations so that the factor of suspicion can be eliminated.72 Indeed, through what the social workers called the “American technique,” the JDC Health Department, in collaboration with its Education Department, launched an intensive campaign of health education and social hygiene among Jewish DPs, using posters, lectures, pamphlets, contests, movies, newspapers, and publicity.73 Another aspect which was a cause of both concern and amazement among the aid network was related to sex and the high rate of pregnancies in the refugee camps. On the one hand, the JDC observed a significant number of cases of venereal disease among Jewish DPs, while on the other hand, it noted an increasing birth-rate and an urgent need to develop special programmes for newborn babies and pregnant women. As other studies have demonstrated, maternity soon acquired a redemptive force – “a conscious affirmation of Jewish life as well as a definitive material evidence of survival” – for those who managed and observed the refugee camps but also in the eyes of the Jewish DPs.74 For instance, when in November 1946 the JDC office in Lecce province counted about seventy newborn babies, 240 pregnant women, and 450 children under two years of age, this situation had been interpreted as “a sign of faith in the future.”75 Nevertheless, such celebrations of maternity among Jewish survivors occurred in parallel with a high number of abortions in the DP camps, alarmingly reported by the JDC worker Sarah Weksler. In July 1946, she found out that thirty women had had abortions following hospitalization for complications, haemorrhages, or secondary infections, but after speaking with local doctors, she estimated that the abortion rate among Jewish DPs was even higher: 100 cases per month. The JDC was informed that abortions were performed “somewhere privately” and was solicited to send “preventive items

Living in the refugee camps  65 to the camps to stop the situation,” giving the impression that in parallel to unintentional abortions, there were also cases of unwanted pregnancies.76 Problems related to housing, food, clothes, and health continued to be discussed by refugee committees and aid organizations, although definitive solutions were never found. Living conditions alternatively improved and grew worse on the basis of several factors that do not allow us to offer a consistent picture of the situation of the Jewish refugees in Italy. Complaints about the inadequacy of the rescue programme in Europe were not isolated, but it is important to frame refugee relief in Italy in the context of the unstable situation in which social workers were operating at that time. The endless arrival of new refugees and inadequate accommodation made it difficult to plan aid activities without having to constantly adjust them because changes in ­ conditions made them unsatisfactory or insufficient. In addition, the non-homogeneous presence of qualified personnel in the camps, the scarce availability of supplies, the individual plights of each refugee camp, and the relationships between the different actors involved in the refugees’ assistance were further factors of instability. Finally, another considerable factor preventing the development of a large-scale organic aid programme for the refugees was undoubtedly the internal movements of Jewish DPs from the north to the south of Italy and vice versa. Notwithstanding these problems, the JDC was able to declare November 1946 to be the first month that all camps were working on a uniform budget basis. The improvement in the management of the DP camps was also due to the more stable distribution of the Jewish DP population, as well as to the growing number of Jewish DPs who had decided to join the hakhsharot. As shown in Table 3, between October and the end of 1946, the JDC estimated that the Jewish displaced population being assisted by the UNRRA in Italy had grown from 17,000 to 19,500, of whom 9,169 were living in the DP camps and the remainder were distributed among towns (4,618) and hakhsharot (5,769).77 They were mostly of Polish origins, almost 65% were men, 27% were women, and only 8% were children under eighteen years old.78 Jewish DPs’ self-representation and self-organization The OJRI

As part of the “UNRRA’s distinctive contribution” to welfare services, international humanitarian agencies advocated the DPs’ self-organization in the refugee camps as a form of active welfare.79 Already in May 1945, SHAEF guidelines had indicated that “displaced persons should be encouraged to organize themselves as much as is administratively possible […] to speak for their nationals, make suggestions and inquiries and to act as a channel for disseminating instructions and information.”80 However, as noted by Malcolm J. Proudfoot, a US army officer in operations and the author of a pioneering study on the refugee problem published in 1956, it was in fact the UNRRA

66  Living in the refugee camps that promoted self-organization and self-government as “mandatory” in the refugee camps.81 “In all phases of camp life, the [UNRRA] worked to have the residents assume responsibility” through committees elected by the DPs that were in charge of supervising all activities and representing the population of each camp in all dealings with the outside authorities. As long as the DPs’ committees limited themselves to welfare, social, and cultural activities, their formation was highly encouraged by the UNRRA and the military, for a number of reasons. On the one hand, self-organization reduced the workload of military and UNRRA personnel in the camps; on the other hand, it was viewed as a means of renewing the DPs’ self-confidence and purposefulness, as well as of preparing them as citizens of democratic societies. Therefore, hewing to the contemporary slogan of international humanitarianism, “help the people to help themselves,” UNRRA social workers “did not run the camps but wanted the residents to run them.”82 The Jewish DPs organized their own committees in each DP camp and actively discussed and participated in camp administration and in the organization of welfare services. Already at the end of 1944, a refugee ­committee – called “the refugee parliament” by Max Perlman – was founded with representatives from Ferramonti, Bari, Naples, Potenza, and Santa Maria al Bagno, speaking for 2,500 Jewish refugees in liberated Italy.83 Each month, elected representatives met with JDC officials working in the area in order to report on the specific needs of the Jews in each camp and to discuss possible solutions to overcome existing or potential obstacles. However, besides the urgency of solving problems mainly related to daily life, the Jewish DPs in Italy progressively manifested the need for an officially recognized political representative organization. In 1945, they started to behave and shape themselves as a political force that was able to clearly express its own expectations and desires, with strong encouragement from the Jewish soldiers and the Jewish Agency. The arrival of the new refugees, besides reformulating the demographic profile of the Jewish DPs in Italy, accelerated this process. The Brichah, indeed, had brought to Italy some of the leading figures from the founding groups of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah, former partisans, and ghetto leaders. Among them were the Lithuanian intellectuals, Zionists, and Holocaust survivors Leib Garfunkel, Eliezer Yerushalmi, and Leon Bernstein. Garfunkel, mentioned above among the founders of the She’erit ­Ha-Pleitah in Dachau, was born in 1906 in Kaunas, where he performed ­important roles in both the local political institutions and the Jewish community.84 During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, Garfunkel was vice-chair of the ­Ältestenrat (the Council of Elders) in the Kovno ghetto until April 1944, when he was arrested and tortured on suspicion of underground activity and later deported to Kaufering concentration camp (Dachau sub-camp). Leon B ­ ernstein and Eliezer Yerushalmi, respectively, survived the Vilnius and Šiauliai ghettos in Lithuania, whence they succeeded in joining the partisans in the Lithuanian forest.85 After the war, Garfunkel, Bernstein, and Yerushalmi reached Italy

Living in the refugee camps  67 with the help of the Brichah, which brought them to Tarvisio, where they first met. Encouraged by the Merkaz La-Golah, the three Jewish DPs established the Temporary Central Committee of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, which moved to Rome at the end of summer 1945.86 A few months later, the Temporary Committee launched a call for unity among the Jewish DPs in Italy, with the purpose of centralizing its representation and coordinating its activities with the committees established by the Jews in the DP camps and hakhsharot in Italy.87 On 21 November 1945, a leaflet was circulated among assembly centres, camps, and hakhsharot in Italy, inviting representatives of the Jewish DPs to the First Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy. The event was primarily organized in order to replace the Temporary Central Committee with a democratically elected political body, as well as to identify and discuss the problems that the Jewish DPs were facing in Italy.88 Moreover, the conference was also intended to draw the attention of world public opinion, national governments, the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations to the “urgent necessity to improve the situation of the Jewish DPs in Italy, to hasten their emigration and settlement in Palestine, and to assist them in their efforts towards rehabilitation.”89 The leaflet distributed in the DP camps suggested that the future elected committee, besides serving as the official representative of the Jewish DPs in Italy, had to commit its activities to the accomplishment of both humanitarian and political goals. In particular, it had to look after the Jewish DPs’ material needs in the refugee camps, while at the same time reawakening their sense of human dignity and self-confidence, thus fighting the widespread phenomenon of demoralization. To accomplish these goals, the Jewish DPs would be provided with a wide-ranging rehabilitation programme, which was explicitly Zionist oriented and which would function as “guidance in their return to a normal way of life.” In particular, the invitation to the conference explained that the aim of these activities was to re-educate [the Jewish DPs] for life in civilized society, to develop their sense of social responsibility, to sponsor the creation of institutions for mutual aid, to educate them to [do] productive work, to satisfy their cultural and spiritual needs, and to promote agricultural and professional training in view of emigration to Palestine.90 With these premises, the opening session of the First Conference of the Jewish Refugees was held on 26 November in the hall of the Hotel Picchetti in Rome, which had been decorated for the occasion with white and blue flags and banners bearing the Hebrew slogan: “Open the gates of Eretz Israel.” In addition to the 140 delegates who had been elected in the refugee camps during the previous weeks, international representatives were invited to attend the meeting, such as Jewish soldiers and chaplains, JDC officers, Allied military authorities, and delegates from the Jewish Agency, the Italian Jewish Community, the Italian government, the Vatican, and several Allied ambassadors.91

68  Living in the refugee camps The Temporary Central Committee opened the session, reading statements of support received from the Jewish Agency, the World Jewish Congress, and other institutions in the Yishuv.92 Then, the floor was left to Leib Garfunkel, who memorialized the Jews who had perished during the war and who had fought against the Nazis. The entire assembly stood up, the chaplains read a chapter from the Psalms, and then Rabbi David Prato (Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Rome) recited the Kaddish prayer in commemoration of the war victims. Afterwards, Garfunkel took the floor again and delivered his speech in Yiddish – his mother tongue as well as the mutual language of most of the Jewish DPs in Italy – with written translations in Italian and English having been distributed to the attendees ahead of time. After welcoming the guests, Garfunkel stated: After much suffering and wandering, we succeeded in reach[ing] Italy. There, we face the hard problem of how to be included anew in the frame of a normal life as free people and faithful sons of our nation. The aim of our Conference is to consider the ways by which the very hard life of the Jewish Refugees in Italy could be most improved, how to mitigate their plight, how to productivize and elevate their cultural and mental level, how to strive against some negative appearances resulting from the severe circumstances of life and to steadily fight for rescue from the [constant] menacing extirpation during many years in the ghettos and concentration camps. […] We should assume a position towards the cardinal and ardent problem that faces us [with] all its tragic sharpness as a question of to be or not to be, whereto we should cast our views and steps; where, on which spot in the world. We may now create a new, quiet, and safe home.93 Garfunkel gave a charismatic presentation and emphasized the Jewish DPs’ intention to play an active role in planning the rehabilitation of their bodies and souls in the refugee camps. In particular, he clarified the Jewish DPs’ determination to draw their own future, which they could only envision in Palestine. Indeed, Garfunkel specified that the Jewish DPs were looking at Italy as a temporary shelter and to Palestine as their final resettlement, rejecting the Allies’ repatriation programme because it was impossible for them to return to their previous homes.94 According to Garfunkel, those countries were seen as cemeteries by the survivors. In virtue of what had just been demonstrated by the war, neither assimilation nor the constitution of national minorities were a possibility for the Jews’ future in Europe. Anti-Semitism, Garfunkel warned, had not been defeated by the Allies’ victory; rather, it had become an ideology pervading European society, still threatening the Jews’ safety. Through continuous reference to the Bible and to European Jewry’s recent past, Garfunkel maintained: If there is any spot on earth to find rescue for our tortured body and soul – it is only Eretz-Israel. That country on the Mediterranean shores,

Living in the refugee camps  69 where once stood the cradle of our history and culture; that country which is historically, politically, and culturally alleged to be the only solution to the problem of the Jewish People, that once and for ever could put an end to his lack of territory and home […], Palestine is the only country that is desirous and capable to accept us.95 In the closing remarks, the tone of Garfunkel’s speech became increasingly severe and at times accusatory towards the representatives of the British government attending the conference, especially when he referred to the White Paper of 1939 as “yet another offence against the Jewish people,” defining it as immoral and illegal. According to the official report from the conference, Leib Garfunkel’s solemn speech was frequently interrupted by vigorous applause, and his dedication and resolution deeply impressed the attendees. The first session of the conference ended with the whole assembly singing Ha-Tikvah, the future Israeli national anthem, and it continued in Ostia for the next two days, exclusively attended by the 140 Jewish DP delegates sent from the refugee camps.96 They elected the new Central Committee of the OJRI, also known by its Hebrew name of Irgun Ha-Plitim Be-Italia, and discussed the structure of their representative organization. The election confirmed Leib Garfunkel as president, Leon Bernstein as vice-president, and seventeen other Jewish DPs, elected among both the old and the new refugees, who completed the OJRI Central Committee.97 The Central Committee decided to work through a network of regional committees (va’adim ezorim) located in Milan, Rome, and Bari and locally elected committees (va’adim mekomim) operating in each DP camp. The OJRI, moreover, distributed its workload among different departments. First, a Revise Commission supervised its financial affairs, and the Supplies Section, functioned as an intermediatory office channelling requests from the Jewish DPs to the relief organizations, as well as to the Jewish Agency. ­Second, the task of integrating the health and medical programmes already provided by the refugee agencies was entrusted to the Health Department, made up of a network of Jewish DP physicians and medical personnel, which later merged into the Organization of Jewish Refugees Physicians. Third, the OJRI established a Bureau of Statistics and Information, which gathered statistical information and updated lists on the Jewish DPs in Italy, helping them to trace their relatives. Finally, the development and implementation of intensive programmes to bridge the younger Jewish DPs’ cultural and educational gaps and to provide a “national education” to the Jews in the DP camps and hakhsharot was assigned to the Culture and Education Department. The Central Committee also established a Press Office and recognized the weekly journal in Yiddish Baderekh as the single and official newspaper of OJRI.98 The OJRI founding ceremony marked the beginning of a unifying national discourse, and Garfunkel’s opening speech was evidence of a political and historical awareness among the Jewish DPs in Italy. Insisting on the Holocaust as a shared trauma, notwithstanding the different experiences of the Jews

70  Living in the refugee camps during the war, the foundation of the OJRI directed the Jewish DPs towards Zionism as a redemptive plan for the future. Besides, the First Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy was important not only on the organizational level but also for the symbolic value of the gathering itself. It had finally given the Jewish DPs in Italy a collective identity and a political element that was able to interfere with the relationship between the Allies and the evolution of the British Mandate on Palestine. The He-Halutz and the expansion of the hakhsharot

As part of the resolution of the First Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, the OJRI formalized its cooperation with the Merkaz He-Halutz (Hebrew for “Pioneers’ Centre”), the umbrella organization established by the Merkaz La-Golah in agreement with the Zionist youth movements.99 This organization originated from the First Zionist Congress held in Rome in January 1945, when the delegates of the halutz-organized youth of liberated Italy established that the “He-Halutz” educates and prepares its members for aliyah and for the practical realization of our aim to colonise Eretz Israel. The “HeHalutz” obliges its members in the [diaspora] and in Eretz Israel to: (1) join a hakhsharah group and carry out any work required by the movement; (2) study Hebrew language and culture; (3) emigrate to Palestine according to the principles of the movement; (4) devote their lives entirely to the tasks and defence of the Yishuv, following the decisions of our movement.100 Therefore, the He-Halutz was in charge of selecting young Jews – both Italians and DPs – for enrolment in the hakhsharot and of their training for resettlement in Palestine. This new institutional and hierarchical setting behind the hakhsharot made significant changes to the distribution and management of the Jewish DPs in Italy. For instance, in the year since its foundation in July 1944, the population of the already existing Dror hakhsharah near Bari had grown from twenty-five to 180 people. Besides the Dror group, in August 1945, the JDC estimated that 600 other Jewish DPs had been organized into eight hakhsharot, which were mainly located in the south of Italy.101 However, according to the JDC, this cluster of hakhsharot – despite “their group leaders and group discipline” – was at this stage still quite disorganized in terms of work projects and educational programmes. Despite these problems, the JDC saw several advantages in the hakhsharot and enthusiastically decided to support them. In 1945, Benjamin Brook (JDC representative for Italy) described these installations in a letter addressed to the IGCR as follows: The Hachsharah community type of living affords an excellent opportunity to help these people become re-orientated to normal community

Living in the refugee camps  71 living and to help rehabilitate them to undertake constructive and ­productive efforts. […] The residence which these individuals establish becomes home to them. They feel it is something they have constructed for themselves. They endure the privation necessary to establishing such a community household, with the understanding that through group work and group activity they will remedy their existence and solve their problems. The spirit and temper of the individuals in these ­Hachsharah are far higher than can be found anywhere in Italy today in the camps. The fact is that these individuals feel that what they have established is not a camp, but a home. […] Our experience in Italy to date amongst the refugees, shows us that an undertaking which encourages mutual help, common housekeeping arrangements, a common financial arrangement and mutual cooperation is one of the greatest stimulants to re-establishing a normal pattern of human behaviour amongst these former victims of the concentration camps.102 Even though the position of the JDC officials in Italy regarding the h ­ akhsharot in the following years fluctuated between full praise and more cautious judgements, in 1945, Brook considered them to be such “a great improvement on camp life” that it “started to educate” the UNRRA on the effectiveness of these installations in order to gain their support.103 The negotiations between Antonio Sorieri of the UNRRA and Charles Passman of the JDC were initially quite complicated, but an agreement which recognized hakhsharah residents as “out-of-camps DPs” was eventually signed in October 1945. Therefore, UNRRA became responsible for providing the hakhsharot with basic necessities (such as housing, food, clothing), but the agreement limited UNRRA eligibility to only 7,500 Jewish DPs (for whom it was guaranteed 3,000 lira per person per month).104 The mechanism through which these collective farms were set up did not follow a consistent scheme. From the practical point of view, as soon as a hakhsharah group was constituted, the JDC would provide it with initial equipment. Very often, suitable buildings for the establishment of the hakhsharot were found through the help of Italian Jews, who acted as mediators between Italian landlords and the JDC, who in many occasions paid for the rent and for initial repairs. Differences in the organization and economy of the training farms arose due to the characteristics of the territory where they were located or their proximity to the UNRRA camps. In any case, once a hakhsharah was established, it was expected to function on a self-supporting and self-maintaining basis with assistance from the JDC and the UNRRA.105 According to the JDC records, in 1945, the American organization was assisting approximately forty hakhsharot, housing about 4,000 persons in total in Italy. These numbers grew after the JDC-UNRRA agreement, and at the end of December 1946, the JDC reported about seventy-nine hakhsharot in Italy, with a corresponding population of nearly 7,000.106 The efforts of the Jewish DP committees and the endorsement from the Zionist organizations and the JDC to “convince” the UNRRA to include

72  Living in the refugee camps such installations within its mandate had been successful. Eventually, the hakhsharot officially entered the vocabulary of international humanitarianism, ending up as one of the most effective patterns of self-government for the UNRRA, who envisaged them as a means of improving the Jewish DPs’ rehabilitation and camp life thanks to their educative model and their homely environment.107 It may be surprising to find that in 1946, the average values of collective farms established in the US zone of Germany and their inhabitants was lower in proportion to the relevant number of Jewish infiltrees in that area. Avinoam J. Patt reported that out of a total Jewish DP population growing from 49,695 to 141,077 between January and October 1946, the average number of people living in the hakhsharot never exceeded 5%, though the numbers of installations increased from eight to thirty-six.108 Instead, for the same period, out of a total Jewish DPs of 19,556 in Italy, 25% were organized in the hakhsharot.109 Aliyah: “a question of life” The delegates of the Jewish Agency in Italy

In April 1944, the visit in Italy of the head of the Jewish Agency Political Department, Moshe Shertok, kindled the Jewish DPs’ hope of an enhancement to the British immigration policy to Palestine. At the same time, this alarmed the British authorities in the country regarding possible demands for extra certificates for aliyah from the Jewish Agency and the Jewish DPs. Indeed, Shertok stressed that the primary goals of that visit were to negotiate the appointment of a representative of the Jewish Agency in the country and assist in the selection of Jews “who should be given the certificates issued by the Colonial Office for emigration to Palestine.” However, the rescue operation being organized by the War Refugee Board via Istanbul made the Foreign Office consider it “improbable” that a large number of certificates could be granted to refugees in Italy. In particular, the British authorities advised that any further allocation of aliyah certificates for Jewish DPs in Italy or other liberated countries would reduce the possibility of admission to Palestine for other refugees from countries still under Nazi rule.110 Despite this warning, the Allied Headquarters in Italy tried to investigate alternative temporary shelters for Jewish DPs and suggested the “free port” established by the Allies for victims rescued from enemy countries in the Fedala camp (today Mohammedia, on the west coast of Morocco).111 However, the Foreign Office soon rejected this proposal in order to keep it as reserve accommodation for any possible future influx of stateless Jewish refugees from France into Spain and admonished again the British forces in Italy that “Jews should not (repeat not) be referred to and treated as such, but […] should always be referred to and treated as citizens of [the] particular nationality to which they may belong.”112

Living in the refugee camps  73 As a consequence, between Shertok’s visit in spring 1944 and the end of the war, the Allied Headquarters authorized only two ships to bring Jewish DPs from Italy to Palestine. The first ship left Taranto harbour on 25 May 1944, carrying 560 passengers (300 from Ferramonti, 150 from Santa Maria al Bagno, and 120 from Bari).113 The second ship left ten months later, at the end of March 1945, when the British Mandate granted the Jewish Agency another 10,300 certificates, around 900 of which were reserved for aliyah from Italy. In cooperation with the IGCR and the DPs and Repatriation SubCommission of the ACC, immigrants were selected by Umberto Nahon, a delegate from the Jewish Agency who had just landed in Italy.114 Nahon, who had emigrated to British Palestine in 1939, was one of the most important figures of Italian Judaism and Zionism of that time and is remembered as being entirely devoted to “the defence of the Jewish people and the realization of the Zionist project.”115 During his mission in Italy, Nahon did not hesitate to take a direct view of the Jewish DPs’ situation when visiting them in the hakhsharot and in the refugee camps, nor to “bring [them] a word of encouragement.”116 In his correspondence with the Jewish Agency, he reported on the cooperative relationship between the UNRRA and the JDC in the camps, whose efforts were in any case not enough to handle the needs for food, housing, clothes, education, and care for the Jews who had been displaced in the country. During his visits to the refugee camps, Nahon was also very attentive to the Jewish DPs’ voices. In a report to the Jewish Agency after his visit to the UNRRA DP camp in Santa Maria al Bagno, he described the feelings of the Jewish DPs: The bitterness and disappointment for the recent developments in the Palestine policy cannot be described. Many don’t believe that it is true; it seems to them impossible that there will be aliyah, or a very small [possibility]; they cannot believe that after so many sufferings, they will be deprived of that same hope which sustained them in the days of Hitler. [No more than 2% of people have returned to Germany and to other European countries in the past 6 months], an insignificant proportion if you think that people came here under the impression that ships were waiting to bring them to Palestine. Some 10% have no project or projects outside Palestine. Almost 90% are only awaiting this chance, and the Chairman of the Committee in Santa Maria di Bagni, [when] addressing to me some words of welcome, said: “We ask from you only one thing, aliyah; we wish to hear from you only about one thing, aliyah; we have only one will and one hope, aliyah.”117 Thanks to Nahon’s efforts, in June 1945, another 150 certificates were allocated to the Jewish DPs in Italy, of which one-third gave priority to survivors who had recently arrived from the Nazi concentration camps, who left in July. A few months later, in November 1945, another ship bearing

74  Living in the refugee camps 800  Jewish DPs was able to sail for Palestine, but there were still 11,000 registered candidates – or ‘olim in Hebrew – left in the Italian DP camps.118 The atmosphere in the refugee camps was indeed quite tense as a result of the Jewish DPs’ anxiety for resettlement and the frantic Zionist propaganda among the Jewish DPs. Ada Sereni, a leading figure of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet in Italy, distinctly recalled this situation in the memoir of her experience in post-war Italy. Describing the difficulty of organizing clandestine aliyah, Sereni often mentions a widespread feeling of demoralization among the Jewish DPs. She supposed that this was a consequence of the incautious behaviour of the Jewish soldiers, who instilled in the Jewish DPs the hope of imminent resettlement in Palestine that contrasted with the reality of an exhausting wait in the refugee camps. The situation escalated in the second half of 1945, when the first illegal departures organized by the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet in Italy were about to depart and the Merkaz La-Golah was called to select a very few passengers according to the capacity of the three small ships that the underground network had been able to buy and equip. “How can we choose thirty-five people among the thousands eager to leave?” Sereni recalled in her memoir regarding the preparation of the first ship (Dallìn), which departed from Monopoli (Puglia, Adriatic coast) in August 1945.119 The decision on who should be granted priority for aliyah opened a dispute among the Jewish soldiers of the Merkaz La-Golah, who were affiliated to different political parties active in British Palestine. During a meeting, they decided to divide the available space in the ships in proportion to the size and influence of each political party forming the Jewish Agency, but this started a heated discussion about the conditions that would determine these proportions: It was evident to all that the issue related to aliyah would be the focus of the political struggle between Palestinian Jews and the mandatory power and that it would be the vital question for the million who had survived the extermination. The party that could boast the ability to bring many of its members to Eretz Israel would earn enormous prestige and would attract not only all the apolitical and the hesitant, but many who were already affiliated to other parties. […] While the parties were in turmoil, non-party refugees agitated for fear of being excluded and felt that it was necessary to be part of an organized group. From that moment, it became their great concern not to make the wrong choice; that is, not to choose a party that in practice was unable to include them in the departure list. There then began a fierce struggle between the party representatives to grab registrations for the refugees. Each assured everyone that their party was the one that would get them to leave as quickly and definitely as possible.120 From August to November 1945, other two small ships organized by the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet in Italy sailed the Mediterranean from Puglia to ­

Living in the refugee camps  75 Palestine, travelling twice. Less than 500 Jewish illegal migrants (ma’apilim) successfully reached Palestine, and on their journey back to Italy, the ships brought new personnel to strengthen the underground network that the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet in Italy had built so far – especially members of the Palyam (the naval department of the Palmach) and telegraphists – as well as emissaries from the Zionist youth movements.121 The Anglo-American Committee’s visit in Italy

Notwithstanding the worldwide resonance of the conditions of the Jews in the DP camps after the publication of the Harrison Report, Truman’s appeal to Britain made no headway in allowing the Jewish refugees to enter ­Palestine on a larger scale. In October 1945, the British Secretary State of Foreign Affairs, Ernest Bevin, instead suggested adopting a new approach to the problem and involved the Americans in a joint policy on Palestine. Despite the different objectives and policies of the two countries, in January 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (AAC) started its work in Europe, travelling through Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, Greece, and finally to Palestine at the end of March of the same year.122 ACC would be to investigate the political, economic, and social conditions in Palestine as they bore upon the problem of Jewish immigration, to evaluate the situation of the Jews in Europe, and to estimate the number of those either wishing or impelled by their conditions to migrate to Palestine or other countries outside Europe.123 In view of the AAC’s planned visit to the Italian refugee camps, Nahon submitted a personal statement which helps us to grasp the atmosphere of apprehension in the refugee camps and the Jewish DPs’ deep-rooted feeling that only aliyah could free them from their past: [Every day, I see] people who have parents, sons, brothers, and sisters in Palestine and are anxious to rebuild a familiar centre after the bulk of their family has been destroyed. I see hundreds of young couples in [whom the joy of expecting] a child is clouded by the uncertainty of their chances of reaching Palestine before the expected birth. I see hundreds of orphans, aged fifteen to eighteen years old, who entered the era of Nazi persecution when they were eight to twelve years old, who had a childhood of horror and have a youth without joy. I see hundreds of families whose children are ten to fourteen years old and were unable to attend any school at all: they invoke for their children the right to start a normal life, together with other children, in Palestine. I see sick people whose only hope of recovery is to reach the hospitable house of a relative or a friend in Palestine. Everyone stresses his case and insists upon his right to be [on the] first list of selected emigrants. All have the same hope, all are awaiting with the same eagerness […] find your way, let all those people reach Palestine and do it soon, because every additional

76  Living in the refugee camps delay means an addition of sorrow and of suffering to people who [have already undergone] so many tragic happenings.124 Even the Jewish DPs saw the AAC visit to Italy as a chance to raise their voices through their charismatic spokesperson Leib Garfunkel on the one hand and through demonstrations in the refugee camps visited by the commission on the other hand. Garfunkel, as president of the OJRI, issued a memorandum to the AAC explaining the position, origin, and aspirations of the Jewish DPs in Italy. He did not restrict himself to a simple request to open the gates of Palestine to the Jewish refugees; rather – as he had already done during the First Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy a few months earlier – he explained that behind Jewish DPs’ attitude against repatriation there were “psychological, national, and political factors.” According to the OJRI memorandum, the loss of family and home (here understood as a familiar and safe place) were the first reasons that kept Jewish DPs as far away as possible from their former countries, where they would have been “surrounded by people whose hands are stained by Jewish blood.”125 The deep roots of anti-Semitism and the broad dimension of anti-Jewish persecution in Europe made European Jews “a nation without territory,” and it was indeed in virtue of their “pronounced national individuality” that they felt forced to leave their former homes.126 Garfunkel also addressed the question of the Jewish presence in post-war Europe from another perspective: Did the Jews have a duty to help with the reconstruction of Europe? The reply from the Jewish DPs’ leader was inflexible: staying in Europe was neither a wish nor a duty for Jewish survivors. Why, Garfunkel asked, was it that the only remnant of the Jewish community in Europe “should waste the rest of their strength and nerves in helping rebuild Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, etc., instead of placing themselves at the disposal of their own nation”?127 Through Garfunkel’s memorandum, OJRI asked for the extension of Truman’s request to the British government to allow 100,000 entry certificates for Palestine to the Jewish DPs in Italy who were living under the same circumstances as the Jewish refugees in Germany and Austria described in the Harrison Report. Aliyah, he wrote, was “a question of life,” for the displaced Jews in Italy and, at the same time, could has been a chance for “the conscience of the world to remove the horrible injustice done.”128 Besides the OJRI statement, the Jewish DPs’ aversion towards the Allies’ repatriation policy was directly experienced by the AAC commission in charge of investigating the condition of the Jews in Italy between 25 and 27 February 1946. The AAC focused its field visits on the camps located on the southern edge of the heel of Italy: namely, the UNRRA camps in Lecce province, where approximately 6,500 Jewish DPs had been accommodated in Allied requisitioned villas, defined by the AAC delegation as “not unattractive, though badly lacking in furniture.”129 In the Santa Maria al

Living in the refugee camps  77 Bagno DP camp, the AAC was received in an atmosphere of great tension. Six to seven hundred Jewish DPs, including a cohort of children, marched in military fashion carrying banners bearing the slogan: “Down with the White Paper.” Another group of young men, “who it was said represented the more turbulent section of the community,” carried a banner that stated that the AAC was “an insult to the Jewish nation.” The reception was similar in the Santa Maria di Leuca DP camp, where seven of the cars belonging to the AAC delegation had their tyres slashed.130 These kinds of demonstrations and incidents were familiar to the AAC delegates, who had already experienced them in Germany. However, the AAC report stressed that, unlike in other DP camps, where the banners demanded free immigration to Palestine, in Italy, everything was carefully organized: “such unfortunate incidents [were] evidence of the intense feeling against remaining in [refugee camps] even in attractive surroundings and of the almost fanatical love for Palestine.”131 The AAC final report, submitted on 20 April 1946, recommended that 100,000 aliyah certificates be immediately authorized Jews who had been the victims of Nazi and Fascist persecution. Moreover, the AAC report reiterated that Palestine alone could not meet the emigration needs of the European Jews and that the whole world should share responsibility for them and for their resettlement. Not surprisingly, these resolutions did not solve the problem of the Jewish refugees: Truman endorsed the committee’s recommendation that 100,000 Jewish refugees be immediately admitted into Palestine, while the British government, adamant that it would not bear the costs of this mass resettlement in Palestine by itself, unsuccessfully attempted to condition the implementation of the report’s recommendations on military and financial assistance from the United States for both the Jewish DPs’ resettlement and the evolution of the British Mandate on Palestine.132 The AAC delegates’ visit to the refugee camps in southern Italy took place in a changing atmosphere. This transitional phase dragged out the ­Jewish DPs’ frustration and pain as well as their anxiety about re-establishing themselves once more. They experienced contrasting feelings of tension and excitement arising from the unrealistic promise of imminent aliyah and their determination and active participation in camp life. Indeed, by the end of 1945, the Zionist propaganda among Jewish DPs in Italy has been intensified by the arrival of the representatives of the ­Zionist youth movements sent by the Jewish Agency, also known by the Hebrew term shlichim. According to Sereni, the consequences of the shlichim’s activities among the Jewish DPs were twofold. On the one hand, their “nefarious perseverance” in ensuring the refugees’ affiliation to their parties was in some cases deleterious for the Jewish DPs’ morale, while on the other hand, it was “helpful and necessary” to “bring them back to a normal view of things.”133 Unquestionably, the shlichim’s influence in Italy politicized all aspects of the Jewish DPs’ lives in the refugee camps, but at the same time, their presence stabilized the rehabilitation programme that had been initiated by the

78  Living in the refugee camps Jewish soldiers in 1943, ranging from schooling for children of all ages to vocational training for adults, cultural activities, and recreational activities. The year 1946 marked a sort of transition from the military to the civilian operations of the Merkaz la-Golah.134 Hope and disenchantment When I saw that crowd of Jews, I rushed to join them, and with my own eyes I saw a real soldier, and not just a soldier, but a soldier from Eretz Israel. He had [an] insignia, not just any military insignia, but a Star of David! I felt as if I had just seen Elijah the Prophet with my own eyes! I touched him and he was real! A real soldier! Another one joined him, and we eagerly absorbed every word he said. He showed us a scrap of newspaper – unbelievable – it was written in Hebrew! I felt as if I was already there, in Eretz Israel. What happiness, what joy. But they were false prophets, they were frauds, they spoke not one word of truth! How could we know? We believed because we wanted so badly to believe. We believed because we had no choice.135 Shmoel Mordechai Rubinstein, a Polish Jew who had survived the concentration camps and death marches, smuggled himself into Italy after the war and reached the refugee camp of Santa Maria al Bagno. Rubinstein’s memory of his meeting with the Jewish soldiers in Italy explains the Jewish DPs’ conflicting feelings of hope and disenchantment. The Jewish DPs’ tireless longing for a new life and their awareness of the many obstacles to reaching that goal helped them to bear the long wait in the refugee camps. In his memoirs, Rubinstein did not hide his frustration and his disorientation in navigating the reality of the refugee camps when he arrived in southern Italy: At first, I assumed that the remnants of the Jewish people who had remained alive would finally unite, forgetting their divisions and factions, but each emissary who arrived from Eretz Israel representing a different group fanned the flames of dissension and incited fights, as if nothing at all had befallen the Jewish people and Eretz Israel was already ours, leaving “only” the problem of which ideology should prevail. Groups of every stream were organized, and those who, like me, weren’t affiliated with any of them were considered beyond the pale and labelled “wild animals.” Is this what I had prayed for? What bitter irony! Everyone in the camp was a brand plucked from the flames, the stench of ashes still clung to them, they had not yet assuaged their hunger or decently clothed their bodies, but they were all arguing over ideology! After his initial hesitation, Rubinstein eventually became affiliated with a Zionist youth movement (the non-socialist General Zionist Ha-’Oved) and

Living in the refugee camps  79 the JDC employed him to oversee the workshop programme in the south in collaboration with the local UNRRA administration.136 Since then, ­Rubinstein’s experience in the DP camp took a different turn, confirming the rescuers’ assumption that the DPs’ involvement in camp life could positively affect their personal lives. A closer look at the Jews’ personal experiences and the process by which they decided not to return home allows us to recognize that a combination of different factors influenced this decision.137 The first reason that moved many Jews to refuse repatriation was the fact that they were mostly alone; only rarely could they reunite with any of their family members or rely on their previous homes and roots, as G ­ arfunkel stated in his memorandum to the AAC. Many feared to return home or rejected the idea to consider their former countries as home. Therefore, they were often largely responsible to anyone but themselves, and their choices were dictated by these premises, as well as by their actual post-war situation. In these circumstances, the role of the self-help committees established by Jewish inmates in the Nazi concentration camp on the eve of the liberation and the early actions of the Jewish soldiers and chaplains in the gradually liberated areas of Italy were a further essential element that persuaded the survivors to not return home. This should be complemented by the activism of partisans and Zionist leaders (survivors themselves) in different areas of Europe, who gathered and channelled towards the refugee camps those Jews who had returned home after the war. Disappointed and disoriented by the astonishing reality they had found in their former countries, Jewish returnees looked at Brichah as an opportunity to get closer to possible embarkation point to Palestine. The combination of all these factors and circumstances and the timely formation of informal, cooperative, and transnational aid networks soon helped the Jewish DPs to forge their identity as a collective and to consolidate their sense of belonging around the shared goal of rebuilding their lives outside of Europe. In consideration of this, it would be an oversimplification to claim that the European Jews’ decision not to return home was exclusively connected to the Zionist propaganda. It rather took shape as a painful and complicated individual decision, strongly influenced by external forces and the post-war reality, which eventually had a considerable political impact. If the decision to re-establish themselves outside of Europe was widely embraced by the Jewish DPs in Italy, their feelings and choices varied, influenced by their fears or aspirations for the future, the competing interests of the forces involved in the reconstruction of Europe, the evolution of the British Mandate on Palestine, and the definition of a new global geopolitical dimension. In this scenario, Jewish DPs gradually became aware that they were playing a powerful symbolic role, and OJRI began to behave like a political force that was capable of endorsing the national project being pursued by the Jewish Agency and challenging the British Mandate on Palestine.

80  Living in the refugee camps What path did the Jewish DPs take to get to this point? To what extent could their stay in the refugee camps be considered a collective experience? What united them? And, in contrast, what divided them? How did the Jewish DPs relate to this highly politicized environment? Did they actually benefit from the rehabilitation programmes in the refugee camps? How did the different actors administrating the camps relate to each other and to the recipients of their activities? Chapter 3 will offer replies to these open questions in order to shed light on a more nuanced view of the Jewish DPs’ experience(s) in Italy. Notes 1 Melbourne Holocaust Museum (hereafter MHM), Moshe Fizsman – ­Survivor Testimony, 30.11.1993 [JHCAVA0441], 1:56:40–2:08:00. 2 For an estimate of the number of Jewish survivors, see Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002), 27–28. 3 For an overview of the refugees’ situation in Austria, Germany, and Italy, see Jacques Vernant, The Refugee in the Post-War World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953), 105–204. 4 UNRRA, ed., UNRRA’s Work for Displaced Persons in Europe (London: ­European Regional Office, 1946), 6. For an overview of the refugee crisis after the war, see Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 324–39; for a seminal study which situates the postwar refugee crisis in an international perspective see: Daniel G. Cohen, In War’s Wake. Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 5 UNRRA, ed., UNRRA’s Work for Displaced Persons in Europe, 30–33. On the management of the refugee crisis in Italy, see Silvia Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49 no. 3 (2014): 514–36; Matteo Sanfilippo, “I campi in Italia nel secondo dopoguerra,” Meridiana 86 (2016): 41–56. 6 For the Jewish survival in the Soviet Union and Central Asia, see Rebecca ­Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009); Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Atina Grossman, ed., Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking ­Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017), ­Eliyana R. Adler, Survival on the Margins. Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020). For an analysis of the American and British approach to the Jewish “infiltrees,” see Arieh J. Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 43–51. 7 Zeev Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1. The Irgun Brit Zion was a Zionist youth movement founded in Kovno during the Soviet occupation of 1940–1941 in order to promote and preserve Jewish, Hebrew, and Zionist culture through an array of cultural programmes. Its members came from both religious and secular families. 8 Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, 2. The biblical expression She’erit Ha-Pleitah occurs in Genesis 32:9 (“And he said: If Esau come to the one camp, and smite it, then the camp which is left shall escape”); 1 Chronicles 4:43 (“And they smote the remnant of the Amalekites that escaped, and dwelt there unto

Living in the refugee camps  81 this day”), and Jeremiah 31:1 (“Thus said the Lord: the people that were left of the sword have found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I go to cause him to rest”). 9 With the help of Rabbi Schachter, the activists of the Jewish Self-Help ­Committee were also able to organize themselves into a kibbutz-hakhsharah near Eggendorf. Known as Kibbutz Buchenwald, it was the first agricultural collective in postwar Germany designed to prepare Jews for emigration to Palestine. See Judith Tydor Baumel, Kibbutz Buchenwald: Survivors and Pioneers (New ­Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997). 10 Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, 24–51. 11 Angelika Königseder and Juliane Wetzel, Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-World War II Germany, trans. John A. Broadwin (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001), 18–21; Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, 39–51. 12 The first Jewish DPs’ historical commission was established on 10 October 1945 in Belsen, in the British zone of occupation in Germany, followed by one in Munich in the US zone of the country. By the beginning of 1946, historical commissions and documentation centres had also been established by Jewish DPs in Austria and Italy, in Linz and Rome, respectively. As documented by Laura Jockush, the Jews in the DP camps understood the collection of testimonies, chronicles, and evidence to be both a “holy duty” and a “symbolic gravestone” for those who had not survived the Holocaust. The Jewish DPs, first in Germany and then in Austria and Italy, documented their wartime experiences in order to help future historians to fathom what they had endured so far and to avert the falsification of the past. Moreover, they foresaw the political potential of this kind of project, which could serve to validate their rights in the international arena: see Laura Jockush, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 13 For the encounter between the Jews and the Allies in post-war Europe, see ­Marrus, The Unwanted, 307–08, 331–39; Atina Grossmann, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), 142–53; Königseder, Waiting for Hope, 21–30. 14 Earl G. Harrison, Earl G. Harrison’s Report to President Truman on the Plight of the Displaced Jews in Europe, Washington, DC, 29 September 1945; available online: http://collections.ushmm.org/artifact/image/library/harrisonreport. pdf (accessed January 2023) and in Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 291–93. 15 Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, 52–68; Königseder, Waiting for Hope, 31–42. 16 Harrison, Earl G. Harrison’s Report, “Paragraph I: Germany and Austria – Conditions,” 4 [292 in Dinnerstein]. 17 On the Anglo-American frictions and negotiations following the Harrison Report, see Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, 89–153; for the Allies’ treatment of the Jews in the British zone of occupation in Germany, see Lavsky, New Beginnings, 51–55. 18 Atina Grossmann, “Victims, Villains, and Survivors: Gendered Perceptions and Self-Perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Occupied Postwar Germany,” in “Sexuality and German Fascism,” special issue: Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, no. 1/2 (2002): 297. 19 Yehuda Bauer estimated that between 1944 and 1948, 250,000 Jews – p ­ rimarily from Poland – were moved to Italy and the American zones of Germany and Austria by the Brichah. In the early phase, ghetto fighters and partisans tried to find a way to Palestine via Romania. When that proved unsuccessful, they made

82  Living in the refugee camps contact with the Jewish Brigade and opened a route to Italy. See Yehuda Bauer, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970), vii. 20 Yakov Markowitzky, Niẓanei Ha-Tḥiyah: ha-merkaz la-golah ve-ha-pe’ilut, ­ha-yishuvit be-Italiah 1944–1948 [Buds of Resurrection: The Center for the Diaspora and Local Activities in Italy] (Tel Aviv: Merkaz La-Golah, 1997), 16; Yoav Gelber, “The Meeting between the Jewish Soldiers from Palestine Serving in the British Army and the She’erit Hapletah,” in Sherith Hapletah, 1944–1948: Rehabilitation and Political Struggle. Proceedings of the Sixth Yad Vashem International Historical Conference (Jerusalem, October 1985), ed. Israel ­Gutman and Avital Saf Avital (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1990), 65. 21 Hanokh Patishi, Maḥteret ba-madim: ha-“Haganah” ha-ereẓ-isra’eli be-ẓavah ­ha-britim 1939–1946 [Underground in Uniforms: The Haganah from Eretz Israel in the British Army 1939–1946] (Tel Aviv: Misrad Ha-Bitaḥon, 2006), 170. 22 Yakov Markowitzky, “Aliyah ve-hityashvut. Betar ve-She’erit Ha-Pleitah be-Italiah (1946-1945)” [Aliyah and Settlement. Betar among the She’erit ­ ­Ha-Pleitah in Italy (1945–-1946),” Yonim ba-tkumat Isra’el 7 (1997): 274. 23 For the most recent study on the Jewish Brigade in Italy, see Gianluca Fantoni, Storia della Brigata ebraica. Gli ebrei della Palestina che combatterono in Italia nella Seconda guerra mondiale (Torino: Einaudi, 2022). 24 Bauer, Flight, 64. 25 Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope, 65–66. 26 On the refugee crisis generated by the redefinition of the north-eastern Italian borders after 1945, see Pamela Ballinger, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: Le persecuzioni, le foibe, l’esilio (Milan: ­Rizzoli, 2005). 27 Bauer, Flight, 97. 28 In her PhD dissertation, Cinzia Villani documented the endless arrivals of the Jewish DPs and the northern borders of Italy in detail: see Cinzia Villlani, “Infrangere le frontiere. L’arrivo in Italia delle displaced persons ebree 1945– 1948” (PhD diss., Univerità degli Studi di Trento, 2009), 65–66, available online: http://eprints-phd.biblio.unitn.it/354/1/Tesi_completa_pdf.pdf (accessed January 2023). On the arrival of Jewish DPs from the Austrian borders, see also Villani, “‘We Have Crossed Many Borders.’ Arrivals, Presence and Perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy (1945–1948),” in Tamid Kadima, Immer voerw Arts. Der Jüdische Exodus aus Europa 1945–1948, ed. Sabine AschauerSmolik and Mario Steidl (Innsbruck, Vienna and Bozen: Studien Verlag, 2010), 261–77; 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, ed. Thomas Albricht and Ronald W. Zweig (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2002), 83–101. 29 Gerald Steinacher estimated that from the beginning of May 1945, between 2,000 and 6,000 people passed through Alto Adige and South Tyrol heading southward: see Steinacher, “L’Alto Adige come regione di transito dei rifugiati (1945–1950),” Studi Emigrazioni/Migration Studies 43, no. 164 (2006): 821–34. 30 Foreign Office (hereafter FO, accessed via “Post-war Europe: Refugees: Exile and Resettlement 1945–1950,” the digital collection of the UK National Archives at the Wiener Library, London), Displaced Persons, Transit to Italy, 18.10.1945, FO 1020/2409. 31 FO, Allied Commission for Austria, 14.12.1945, FO 1020/2409. 32 MHM, Sara Saaroni – Survivor Testimony, 23.2.1993 [JHCAVA0286], 1:59:30–2:00:42. 33 As a DP in Italy, Sarah Saaroni was a member of a hakhsharah in Grottaferrata (in Villa Cavalletti) that was affiliated to the Ichud Zionist youth movement. She was among the 1,000 Jewish DPs involved in the “La Spezia Affaire” (see

Living in the refugee camps  83 Chapter 4) and who finally sailed to Palestine in May 1946. After a few years, she decided to leave Israel and resettled in Australia. See her autobiography: Sarah Saaroni, Life Goes on Regardless (Hawthorn: Hudson Publishing, 1989). 34 FO, Alleged Italian Displaced Persons, 27.10.1945, FO 1020/2409. 35 FO, Observations on the Inhabitants of Trofaiach Camp, 20.11.1945, FO 1020/2409. 36 FO, Intelligence Organisation Allied Commission for Austria, 19.1.1946, FO 1020/2409. 37 Villani, Infrangere le frontiere, 73–74 and109. 38 According to David Engel, between September 1944 and September 1946, 130 incidents occurred in 102 locations in Poland, in which 327 Jews lost their lives. See David Engel, “Patterns of Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1944–1946,” Yad Vashem Studies 26 (1998): 43–85; Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. An Essay in Historical Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2006); David Bankier, ed., The Jews Are Coming Back: The Return of the Jews to Their Countries of Origin after WWII (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; and New York: Berghahn Books, 2005). 39 Bożena Szaynok, “The Jewish Pogrom in Kielce, July 1946 – New Evidence,” Intermarium 1, no. 3, available online: https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/int/ int_0103a.html (accessed January 2023). 40 Villani, Infrangere le frontiere, 115 and 173. 41 FO, Intelligence Organisation Allied Commission for Austria, 19.1.1946, FO 1020/2409. 42 See WL, Album Merano, Italy, Photo Archives, Henriques Collection, box 29. 43 Bauer, Flight, 174–75. 44 Cinzia Villani, “Milano, Via Unione 5. Un centro di accoglienza per ‘displaced persons’ ebree nel secondo dopoguerra,” Studi Storici 50 no. 2 (2009): 333–70. 45 A report by the Foreign Office estimated that at that time, there were also more than 3,000 recent arrivals who were not yet registered and who had been temporarily accommodated in Rome, Milan, and other towns: FO, Incoming Telegram from the Foreign Office to the Allied Commission in Austria, 30.12.45, FO 1020/2409. 46 USHMM, Pratei-kol yeshivat ha-mo’aẓah ha-murḥevet shel ha-Merkaz la-Golah be-yom 6.1.1946 [Reports of the meeting of the extended council of the Merkaz La-Golah on the day 6 Janury 1946], R.G. 2011.427.10. 47 WO, Allocation of Centres to Non-Italian Nationals, 31.1.1946, WO 204/3504. For more about the Jewish DPs in Grugliasco, see: Sara Vinçon, Vite in transito. Gli ebrei nel campo profughi di Grugliasco (1945–1949) (Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 2009); for Lecce, see 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 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2010), 111–19; for Reggio Emilia, see Federica Di Padova, “Jewish Displaced Persons in Italia (1945–1950),” E-Review 4 (2016) available online e-review.it/ di-padova-jewish-displaced-persons (accessed January 2023). 48 WO, DP Camps, 11.3.1946, WO 204/3504; WO, Notes on “Centres” in Italy with Estimated Winter Capacity at 11 October 1945, 12.10.1945, WO 204/3504. 49 WO, Post-Hostilities, Refugees Policy This Subject Now Agreed with Headquarters, undated, WO 204/10837. See also Daniel G. Cohen, “The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950,” Immigrants & Minorities 24, no. 2 (2006): 125–143. 50 At that time, this group of “ineligibles” included 6,348 Poles, who were in the Barletta and Trani camps and who were considered unacceptable by the UNRRA because all but 196 of them had belonged to two Polish military corps. There was also the Yugoslavian group, 5,869 of whom were in the camps, who were

84  Living in the refugee camps expected to become the responsibility of the Italian government once the Allies left Italy, and an additional 4,000 of whom were Royalist ex-soldiers employed in Allied installations, who were likely to be admitted to the DP camps once their employment was terminated. Other refugees described as “miscellaneous” and unacceptable to the UNRRA were 5,236 civilians who were unable or unwilling to be repatriated because they were considered dissidents by the governments of their respective countries. Finally, there were 12,840 “Chetnik surrendered enemy soldiers”, for whom the British were exclusively responsible. See WO, Note on the Situation in Regard to Displaced Persons in Italy, undated, WO 204/10837; WO, Screening of Displaced Persons for Retention or Acceptance in UNRRA Camps, 3.4.1946, WO 204/10837. 51 WO, Eligibility Survey, Attachment V: Eligible and Ineligible Displaced Persons in UNRRA-ACC Camps, 1.5.1946, WO 204/10837. 52 WO, Future Disposition of UNRRA Ineligible Displaced Persons in Italy, 3.5.1946, WO 204/10837. 53 AJDC, Letter from H. Rogoff to Mr. Joseph C. Hyman, 11.12.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664, Italy, Refugees, 1945. 54 AJDC, Letter from Philip S. Bernstein to Mr. Joseph C. Hyman, 13.11.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664; AJDC, Letter from Chaplain Marvin M. Reznikoff to Philip Bernstein, 27.10.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 55 AJDC, Report on the Visit to the Refugee Camp at Cinecittà, Rome, 25.6.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 56 AJDC, Letter from Nachman S. Arnoff to Dr. Jonah B. Wise, 27.7.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. Emphasis in the original. 57 AJDC, Letter from Harold Goldfarb to the Joint Distribution Committee, 6.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 58 AJDC, Santa Maria di Bagni, 2.2.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664; AJDC, Southern Bari Area, Including UNRRA Camp Santa Maria, 15.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 59 AJDC, Southern Bari Area, Including UNRRA Camp Santa Maria, 15.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 60 Henry P. Gerber was a professor of Industrial Arts in Aberdeen, South Dakota. During his UNRRA mission in Italy, Gerber wrote almost daily to his family for a total of around 300 letters and several photographs taken with his folding camera. This private collection has been published in Bernard Gerber and Jean Daniels, Letters from Italy. The Personal Correspondence from Henry P. Gerber to His Family While Serving as “Activities Director” in an UNRRA Refugee Camp at Santa Maria di Bagni, Italy 1944–1945 (Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2001), 228–46. 61 AJDC, Southern Bari Area, Including UNRRA Camp Santa Maria, 15.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 62 AJDC, Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628, Italy, General, 1946. 63 AJDC, Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, 4, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628; AJDC, Mr. Lavy Becker’s Statement Concerning His Visit to Italy, 2.9.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663, Italy: Refugees, 1946. 64 AJDC, Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, 4, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 65 AJDC, Camps Monthly Report for November 1946, 16, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663. 66 AJDC, Letter from Benjamin N. Brook to American Joint Distribution Committee, New York Paris, Subject: Report of Bari Central Committee – ­November, 1945, 30.11.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/2/629, Italy: General, 1945; AJDC, ­Letter from Benjamin N. Brock to American Joint Distribution Committee, Subject: Report of Medical Committee, 21.11.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/7/651, Italy: Medical, 1945–1947.

Living in the refugee camps  85 67 AJDC, Letter from Dr. Ch. Finkelstein: Report on Trip to the UNRRA Southern Italy Camps, 1.4.1945, NY AR194554 /4/44/7/651. 68 AJDC, Letter from Dr. Ch. Finkelstein: Report on Trip to the UNRRA Southern Italy Camps, 1.4.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/7/651; AJDC, Southern Bari Area, Including UNRRA camp Santa Maria, 15.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664; AJDC, Camps Monthly Report for November 1946, 18, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663. 69 AJDC, Letter from Dr. Ch. Finkelstein: Report on Trip to the UNRRA Southern Italy Camps, 1.4.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/7/651; AJDC, Jewish Patients in Italian Civilian Hospital in Leuca, 31.10.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 70 AJDC, Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, 19, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 71 AJDC, Mr. Lavy Becker’s Statement Concerning His Visit to Italy, 2.9.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663. 72 AJDC, Letter from Dr. Ch. Finkelstein: Report on Trip to the UNRRA Southern Italy Camps, 1.4.1945, NY AR194554 /4/44/7/651. 73 AJDC, Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, 11, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663. 74 Grossman, Jews, Germans, and the Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied ­Germany (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), 189. 75 AJDC, Santa Maria di Bagni, 2.2.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664; AJDC, Camps Monthly Report for November 1946, 16, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663. 76 This is a rare document mentioning the problem of abortion among the Jews in the DP camps in Italy: AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to American Joint Distribution Committee, European Headquarters, Paris & New York, Subject: Monthly Report Italian Southern Camps, 20.7.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663, Italy: Refugees, 1946. 77 AJDC, Tables JDC Program in Italy 1946, 12.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 78 AJDC, Estimated Jewish Refugees in UNRRA Camps May 15. 1946. and ­October–December 1946, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 79 Malcolm J. Proudfoot, European Refugees: 1939–52. A Study in Forced Population Movement (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1956), 257. 80 This SHAEF Guide is reproduced in in Woodbridge, UNRRA, 2:523. 81 Proudfoot, European Refugees, 262. 82 Woodbridge, UNRRA, 2:522–23. 83 AJDC, The Enormity of the Task Facing Relief Organizations in Liberated Europe Is Underscored by the Achievements of the Joint Distribution Committee…, 13,12.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/2/720, Italy, Refugees, General, 1943–1945. According to the JDC, elected members of the “refugee parliament” were Oscar Dominitz as executive secretary (Bari), Max Pereles as chairman (Ferramonti), Isak Rosenberg as vice-chairman (Santa Maria di Bagni), Samuel Altaras as treasurer (Bari), Leopold Herzka as a representative of the education committee (Bari), and Oscar Salom (Santa Maria di Bagni), Jan Herman (Bari), Isidor Mandler (Bari), and Emil Braun (Potenza) as additional members. See AJDC, Letter from Max S. Perlman to Dr. Joseph Schwartz, Subject: Report for July, 28.8.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/2/716, Italy, Administration, General, 1943–1945. 84 Leib Garfunkel had been active in politics from a young age: he performed important roles in the Jewish National Council of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Parliament, and Kaunas city council. He had also been an initiator and member of several Zionist youth movements and an esteemed journalist and editor of different Jewish and Zionist newspapers in Yiddish before the war. For a short biography, see the Yivo Encyclopaedia online https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Gorfinkel_Leyb (accessed January 2023). Garfunkel wrote about his experiences during the war in Kovnah ha-yehudit be-ḥurbanah (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1959).

86  Living in the refugee camps 85 Leon Bernstein was born in 1914 in Shkud (today Skuodas), Lithuania. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Vilnius University. Elyezer Yerushalmi was born in 1903 in Horoditsh (the Yiddish name for what is now Haradzišča, Belarus). He taught history and languages in several schools in Poland and Lithuania and was an active member of Poalei Zion in Lithuania and the Jewish community of Siauliai. During the war, Yerushalmi was the director of the folkshul (the non-religious elementary school), where he was also a teacher and clerk of the Judenrat in the Šiauliai ghetto. In July 1944, Yerushalmi escaped the ghetto during a bombardment and joined the partisans in the forests, later becoming part of the Red army. From June to September 1945, he stayed in Lodz, where he was a member of the Jewish Historical Commission. From there, Yerushalmi smuggled himself into Italy with the help of the Brichah. For the Jewish partisan movement in Lithuania, see, for instance, Leonid Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–1944: A Critical Historiographical Analysis (London: Routledge, 1999); Dina Porat, The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 150–75; see also the most recent study on internal violence among Jewish partisans who were part of the Soviet partisan movement during the Second World War by Daniela Ozacky Stern, “Executions of Jewish Partisans in the Lithuanian Forests: The Case of Natan Ring,” International Journal of Military History and Historiography 40 (2021): 219–44. 86 OHD, Leib Garfunkel’s Interview, 13.12.1968, 43 (18), Illegal Immigration from Italy and France (1945–1948), p. 1, 00:00–04:30, and p. 2, 06:30–07:00 (accessed online in January 2023). 87 CZA, Activity Plan of the Temporary Refugee Committee in Rome, L16/100, Hitkatvut Merkaz Ha-Plitim [Correspondence of the Merkaz Ha-Plitim]. 88 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, L16/521, Sifron kinus ha-plitim be-Italiah be-ẓiruf ḥovrim tmunot protokolim mitkatvim ve-mavrikim [Booklet of the refugees’ conference in Italy, with pamphlets, minutes, letters and lists of visitors]. 89 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, L16/521. 90 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, L16/521. 91 Several institutions were invited to the First Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy. Among them were ambassadors from Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, France, Poland, and Switzerland; ministries of the Italian government and delegates from the Vatican; members of the ACC; officials from all the relief organizations working on behalf of the Jewish DPs, such as the JDC, the UNRRA, the IGCR, and the ICRC; several Jewish chaplains; representatives of the Jewish Brigade; Joseph Nathan from the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities (UCII); the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Rabbi David Prato; Umberto Nahon from the Jewish Agency; Carlo Alberto Viterbo from the Italian Zionist Federation; and Settimio Sorani for the Delasem. See CZA, Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy – The Central Committee, List of Invitations, L16/521. 92 CZA, Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy – The Central Committee, List of Invitations, L16/521. 93 CZA, Opening Speech by L. Garfunkel at the Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, Rome, 26.11.1945, 3–4, L16/521. 94 CZA, Opening Speech by L. Garfunkel at the Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, Rome, 26.11.1945, 5–6, L16/521. 95 CZA, Opening Speech by L. Garfunkel at the Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, Rome, 26.11.1945, 7–8, L16/521. 96 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, Rome–Ostia, 6, L16/521.

Living in the refugee camps  87 97 Among them were Herbert Landau, an old refugee from Fiume who had been interned in Ferramonti who was already a member of the JPEC; Moshe Kaganowitz, a Jew from Vilnius who reached Italy after the war, where he headed the Historical Commission of the Jewish Partisans; Haim Lazar, a Lithuanian partisan in the forests of Narocz and Rudnuki during the war and an activist in the Zionist Revisionist movement (Betar). However, not all the names of the members of the Central Committee of OJRI are fully mentioned in the archival sources, and for some, we know only their first names or family names. This is the case for surnames, E. Abraham; Dr. Amszczybowsky; Z. Brik; S. Goldstein; L. Togman; Lidowki; Epstein; E. Lustinger; Fabrizki; B. Kahn; S. Kless; I. Rabinowitz; Dr. Rubinstein; and N. Resnik. 98 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, Rome–Ostia, 22, L16/521; CZA, The Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, May 1946, 2, L16/100. 99 The Executive Committee of the He-Halutz in Italy was formed of Arjeh Grossman (Hachsharah Ha-Bonim, Santa Maria al Bagno camp), Abraham Grunsfeld (Santa Maria di Leuca camp), Montilja Jakob (Hachsharah Dror, Bari), ­Jehudah Herzka (educational board, Bari), Reuven Milano (Hachsharah la-Negev, Rome), Rachel Engel (He-Halutz, Rome), and Barzilai Sonnino (He-Halutz, Rome). See CZA, Executive of the Hechaluz for Italy, 16.1.1945, S6/2154, ­He-Halutz Italia. 100 CZA, Executive of the Hechaluz for Italy, 16.1.1945, S6/2154. 101 Two of the eight hakhsharot were for kosher-observing Jewish DPs. See AJDC, Southern Bari Area, Including UNRRA Camp Santa Maria, 15.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664. 102 AJDC, Letter from Benjamin N. Brook to Julian L. Tomlin, 15.12.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharoth, 1945–1950. 103 AJDC, Letter from Charles Passman to American Joint Distribution Committee, 4.3.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy: Hachsharoth, 1945–1950. 104 AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to Mr. H. Katzki, 19.2.1947, G 45–54/4/13/14/ IT.107, Italy: 1947. 105 AJDC, Letter from Benjamin N. Brook to AJDC Paris, New York, Subject: Hachsharahs in Italy, 4.2.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656. For the relationship between Jewish DPs and Italian Jews, see Arturo Marzano, “Jewish DPs in Post-War Italy: The Role of Italian Jewry in a Multilateral Encounter (1945– 1948),” in Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, Bridging Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. Francesca Bregoli, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, and Guri Schwarz (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), 151–72. 106 AJDC, JDC Aid for Vocational Training, 24.7.1947, G 45–54/1/1/4/ADM.162, JDC: Reports, 1946–1947; AJDC, JDC Program in Italy 1946, 12.2.1947, 4, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 107 Woodbridge, UNRRA, 2:525. 108 Avinoam J. Patt, Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009), 269–70. 109 AJDC, Tables JDC Program in Italy 1946, 12.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 110 ACS, Jewish Immigrants to Palestine, 22.4.1944, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel no. 58A, Jews and Policy, December 1943 – June 1944. For a photo of Shertok’s visit to the Ferramonti DP camp among Jewish refugees and Jewish soldiers in April 1944, see Yad Vashem Photo Archives 4613/975, also available online: https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/thismonth/april/1944.html (accessed January 2023). For the rescue operation organized via Istanbul, see Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal I­ mmigration to

88  Living in the refugee camps the Land of Israel, 1939–1944 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 267–85. 111 ACS, Displaced Persons – Representation of IGCR and the Jewish Agency in Italy, and Proposal to Move Displaced Persons of Jewish Extraction to Fedala, 22.5.1944, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel no. 58A. 112 ACS, Extract from Telegram from Foreign Office to Resident Minister, Algiers, 16.6.1944, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel no. 58A. 113 ACS, Immigration Jews to Palestine ex Italy, 23.5.1944, UA – Headquarters Allied Commission (AMG), Reel no. 58A. 114 Even though the ACC had approved the appointment of a delegate of the Jewish Agency in Italy in summer 1945, Umberto Nahon was only able to reach Italy in February 1945. See CAHJP, Memorandum Submitted to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine by Dr. S. U. Nahon – Representative in Italy of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Archivio U. S. Nahon P239, Folder 14: Missione in Italia di Umberto Nahon rappresentante della Jewish Agency (1946). 115 For a profile of Umberto Nahon, see Yoseph Colombo, “Umberto Nahon: Una vita al servizio dell’ebraismo,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 40, no. 1 (1974): 3–8. 116 CAHJP, Nahon to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 2.1.1946, Archivio U. S. Nahon P239, Folder 14. 117 CAHJP, Nahon to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 2.1.1946, Archivio U. S. Nahon P239, Folder 14. 118 CAHJP, Memorandum Submitted to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine by Dr. S. U. Nahon – Representative in Italy of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Archivio U. S. Nahon P239, Folder 14. 119 See Table 4. 120 Ada Sereni, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (Milan: Mursia, 1973), 58, 60–61. 121 See Table 4 and Mario Toscano, La “Porta di Sion”: L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), 44–45. 122 Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, 98–133. 123 Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, ed., Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, Lausanne, 20th April, 1946 (London: H.M.S.O, 1946). The AAC report is available online: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/angtoc.asp (accessed January 2023). 124 CAHJP, Memorandum Submitted to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine by Dr. S. U. Nahon – Representative in Italy of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Archivio U. S. Nahon P239, Folder 14. 125 The Central Committee of the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy, ed., Memorandum to the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine submitted by Leon Garfunkel (Rome: Central Committee of the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy, 1946), 18. 126 ORJI Central Committee, Memorandum, 8–16. 127 ORJI Central Committee, Memorandum, 26. 128 ORJI Central Committee, Memorandum, 37–38. 129 The AAC delegation reported that the Jewish population in Italy numbered 46,000, of whom 30,000 were native Jews and 16,000 were non-Italian Jewish refugees. According to the data presented by the AAC, 75% of the displaced Jews in Italy were of Polish origins, while the remainder were of other Eastern European origins (7% Romanian, 5% Czech, and 5% Hungarian). Report of the Anglo-American Committee, 46–59. 130 The Report of the Anglo-American Committee, 55–56. 131 The Report of the Anglo-American Committee, 56. 132 Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, 107–33.

Living in the refugee camps  89 133 Sereni, Clandestini, 62–63. 134 Markowitzky, Niẓanei Ha-Tḥiyah, 17. 135 Shmoel Mordechai Rubinstein’s memoirs are available online, for the Hebrew version see, http://srmemo.blogspot.com/2008/08/blog-post_185.html and for the English translation see http://cpsa.info/malch/jewish_brethren_D.htm (accessed January 2023). 136 Rubinstein’s work with the JDC is described as excellent in a JDC report for the month of June 1946: see AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to American Joint Distribution Committee, European Headquarters, Paris & New York, Subject: Monthly Report Italian Southern Camps, 20.7.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/9/663. 137 On this topic, see also Patt, Finding Home and Homeland, 18–23.

Bibliography Adler Eliyana R., Survival on the Margins. Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020). Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, ed., Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, L ­ ausanne, 20th April, 1946 (London: H.M.S.O, 1946). Ballinger Pamela, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), https://doi. org/10.1515/9780691187273. Bankier David, ed., The Jews Are Coming Back: The Return of the Jews to Their Countries of Origin after WWII (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; and New York: Berghahn Books, 2005). Bauer Yehuda, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970). Baumel Judith Tydor, Kibbutz Buchenwald: Survivors and Pioneers (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997). Colombo Yoseph, “Umberto Nahon: Una vita al servizio dell’ebraismo,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 40, no. 1 (1974): 3–8. Daniel G. Cohen, “The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950,” Immigrants & Minorities 24, no. 2 (2006): 125–143. Cohen Daniel G., In War’s Wake. Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Dinnerstein Leonard, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), https://doi.org/10.7312/dinn90230. Di Padova Federica, “Jewish Displaced Persons in Italia (1945–1950),” E-Review 4 (2016), https://doi.org/10.12977/ereview117. ­ olocaust: Edele Mark, Fitzpatrick Sheila, and Grossmann Atina, ed., Shelter from the H Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017). Engel David, “Patterns of Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1944–1946,” Yad Vashem Studies 26 (1998). Fantoni Gianluca, Storia della Brigata ebraica. Gli ebrei della Palestina che combatterono in Italia nella Seconda guerra mondiale (Torino: Einaudi, 2022). Garfunkel Leib, Kovnah ha-yehudit be-ḥurbanah (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1959). Gelber Yoav, “The Meeting between the Jewish Soldiers from Palestine Serving in the British Army and the She’erit Hapletah,” in Sherith Hapletah, 1944–1948: Rehabilitation and Political Struggle. Proceedings of the Sixth Yad Vashem International

90  Living in the refugee camps Historical Conference (Jerusalem, October 1985), ed. Israel Gutman and Avital Saf Avital (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1990). Gerber Bernard and Daniels Jean, Letters from Italy. The Personal Correspondence from Henry P. Gerber to His Family While Serving as “Activities Director” in an UNRRA Refugee Camp at Santa Maria di Bagni, Italy 1944–1945 (Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2001). Grenkevich Leonid, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–1944: A Critical Historiographical Analysis (London: Routledge, 1999), https://doi.org/10.4324/ 9780203044698. Gross Jan T., Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. An Essay in Historical Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2006). Grossmann Atina, “Victims, Villains, and Survivors: Gendered Perceptions and ­Self-Perceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Occupied Postwar Germany,” in “Sexuality and German Fascism,” special issue: Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, no. 1/2 (2002): 291–318. Grossmann Atina, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied ­Germany (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), https:// doi.org/10.1515/9781400832743. Harrison Earl G., Earl G. Harrison’s Report to President Truman on the Plight of the Displaced Jews in Europe, Washington, DC, 29 September 1945; available online: http://collections.ushmm.org/artifact/image/library/harrisonreport.pdf (accessed January 2023). Jockush Laura, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early ­Postwar Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Kochavi Arieh J., Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Königseder Angelika and Wetzel Juliane, Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post-World War II Germany, trans. John A. Broadwin (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001). Lavsky Hagit, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002). Lelli Fabrizio, “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. Paganoni Marco (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2010), 111–19. Markowitzky Yakov, “Aliyah ve-hityashvut. Betar ve-She’erit Ha-Pleitah be-Italyah (1946-1945)” [Aliyah and Settlement. Betar among the She’erit Ha-Pleitah in Italy (1945–1946),” Yonim ba-tkumat Isra’el 7 (1997): 272–84. Markowitzky Yakov, Niẓanei Ha-Tḥiyah: ha-merkaz la-golah ve-ha-pe’ilut, ­ha-­yishuvit be-italyah 1944–1948 Buds of Resurrection: The Center for the ­Diaspora and Local Activities in Italy (Tel Aviv: Merkaz La-Golah, 1997). Mankowitz Zeev, Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), https://doi. org/10.1017/CBO9780511497100. Marrus Micheal R., The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). Marzano Arturo, “Jewish DPs in Post-War Italy: The Role of Italian Jewry in a Multilateral Encounter (1945–1948),” in Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, Bridging Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. Francesca Bregoli, Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, and Guri Schwarz (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), 151–72, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89405-8_8.

Living in the refugee camps  91 Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939–1944 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Ozacky Stern Daniela, “Executions of Jewish Partisans in the Lithuanian Forests: The Case of Natan Ring,” International Journal of Military History and Historiography 40 (2021): 219–44, https://doi.org/10.1163/24683302-bja10001. Patishi Hanokh, Maḥteret ba-madim: ha-“Haganah” ha-ereẓ-isra’eli be-ẓavah ­ha-britim 1939–1946 [Underground in Uniforms: The Haganah from Eretz Israel in the British Army 1939–1946] (Tel Aviv: Misrad Ha-Bitaḥon, 2006). Patt Avinoam J., Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009). Pfanzelter Eva, “Between Brenner and Bari: Jewish Refugees in Italy 1945 to 1948,” in Escape through Austria, Jewish Refugees and the Austrian Route to Palestine, ed. Albricht Thomas and Zweig Ronald W. (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2002), 83–101. Porat Dina, The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner (­Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), https://doi.org/10.11126/stanford/ 9780804762489.001.0001. Proudfoot Malcolm J., European Refugees: 1939–52. A Study in Forced Population Movement (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1956). Pupo Raoul, Il lungo esodo. Istria: Le persecuzioni, le foibe, l’esilio (Milan: Rizzoli, 2005). Rebecca Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009). Saaroni Sarah, Life Goes on Regardless (Hawthorn: Hudson Publishing, 1989). Salvatici Silvia, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 3 (2014): 514–536, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009414528262. Sanfilippo Matteo, “I campi in Italia nel secondo dopoguerra,” Meridiana 86 (2016): 41–56. Sereni Ada, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (Milan: Mursia, 1973). Steinacher Gerald, “L’Alto Adige come regione di transito dei rifugiati (1945–1950),” Studi Emigrazioni/Migration Studies 43, no. 164 (2006): 821–34. Szaynok Bożena, “The Jewish Pogrom in Kielce, July 1946 – New Evidence,” Intermarium 1, no. 3, available online: https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/int/int_0103a. html (accessed January 2023). The Central Committee of the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy, ed., Memorandum to the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine submitted by Leon Garfunkel (Rome: Central Committee of the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy, 1946). Toscano Mario, La “Porta di Sion”: L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). Vernant Jacques, The Refugee in the Post-War World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953). Villani Cinzia, “Milano, Via Unione 5. Un centro di accoglienza per ‘displaced persons’ ebree nel secondo dopoguerra,” Studi Storici 50 no. 2 (2009): 333–70, https:// doi.org/10.7375/70405. Villlani Cinzia, “Infrangere le frontiere. L’arrivo in Italia delle displaced persons ebree  1945–1948” (PhD diss., Univerità degli Studi di Trento, 2009), available online: http://eprints-phd.biblio.unitn.it/354/1/Tesi_completa_pdf.pdf (accessed January 2023).

92  Living in the refugee camps Villani Cinzia, “‘We Have Crossed Many Borders.’ Arrivals, Presence and P ­ erceptions of Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy (1945–1948),” in Tamid Kadima, Immer voerw Arts. Der Jüdische Exodus aus Europa 1945–1948, ed. Aschauer-Smolik Sabine and Steidl Mario (Innsbruck, Vienna and Bozen: Studien Verlag, 2010), 261–77. Vinçon Sara, Vite in transito. Gli ebrei nel campo profughi di Grugliasco (1945–1949) (Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 2009).

3 Plural identities, one shared goal Rebuilding home and family in the refugee camps

One ideal, many ideologies Young again

When we crossed the Austrian border we saw before us Hebrew ­soldiers, from the Jewish Brigade, who had come to meet the survivors to take them to camps, and from there to Eretz Israel. I have never forgotten that meeting, even until today, it was a change of worlds, not just a meeting. We went from one world to another, suddenly I had permission to live. There was someone who wanted me to live! […] [Selvino children’s home] is where we became young again. This is where we got our Jewish pride. Little by little, almost every day, children and teenagers kept arriving. They prepared us very well, not for our personal lives but as pioneers. As pioneers who had to establish the State of Israel. Nothing else mattered, we were to reach Israel and take part in establishing the Jewish State.1 In the biographical documentary based on the life of Shmuel (Shmulik) Shilo, the protagonist travels from Israel to his hometown of Lutsk (the capital of Wołyń Voivodeship in interwar Poland, now Ukraine) and recalls his experience of the war with his son Avi. Born in 1930, Shilo, the youngest of four children, grew up in a traditional Jewish family. The Shulmans  – ­Shmulik’s original family name before his aliyah – were well integrated into the local society as well as into the communal life of the 16,000 Jews who comprised about 40% of the city’s population on the eve of the war. Their routine was abruptly halted between 1939 and 1941, when western Volhynia was first annexed to the Soviet Union and later, on the violation of the M ­ olotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1941, to Nazi Germany.2 For Shmuel Shilo, the Nazi occupation meant the immediate loss of his father, who was shot dead during a mass murder in Lubart’s castle, and his detention in the ghetto with the rest of his family. In August 1942, Shmuel, his mother, and his siblings miraculously survived the liquidation of the ghetto by hiding in an underground cellar, while between 15,000 and 17,000, DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281-4

94  Plural identities, one shared goal Jews from the ghetto were executed by gunfire at Gurka Polonka, just outside Lutsk. With his mother, he ended up in another small ghetto in Lutsk that held a group of about 300 Jews. Hiding, he was able to escape mass executions and deportation once more, while his mother did not survive the liquidation and was killed in the pits at Gurka Polonka. Shortly afterwards, his brother Mickey was killed during the uprising in the Krasne labour camp. Shmuel Shilo continued to live in hiding with the help of locals until he joined the partisans in the Tzuman forest. When the Red army liberated Lutsk in February 1944, he was finally able to reunite with his sister Necha, the only survivor of his family, with whom he moved to Italy on the way to Palestine at the end of the war. Shmuel Shilo was fifteen years old when he joined Selvino children’s home, which was established and run by a Jewish soldier named Moshe Zeiri in a former Fascist boarding school called Sciesopoli, in the foothills of the Alps. Zeiri, a member of the Kvutzat Schiller agricultural settlement, was one of the soldiers in the first Palestinian units to arrive in Italy with the Allied army from North Africa. From his arrival, he showed an inclination towards educating children and young people, especially when he arrived in via Unione 5 and started working with local Jews to look after the Italian community and assist the Jewish children arriving from the Austrian border in summer 1945. A few months later, he established a children’s home in Selvino with the help of the Milanese Jewish community and the JDC, which listed this children’s home among the hakhsharot and financed it accordingly.3 Selvino children’s home was on many occasions praised as a model – a “children’s paradise.” Zeiri first aimed to offer “his children” a welcoming place where they would be cared for and where they could acquire the means to live in a collective, reflecting their future resettlement in kibbutzim. Theodore Sznejberg-Haltagi of the JDC proudly spoke about Selvino in a press release, to the extent that he wondered “whether the word ‘family’ is not even a better definition of this group than the usual term ‘children’s community.’”4 Selvino was indeed a place where hundreds of Jewish DP children, many of whom were orphans, found their home in a warm environment. This positive impression was confirmed by other JDC workers, such as Gershon Gelbart from the Educational Department, who in May 1946 presented Selvino as the flagship of the JDC’s mission in Italy: The institution as a whole is perhaps one of the brightest spots in our entire Italian program. Its primary objective – that of rehabilitating the children, preparing them for life in Palestine – is pursued with intelligence, halutzistic [pioneering] devotion and effectiveness.5 At the same time, Selvino also became a key political site for the debate on “children’s best interests” between the Zionists who were running the institutions and the JDC social workers who sought to preserve the apolitical nature

Plural identities, one shared goal  95 of this American Jewish organization. This happened within the broader framework of severe tensions around the treatment of refugee children and the international debate around child welfare that stood at the centre of the reconstruction of post-war Europe. At that time, the definition and implementation of “children’s best interests” took shape in parallel to the emerging ideals of democratization, which prioritized the reunification of families and renationalization through repatriation as the main guidelines for child welfare policies.6 In these circumstances, Jewish DP children became the target of both social workers who drew on these emerging ideals and Zionists who strove to bring them to Palestine.7 As for Selvino, the discussions mainly revolved around the personality and pedagogical approach of its leader, Moshe Zeiri, who was remembered by children, collaborators, and social workers alike as a paternal figure but also as an inflexible and charismatic leader. Zeiri ran Selvino children’s home according to the secular socialist principles of Youth Aliyah: children studied for half the day (particularly focusing on Hebrew and on subjects connected to Eretz Israel and Zionism) and dedicated the other half of the day to housework and agricultural work. The goal of the hakhsharah was to teach children collective responsibility, self-help, and mutual aid. “It was like in The Pedagogical Poem,” said Shmuel Shilo on Selvino. He referred to a novel by the founder of Soviet pedagogy, Anton S. Makarenko, who described the importance of upbringing in self-governing child collectives in order to return homeless minors and offenders to a full-fledged cultural and social life based on feasible and socially useful work. “We established groups, older children looked after the younger ones. I worked in the garden and in the journal. […] We made all the works by ourselves,” Shilo recalled in his oral testimony.8 Besides study and work, recreational activities were scheduled daily, such as playing sports in the courtyard surrounding the building, watching films, or swimming in the heated pool. Moreover, Zeiri, as a student of the Habima drama school in Tel Aviv, brought his passion for the theatre to Selvino. Shilo – who later became a popular actor in Israel – recalled that his first time on stage was in Selvino children’s home. However, Zeiri’s stringent rules on children’s education were not entirely shared, for instance, by the JDC worker Elias Gordin, who inspected Selvino in September 1946. Though he recognized Zeiri’s intellectual honesty, ­Gordin reported to the JDC that Selvino’s leader’s approach sacrificed children’s needs for his ideals: The following instance will give you an indication as to what happens: Zeiri transports children, some of whom are 6 years old, through the night, over rough mountain roads, in order to see an opera in Milan. [He says:] ‘Culture is more important than physic.’ They slept overnight, despite warnings, at Via Unione 5, and the children returned with their blankets infested with bedbugs.9

96  Plural identities, one shared goal Gordin specified that these episodes happened not because Zeiri was “cruel” but because he was an “idealist,” and he warned the JDC that “it [was] high time we call the tune in the institution where we pay the piper.” Despite some criticism, Zeiri continued to manage his children’s home until its closure. Zeiri’s personality is manifest in the letters exchanged with his closest collaborator in Milan and later in Selvino: the Italian Jew Matilde Cassin.10 From these, it may be deduced that while, on the one hand, Zeiri appreciated Cassin’s dedication to the children in Selvino, on the other hand, he made her feel guilty for having left the children’s home only a month after its opening for personal reasons. Indeed, after the war, she was finally able to reunite with her fiancé, the Florentine pioneer Max (Meir) Varadi, who came back to Italy as an emissary of Po’alei Ha-Mizrahi, a religious Zionist movement.11 From Florence, Matilde Cassin addressed several letters to Zeiri in an attempt to find a way to involve her husband-to-be in the children’s home’s educational programme in order to realize her greatest desire to return to Selvino. On 14 November 1945, she wrote to Zeiri: Max, as a haver [member] of the Po’alei Ha-Mizrahi, has to abide by a lifestyle which is not the current one in Selvino: observance of the Shabbat, tefillot, kosher [food], Torah study. Moshe, do you sincerely believe that we could come to an agreement? That we can create a warm, serene, intimate atmosphere?12 Only three days later, she wrote in another letter: I believe that a perfect collaboration between the three of us would be possible […] Are you ready for this, Moshe? […] I think that our home must not be a home for political parties, as we must give our children those spiritual and moral values which are above parties, eternal. You understand how difficult it is for [Max] to enter a [children’s] home started by others, and [that] he, like us, cannot stay behind? We must be able to collaborate all together on the same level, since we all have the same method and the same ideal.13 In fact, Matilde Cassin, Moshe Zeiri, and Max Varadi really were working towards the same ideal: taking care of children and youth people and educating them about aliyah and life in a kibbutz. Moshe Zeiri was aware that Matilde Cassin’s return to Selvino was necessary both to alleviate his workload and for the well-being of the children, who missed her maternal presence. However, ideologies prevailed, and this collaboration never took place: Moshe Zeiri continued to run Selvino children’s home according to the principles of the Gordonia secular Zionist movement, whereas Max Varadi opened another religious children’s home in Florence called Giv’at Ha-Yeled (Children’s Hill) in summer 1946.14 Between 1946 and 1948, other five large

Plural identities, one shared goal  97 children’s homes were opened in Italy by different parties: in Monte Mario (Rome) and Nichelino (Turin) by Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni, in Avigliana (Turin) by Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, in Campolecciano (Livorno) by Agudat Israel, and in Grottaferrata (Rome) by Betar.15 All of these homes were considered as hakhsharot, and were supported as such by the JDC. The formation of a predominantly Zionist environment

Shmuel Shilo’s personal story, which directly or indirectly intertwined with that of other young Holocaust survivors, the Jewish soldier Moshe Zeiri, the Italian pioneer Max Varadi, the activist Matilde Cassin, and the JDC social workers, draws our attention to the fact that post-war Italy became a key political and humanitarian site for the Jews. Refugee camps and hakhsharot served as the arenas where political questions were debated along with issues of everyday life. The needs of the refugees and their struggle to make sense of the recent past, the interests of the political actors, and the approaches of the humanitarian organizations converged and diverged, shaping new patterns of temporary communal life in Italy. The Jewish DPs’ core question was whether it was possible to rebuild ­Jewish life in Europe. The answer(s) provoked heated debates on the meaning of home and future among the Jewish DPs, whose first attempt to define their identity and belonging can be traced back to the Nazi concentration camps on the eve of liberation. In defining themselves She’erit Ha-Pleitah, meaning at the same time “the saved remnant” and “the surviving remnant,” Jewish DPs saw their survival to the Holocaust as bridging to collective and national rebirth. In an article titled “Towards a Clarification of Our Position” that appeared in Nitzotz in March 1945, Leo Garfunkel was among the central figures of the She’erit Ha-Pleitah who had been claiming since then that the sacrifice of the Jews in the Final Solution proved that the Jewish people could no longer exist without a national centre of their own: In the light of our terrible situation there should be neither talk about the question of Jews nor of Judaism. The tragic and unprecedented question on our agenda relates to the very existence of the Hebrew nation. For if we do not see the creation of an independent and viable Jewish center in the Land of Israel in the near future it will spell the beginning of the final decline and fall of our people.16 Later, in the opening speech at the first OJRI conference, Garfunkel defined Jewish statehood not only as a response to the Holocaust but also as the result of centuries of discrimination in Europe. Placing the She’erit H ­ a-Pleitah in a broader historical and geographical context, Jewish DPs’ leaders in Italy tried

98  Plural identities, one shared goal to make sense of the recent past while depicting a way to collectively shape the future: Having been cruelly consumed by the rotation of history in our exile, [we have no way back] to our countries […]. [Palestine can put an end to the Jewish people’s] lack of our own space on earth and our own place under the sun. Within this deficiency are the real sources of all its plight and sufferings, of its martyrdom that has lasted thousands of years and has assumed an apocalyptic scale amidst the twentieth century, in the time culminating achievements in human culture and civilization, 150 years after the Great French Revolution and its slogan “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”17 In dreaming of their “return to Palestine,” the Jewish DP leaders agreed that factionalism had harmed Jewish life in Europe and that the primary step in preparing their liberation was the move towards unification. However, ­Zionist unity proved difficult to maintain. As noted by Anna Holian, scholars have attributed “the strength of Zionism” among DP survivors to the Holocaust, but the Holocaust alone – despite its enormous impact – is not sufficient to explain “the political visibility of Zionism among the Jewish DPs.” In her analysis on this aspect, Holian stressed the attention on the regional history of Zionism, arguing that prewar affiliation to Zionism and other forms of Jewish nationalism have helped the Holocaust survivors in the refugee camps in planning for the future.18 Holian highlighted that anti-repatriation sentiment and pre-war Zionist tradition were strongest among Polish and Lithuanian Jews. “For survivors from Poland and Lithuania, especially the younger generation” – Holian says – “Zionism thus constituted a well-established idiom for thinking about Jewish belonging, a recognized alternative to the idea of rebuilding their lives in their native countries. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, this alternative was more appealing than ever before.”19 In Italy, Polish Jews represented the majority of the Jewish DPs, and Lithuanians held important leadership positions. Adopting this perspective, we are able to recognize some peculiarities that could help us grasp the role of Zionism among the Jewish DPs in Italy. The struggle for political representation From unity to factionalism

Debates on policy and political factionalism were not limited to the Selvino children’s home; instead, internal divisions started to predominate in the leadership and organization of the Jewish DPs in Italy as the number of shlichim sent to Italy increased in 1946. However, in order to fully grasp this change, we should look back at the foundational events that led to the establishment of the He-Halutz.

Plural identities, one shared goal  99 In the early post-war period, the leaders of the Brichah, former ghetto and partisan leaders, and the Jewish Brigade attempted to create a united nonparty movement that would derive its momentum and moral significance from their joint efforts. On 24 August 1945, a conference of representatives of the Jewish units stationed in Italy was convened in order to discuss the future of their actions among the refugees in view of the Jewish Brigade’s imminent move to Holland and Belgium. They discussed the possibility of establishing an organization that would preserve the all-movement framework initiated by the Jewish soldiers in 1943, bringing about the unity of all the kibbutz movements and parties in the Yishuv. And indeed, the conference unanimously decided in favour of a unified pioneering Zionist organization (He-Halutz Ha-Ehad), which would serve as a supra-partisan pioneering body that was intended to train the Jewish DPs prior to their immigration to Palestine in collaboration with the Merkaz La-Golah.20 However, under the direct influence of the political situation in the kibbutz movements in Palestine, this ambition of unity and coordination “quickly evaporated,” as described by Avraham Golub (Tory), a survivor of the Kovno ghetto and a key figure in the Merkaz La-Golah in Italy: With the Jewish soldiers’ departure, the Yishuv, its leading institutions, and the Zionist movements started to send civilian emissaries who arrived in Italy by the end of 1945. This transition accelerated the politicization of life in the refugee camps. Although the Merkaz ­La-Golah has mandated the emissaries to act as a delegation from Palestine to take over cultural and educational affairs among the refugees, they took advantage of their role to engage in political propaganda and train their future party affiliates.21 From correspondence between the leaders of the Merkaz La-Golah, Yehiel Duvdevani and Arieh Stern (Oron), the activities of the emissaries from the He-Halutz were perceived as a force that would be able to influence the ideological inclination of the Jewish DPs in Italy and, as a consequence, to compromise the political situation in Palestine through their aliyah. It appears that the various pioneering movements that made up the Merkaz He-Halutz saw Mapai (the leading party in the Yishuv) as the only beneficiary of the abovementioned alleged unity and that they were acting to weaken its hegemonic power in Palestine by recruiting new affiliates from the “pioneering reservoir of the diaspora” in the refugee camps.22 When the attempt to secure political unity failed, the number of emissaries for each movement was determined according to its relative strength within the Jewish Agency and among the power of the kibbutz movements in British Palestine. At that time, there were five such movements, all recruiting new members through a wide range of youth parties, but each with its own idea of kibbutz society. The strongest movement was the United Kibbutz Movement (Kibbutz Ha-Me’uhad), which was supported by Mapai; the second

100  Plural identities, one shared goal largest was Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir’s Kibbutz Artzi movement, followed by the ­smallest Religious Kibbutz Movement (Kibbutz Ha-Dati), Hever ­Ha-Kvutzot, and the Ha-’Oved Ha-Tzioni affiliated to the non-socialist General Zionist party.23 These political power relations within the Yishuv were reproduced in the composition of the Merkaz He-Halutz in Italy. It included the Zionist movements Gordonia, Dror Ha-Bonim, and Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni affiliated to United Kibbutz Movement, the independent ­Ha-Shomer Ha-’Tza’ir, the pioneering youth movement established in G ­ ermany Noham (an acronym for No’ar Halutzi Me’uhad), the non-socialist Ha-’Oved, and the religious Zionist movement Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrahi (also known as Torah Ve-Avodah, its slogan). The He-Halutz also included the non-Zionist haredi (strictly orthodox) movement Agudat Israel and the United Partisans Organization, the Jewish resistance movement established by Communist and Zionist partisans in the Vilna ghetto (also known by the Yiddish a­ cronym Pahah – Partizaner, Hayalim und Halutzim). In contrast, excluded by the He-Halutz but anyway active among the Jewish DPs were the Betar, the Revisionist Zionist movement, and Bund, the socialist movement born in Russia at the end of the ninetieth century that promoted Jewish autonomism in Eastern Europe. This party framework granted the emissaries of the He-Halutz independence and flexibility in acting according to the needs of their movement. Their work mainly gravitated around the Jewish DPs’ training in the hakhsharot and their emigration and resettlement in kibbutzim in Palestine. This had a twofold consequence: on the one hand, each hakhsharah was affiliated to one of the He-Halutz parties (or those excluded by it), who ran these collective livings according to their own political ideologies; on the other hand, the aliyah bet became governed by a system of quotas which reflected the contemporary political balance of these very same parties in Palestine. As reported by the JDC, in 1946, the number of hakhsharot installations grew from forty-four in January to seventy-nine in December, with a corresponding population increase from 4,000 to 7,000.24 Among these, 5,000 were over eighteen, comprising 3,600 men and 1,900 women; 500 were aged between fourteen and seventeen (300 boys and 200 girls); and 300 were children under three years of age. As the main supporter of the hakhsharot, the JDC remarked that its expenditure for the rent, equipment, repairs, and supplies for these installations tripled between the first and last quarters of 1946.25 The following year, the number of Jewish DPs organized in collective farms reached its peak: a total of 24,638 Jews, 7,469 were housed in seventyseven hakhsharot, 10,673 in camps, and 6,496 in towns.26 According to the statistical data collected by the He-Halutz, 8,683 Jewish DPs living in the hakhsharot and in some of the refugee camps were affiliated to He-Halutz parties in January 1947. Around 77% of them were affiliated to secular Zionist parties, 8% to religious Zionist parties, 6% to Agudat Israel, and 9% to Pahah.27 In addition, the He-Halutz records documented the existence of a total of 260 hakhsharot organized by the movements recognized by the

Plural identities, one shared goal  101 He-Halutz in Italy between 1945 and 1948: forty-six run by Gordonia, fortyfour by Dror, fifty-two by Ha-No’ar Ha-’Tzioni, eleven by Ha-’Oved, thirtyone by Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir, twenty-two by Noham, thirty-one by Mizrahi, ten by Agudat Israel, and thirteen by Pahah.28 Although there is no accurate report of the total number of Jewish DPs who joined the hakhsharot in Italy, yet again the He-Halutz records provided detailed data on Jewish DPs who made aliyah from its hakhsharot between August 1945 and January 1949. In particular, up until August 1948, the 15,840 people who were illegal immigrants (ma’apilim), comprising 80% of the total of 19,800, were all hakhsharot members. Moreover, between ­September 1947 and September 1948, among the 2,400 Jewish DPs who had been able to migrate in the framework of the so-called aliyah dalet, with the use of forged certificates, 1,680 (70%) were He-Halutz affiliates from the hakhsharot. Later, after the establishment of the State of Israel, between October 1948 and January 1949, one-third of the 9,606 Jewish DPs who legally entered the country (aliyah alef) came from the hakhsharot run by the He-Halutz.29 Against the backdrop of this general picture, the wide-ranging documentation analysed for this study has shown that some groups of Jewish DPs had to strive to establish their political representation in the predominant socialist and secular Zionist atmosphere of the refugee camps and hakhsharot in Italy. While we know very little about the Bund so far, it is possible to trace the development of the religious (Zionist and non-Zionist) and Revisionist groups among the Jewish DPs. Orthodox Jewish DPs

Among the religious Jews in the DP camps and hakhsharot in Italy, there were two main groups: the orthodox Jewish DPs affiliated to the non-Zionist movement Agudat Israel and the religious Zionists affiliated to Torah ve-Avodah.30 Both of them had to face many obstacles to restoring their religious lifestyle after the Holocaust, especially in post-war Italy. Indeed, their attempts to ­re-establish their spiritual life were shaped as a political struggle that reflected the tensions between secularism and religion in the Yishuv at that time. Their most urgent problem was related to the supply of kosher food and religious items. However, if the supply of kosher food remained troubled, despite the JDC’s many attempts to solve this problem, the Jewish DPs themselves made every effort to reorganize their religious life in the camps. In 1944, Arthur Greenleigh wrote to Joseph Hyman, executive vice-chairman of the JDC: A few weeks ago, the orthodox Jews at the refugee camp near here built themselves a small, but attractive synagogue. Many of them had had no opportunity to worship in a minian for several years, having been in one concentration camp after another. But they needed skull caps. None could be purchased anywhere in the vicinity of Rome, and even though

102  Plural identities, one shared goal their women had access to sewing machines which we had ­purchased for a sewing project, no black cloth could be obtained. Finally, the problem was put up to the chairman of the Delasem, Renzo Levi, and he found some Fascist black shirts which had been abandoned in the liberation of Rome. From these enough skull caps were made on the sewing project to supply the needs of the camp.31 These difficulties were worsened not only by the logistical and economic problems of bringing supplies into the camps but also by the dominant presence of the secular Zionist movements operating within the Jewish Brigade. Therefore, in order to strengthen the power of the religious movements within the Merkaz La-Golah and the Merkaz He-Halutz, it was initially suggested that a united religious movement be created that would include M ­ izrahi and Agudat Israel.32 However, the factionalism that characterized the secular movements of the He-Halutz was likewise found among the religious ones, which decided to take separate paths. In August 1945, a group of seventy young haredi Jewish DPs in M ­ odena found their “commander, father, mother, and guide” in the charismatic Holocaust survivor Rabbi Leibel Kutner (Hassidic of Gur, Poland). Mendel Brickman, a Polish survivor of Mauthausen Concentration Camp who joined Rabbi Kutner’s group, recalled in an interview: Wherever the refugees went, they were accompanied by members of the Zionist movements, who sought to guarantee that these potential citizens of the Jewish state would bear no signs of the Diaspora. They approached the youngsters, feigning compassion and warmth, holding ostentatious parties for them. These parties, totally lacking the yiras Shamayim [fear of God], were accompanied by Zionist songs. Behind the scenes, Reb Leibel waged a mighty war against these groups – a war of “the few against the many,” a war between his impoverished group, consisting of a few score of bochurim [pupils], and the massive well-backed Zionist youth groups. […] The representatives of the Zionist groups tempted the children with toys and clothing, which they easily acquired. Reb Leib trudged from office to office to acquire these items for “his boys.”33 At the same time, orthodox Jewish DPs also began to clamour for the recognition of their rights in the southern regions. In August 1945, Elazar ­Ashkenazi – a Polish Jew who arrived in Italy in 1938 – directed a request for help from Bari to Agudat Israel’s central offices in Palestine: “A group of Agudat Israel has been established in Italy. It is willing to emigrate to Eretz Israel. Clothes and food are needed.”34 Ashkenazi’s attempt to establish an institutional framework for the nonZionist religious DPs was supported by Rabbi Kutner’s group, which meanwhile was moved to the south, to the Santa Cesarea DP camp. Here, he reorganized his 300 followers into a hakhsharah for adults named La-Moledet

Plural identities, one shared goal  103 (To the Homeland) and a youth village for seventy young boys.35 Among them was the teenager Yoseph Kleiman, a fifteen-year-old Auschwitz survivor from Budapest, who described the journey from Modena to southern Italy and the situation at his arrival in Santa Cesarea in his memoirs: There were already Jewish DPs in the camps waiting for their turn to immigrate to Eretz Israel. The residents had a harsh life there. The place looked very neglected, many soldiers had already passed through it. Each party was given a structure at its disposal; we managed to find temporary rest and a place to stay. We got rooms without beds, sleeping on the floor like in [concentration camps]. We set up a kosher kitchen there, while all the religious people there ate what was prepared in the shared kitchen. We organized a synagogue for ourselves, we did not yet have tefillin, and there were also a few holy books. We established a school. Almost all the lessons were conducted orally because we did not have books. I remember a teacher who prepared the lessons by copying them out by hand from a book he had prepared for the students. We also studied Hebrew and general subjects there, to fill in what we had missed during the war.36 Besides their commitment to obtaining political representation, the DP ­rabbis based in Modena played a major role in establishing an educational framework for their young fellows. In particular, with the support of the Jewish community in Rome, Rabbi Yaakov Lechowitzky, Rabbi Binyamin Eliezer Borzykowski, and Rabbi Isaac Rabinovich founded the Yeshivah Me’or HaGolah.37 This was supported by the JDC (which listed it as a special installation among the hakhsharot), as well as by Jewish communities in North America and South Africa thanks to a successful fundraising campaign conducted by the head of the yeshivah, Rabbi Ephraim Oshri.38 At the end of 1946, there were two eleven-year-old students, twenty-nine aged between fifteen and eighteen, thirty-six aged between eighteen and twenty-two, and twenty-two adults.39 In 1948, the yeshivah staff planned to move to Israel, but because of the outbreak of the Arab–Israeli war, its students instead were transferred to Canada.40 The pressure that this orthodox Jewish DP group put on the central offices of Agudat Israel in Palestine bore fruit when the first emissary of the party, Yoseph Eigerman, arrived in Italy. Realizing that religious Jewish DPs needed both material help and moral support, he invited Benjamin Mitz, head of the Histadrut Poa’lei Agudat Israel, to come and tour the Agudat installations in Italy. Mitz visited the children’s home in Santa Cesarea and the Yeshivah Me’or Ha-Golah and solicited other orthodox rescue committees to intervene, describing his emotional meeting with the Jewish DPs in Italy as follows: We should feel ashamed in front of them. They are the heroes of the spirit. Dressed in distinctly devout attire, with beards, sidelocks, and

104  Plural identities, one shared goal long capotes, thus they came to me and we were all amazed. After all they have been through, most of them are spiritually wanting. They pounced on me and Rabbi Mishkovsky and emptied us of our tefillin; we gave them books, and they asked for more, and more. The main thing was the tefillin of Rabbenu Tam. It was a miracle that I had another couple of them with me. They are making wonders here.41 Besides the Yeshivah and the hakhsharah La-Moledet, between 1945 and 1948, Agudat Israel ran nine hakhsharot, a children’s home (S/32), and a hakhsharah exclusively for women (S/13), numbering a total of 420 affiliates in the hakhsharot, twenty-eight in youth institutions, and thirty-five in the DP camps by March 1947.42 Religious Zionism

The encounter with the religious Zionist soldiers aroused excitement and expectations among the Jewish DPs who had been forced to abandon their religious life during the war. Dov Knohl, at that time a volunteer in the first Palestinian units in the British Army, became the leader of this group in Italy. He urged the Merkaz La-Golah to recognize that one of its functions was also to organize the religious lives of those Jewish DPs who were seeking help to maintain this way of life in refugee camps.43 According to Knohl’s testimony, religious Zionist soldiers were not able to lead an independent religious life in the army and were therefore compelled to adapt to the secular lifestyle of the majority of their comrades. At the same time, he was convinced that this attitude within the Jewish Brigade discouraged many Jewish DPs from expressing their desire to live according to Jewish law (halakhah), instead influencing most of them to join secular Zionist movements, which appeared to be more likely to bring them to Palestine. Knohl feared that given the lack of an organized religious Zionist representative movement, membership of the secular pioneering movements would seem more capable of offering a reliable social framework and a sense of confidence in a moment of disorientation and amidst the loss of familial, social, and religious patterns of belonging.44 Although the presence of religious Zionist soldiers was not enough to support the election of a representative in the Merkaz La-Golah executive committee that determined the nature of the rehabilitative activities, a religious hakhsharah (Datit) had already been established in Ferramonti in 1944.45 However, it was only after the arrival of a significant number of religious Jewish DPs after the war that the situation changed. In particular, the arrival of a group of 125 Torah ve-Avodah affiliates from Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary in July 1945 marked a turning point.46 In August 1945, Dov Knohl organized the movement’s first conference in Italy and the first emissaries started to arrive from Palestine, among them Eliezer Eliner, Max Varadi, and Baruch Duvdevani.47 At this point, the

Plural identities, one shared goal  105 supply and distribution of kosher food, books, and religious items gradually improved. Ritual baths were built near the DP camps, the rabbis started to officiate religious weddings, brit milah (circumcisions), and bar mitzvah, and in 1946, Passover was finally observed and celebrated in the camps. Over the years, the number of emissaries from Torah ve-Avodah remained quite limited due to the restricted power of its representative parties within the Jewish Agency and the limited influence of the Religious Kibbutz Movement.48 Despite this disadvantage, the number of religious Zionist hakhsharot increased in Italy. Between 1945 and 1948, Torah ve-Avodah ran thirty-one hakhsharot, including a children’s home (S/31), for a total of 651 affiliates in March 1947.49 Among those defined as “an excellent installation” by the emissaries from Torah ve-Avodah were the hakhsharot Makor Baruch in Bacoli (near Naples) and Ha-Shavim (The Returnees) in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp. The former was established in September 1945 on the initiative of the Jewish chaplains of the Allied army, Angel Baruch Epstein and Baruch Ziskind. It hosted ninety-three Jewish DPs from Hungary and Transylvania organized in a fishing hakhsharah.50 The latter, before becoming exclusively affiliated to Torah ve-Avodah, also functioned as a mixed hakhsharah for Agudat Israel affiliates until the end of 1945, with a total population of about 160 young members from Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and Romania. Besides the celebration of Shabbat and religious festivities, Ha-Shavim members alternated religious studies with Hebrew classes, which took place every morning for two hours. The morning started with Gemara lessons in the early morning hours followed by Hebrew classes and continued with the study of Rashi’s commentary on the Torah. In addition, three times a week, there were school lessons for adults on kibbutz ideology, Zionism, religious thought, history, and geography.51 Revisionist Zionists

One of the movements that originally managed to pursue a Zionist agenda operating under the leadership of a single Zionist umbrella organization among the Jewish DPs was the Revisionist Betar movement. The organization of this movement in Italy stemmed directly from the initiative of partisans and ghetto fighters who arrived in Italy through the Brichah immediately after liberation. However, when Betar’s representatives in Italy understood that this aspiration to unity neither reflected nor fitted the political reality that had emerged with the arrival of the shlichim, they created their own separate framework for their movement. Betar’s first meeting in Italy was held in Florence on 6 October 1945. It was organized by a group of activists from the movement, among whom Haim Lazar, a partisan in the Narocz and Rudnuki forests.52 The purpose of the gathering was to restore the European branch of the movement, creating an organizational framework and formulating patterns of action in order to absorb incoming refugees in the camps. In Florence, it was estimated that at

106  Plural identities, one shared goal that time there were 230 Betarim (Betar affiliates): 103 in the Santa Cesarea Terme DP camp, another 107 in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, and others scattered throughout the north.53 To increase the number of affiliates, this first core of Betarim decided to publish a newspaper that would disseminate the movement’s political vision among the Jewish DPs in Italy. At the same time, they placed activists at border crossing points in order to dispel the rumours spread by opposing parties that Betar had blocked the way to Palestine.54 Later, when Betar’s leaders in Italy learned that David Wdowiński – one of the founders and leaders of the Revisionist party in Poland before the war and one of the commanders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – was in the Feldafing DP camp in Germany, they invited him to help them to recruit new members in Italy. Wdowiński accepted the invitation and arrived in Rome in mid-­October 1945, whereupon he was soon awarded the title of Betar’s Honorary Chairman in Italy. He immediately devoted himself to an extensive propaganda campaign, writing articles in the movement’s newspaper and lecturing about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Betar’s role in the Żydowski Związek Wojskowy (­ Jewish Military Union) underground resistance in that area of Poland.55 At this point, Rome became the Betar headquarters and many hakhsharot were founded there, with the first and main one being founded in Grottaferrata.56 Moreover, on 5 January 1946, Betar organized the first movement’s national conference in Castel Gandolfo, which was also the first in post-war Europe. The conference elected the new Betar Committee, with Haim Lazar as commissioner, Adam Halperin as head of the organization department, Meir Itzkovich as head of the educational and cultural programmes, Bezalel Tchaikovich as overseer of the hakhsharot, and Rivka Carpinx and Hanoch Holzer to oversee south and north Italy, respectively.57 During the conference in Castel Gandolfo, it was estimated that the number of Jewish DPs affiliated to Revisionist Zionism grew to 830. Most of the Betarim came from Poland (542), Romania (116), Lithuania (65), and ­Czechoslovakia (65), with some from other countries (42). Lazar reported that they were mostly men (603), that 375 of them were partisans and 412 were survivors of the concentration camps, while the others had had different wartime experience... Most of them were aged between sixteen and twentyfive (489) or between twenty-five and thirty-five (289).58 In 1946, a meeting with representatives of Revisionist Zionism from the Yishuv disappointed Betar activists in Italy, harming the movement from the inside. While Betar’s leadership in Italy was still anchored to the structure and ideology of the pre-war European branches of the movement, Revisionist emissaries from Palestine were closer to the ideology of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (the National Military Organization, also known by the acronym Etzel), the paramilitary organization born as an extreme nationalist offshoot of the Haganah.

Plural identities, one shared goal  107 Etzel emissaries clandestinely infiltrated the infrastructure established by Betar activists in Italy in order to recruit new affiliates from among Holocaust survivors, pursuing both training activities, in which most of the members of Betar groups participated, and underground activities, which were undertaken by selected members of the Etzel cells. Evidence of Etzel recruitment propaganda among the Jewish DPs in Italy can be found in the Jewish DPs’ oral testimonies. For instance, Nathan Gutman – a young Jew from ­Katowice who endured forced labour in Płaszów and Mauthausen – recalled that he joined the Etzel in Santa Maria al Bagno along with four friends he met there, which he referred to as his “substitute family”. In his oral testimony, he provides some examples of their underground activities within the Etzel: The five of us were a cell in that organization […].We did some activities over there, mostly activities to intimidate the British authorities. Mostly activities to spread propaganda, like [distributing leaftlets during movies]. So we had a scheme that we would all go to the movie theatre in a nearby town and one of the guys would sneak into the control room, turning off the lights to stop the movie and drop everything in the darkness. We would all be sitting in the theatre in different seats, throw out the leaflets, and the lights would come back on, and nobody would know where the leaflets had come from.59 Nathan Gutman specified that his Etzel cell was never involved in violent actions. He remember them mostly stealing office equipment from the British and that once they were sent to Naples to spy on a British officer: My partner was a little blonde girl. We stood in Napoli, on the shore, against the sidewalk, against the wall, and we pretended that we were an in-love couple. And while I was hugging her, over her head I would keep my eyes on the door of the hotel, and this was how [we made sure] nobody paid any attention to us. We both looked young. She was a young girl and like everybody else. So this was the kind of activity that we would do.60 The Etzel’s activities in Italy increasingly aroused the suspicion of the local police, thus affecting the DP camps and hakhsharot accommodating Betarim who were scanned for evidence of illegal activities – mainly the possession and use of weapons – on several occasions. At the same time, the Betarim were also hindered by the conflicts with the Haganah infiltrees among the DPs in Italy. For instance, the Betar commissionership reported several attempts at sabotaging Betar’s efforts to smuggle affiliates over the Austrian borders: Seven people arrived at the Brichah-Point who said they were members of the Haganah. The leader said to the Betarim: “We are for

108  Plural identities, one shared goal the Palestinian Haganah. Here we have the power.” […] Each of the ­Betarim was led into a separate room. The rooms were heavily guarded by armed Haganah members. The leaders of the Haganah began to “investigate” and beat them up unmercifully. All their letters and photographs were taken away.61 During this incident, which happened in 1947, the Haganah surrendered the four who were Betar members into the hands of the Austrian and Italian police, who imprisoned them in Bolzano. On that occasion, Betar asked the OJRI to form a non-partisan investigating committee composed of Jacob Trobe (director of the JDC in Italy), Raffaele Cantoni (head of the Italian Jewish community), and Sally Mayer (head of the Milan Jewish community). However, this request was never considered, as can be deduced from this bitter comment from a Betar leaders: Such an attitude creates the impression that the [OJRI] wishes to hush up the fact that force and Gestapo methods were applied as well as the shameful informing by Jews against Jews and creates a suspicion that it does not really intend to read out this dangerous manifestation in the life of the She’erit Hapleitah in Italy.62 The Etzel’s arrival in Italy generated conflicts in the camps accommodating Betarim and exacerbated the tensions between Revisionists and the OJRI, which Betar accused of exclusively representing the interests of the Merkaz He-Halutz (especially in terms of aliyah quotas).63 The JDC, as the only organization supporting the educational and cultural programmes because of its political neutrality, was continuously called on by the Betarim to resolve these quarrels. They complained to the JDC of discrimination from the OJRI (which was meant to represent all Jewish DPs in Italy regardless of their political affiliation) and that they were being ostracized by the leading parties of the Merkaz He-Halutz within the camps.64 The Betarim’s situation in Italy continued to deteriorate, especially as the Etzel gained more affiliates among the DPs. Moreover, in the second half of 1946, the terrorist organization known by the acronym Lehi (Lohamei Herut Israel; Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) or as the Stern Gang, which resulted from the splitting of the Irgun Zvai Leumi in Palestine, also established its underground cells among the Jewish DPs in Italy, definitively compromising the activities of the first core of Betarim in Italy. Education and culture in the hakhsharot and DP camps Vocational training

As part of the rehabilitation policy sponsored by international humanitarianism and a key feature of Zionist ideology, workshops and vocational training

Plural identities, one shared goal  109 were organized since the inception of the refugee camps in Italy. On the one hand, international organizations saw skilled education and employment in the refugee camps as a way to prevent the DPs’ alleged inclination towards apathy and idleness.65 Both the Allied army and the UNRRA recruited DPs as drivers, clerks, interpreters, assistants, and for other tasks related to the management and coordination of the refugee camps. Moreover, vocational training diplomas would increase the DPs’ resettlement opportunities, since many countries privileged skilled labour migrants or opened migration quotas for specific labour categories. On the other hand, the Jewish soldiers, and later the shlichim, encouraged the Jewish DPs to organize or join vocational training and work programmes as part of the preparation for aliyah, placing particular emphasis on agriculture. Since August 1945, the JDC and UNRRA started to support vocational training and work projects proposed by the Jewish DPs in the refugee camps to provide for the shortage of basic necessities.66 Henry Gerber, the UNRRA Camp Activities Director in Santa Maria al Bagno, documented with his folding camera a group of Polish Jewish DPs. “These boys are real shoemakers,” Gerber wrote in a letter to his family, “[they used to make] shoes for ­Germans in concentration [camps]” (Figure 3.1).67 In a report to its Research Department, the JDC detailed that in 1945, it financed 34 training courses in the hakhsharot, attended by 2,698 trainees.

Figure 3.1 Polish Jewish DPs working as shoemakers. In the back row on the right, Henry Gerber, Camp Activities Director for the UNRRA Italian Mission in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels.

110  Plural identities, one shared goal The programmes included tailoring, mechanics, agriculture, fishing, c­ arpentry, shoemaking, and gardening. On that occasion, the JDC ­emphasized that Under the circumstances, it is the responsibility of the JDC to finance schools and training centers and to guide their students toward a proper adjustment to social life and to provide for their general and Jewish education, as well as to teach them trades suited to their talents and interests. JDC staff workers and other observers in Germany, Austria and Italy have invariably reported that, even with inadequate facilities and under unsatisfactory living conditions, the process of engaging in purposeful labour and study develops at an early stage a spirit of self-respect and hope on the part of the student. It is generally considered that the farming and the shopwork of the trainees particularly in the displaced persons camps, represent a very desirable step toward their rehabilitation. The products of their labour, food, garments and etc. are in themselves a concrete contribution to the welfare of these groups. The skill acquired by the trainees is obviously important for their reorientation. Apart from such practical achievements, however, there is a unique therapeutic value in these activities which must not be overlooked. Every trainee, who feel that he is making progress toward a new life, is an investment in the welfare of Jewry at large.68 The emphasis on the rehabilitative power of work and “productivism” was shared also by Jewish DPs’ leaders in Europe, who assigned it also a specific Zionist meaning. In particular, in the founding group of the She’erit ­Ha-Pleitah in Dachau, was also Jacob Oleiski – prominent in the Kovno ghetto and former director of the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) in Lithuania.69 Upon liberation, he resumed the ORT mission while in the Landsberg DP camp (American occupation zone of G ­ ermany), and in a few months, ORT established hundreds of trade schools both in the DP camps of Germany and Austria and in several European countries where the organization had its branches before the war.70 Despite Italy hosted an ancient Jewish community and served as a transit country for thousands of Jewish refugees during the 1930s and early 1940s, the first approach between the World ORT Union and the Jews in Italy occurred after the liberation of Rome in 1944. However, it was only at the end of 1946, when Aron Syngalowski (vice-president and director-general of the World ORT Union) visited the refugee camps, that an ORT branch was established in Italy, headed by Renzo Levi (at that time vice-president of UCII). The ORT Italy started its programme exactly when the number of the Jewish DPs in the country grew considerably. However, the high mobility of the Jewish DPs within the country and their sudden departure with the aliyah bet challenged the organizational efforts of ORT. Moreover, since most of the DPs arrived in Italy convinced that they would leave soon for Palestine, the

Plural identities, one shared goal  111 ORT had to strive in order to attract them to its trade schools. As noted by Levi, both the conditions that led to the establishment of the ORT and the environment in which the branch started its work in Italy were quite different from what has happened in post-war Germany, where the ORT was resumed on the initiative of the Jewish DPs themselves. According to the head of ORT Italy, the lack of this spontaneous character changed “in no way” the nature of vocational education in Italy at that stage.71 ORT Italy worked in close cooperation with the JDC and signed important agreements also with different Italian ministries (such as the Ministry of Post-War Relief, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Work) that provided premises, raw materials, machines for the launch of the ORT classes, and sometimes commissioned handicraft products from ORT pupils.72 The hakhsharot became the starting point of the ORT mission in Italy, in particular those run by the Youth Aliyah. In 1947, ORT Italy was operating several courses especially in two children’s homes: Avigliana (Turin), hosting around 150 children, and Selvino, with an estimated population of 270 children. There, fifty-six boys attended training workshops of joinery, mechanical lock smithery, and electrical installations, while thirty-three girls were learning knitting and dressmaking.73 Later, when IRO negotiations with governments opened new chances of resettlement overseas, whose migration quotas placed considerable emphasis on occupational skills in selecting candidates, many Jewish DPs became anxious to be vocationally trained. At this point, ORT launched vocational training for women and men in the northern DP camps of Grugliasco, Rivoli, and Cremona, ranging from a variety of courses: mechanic locksmithery, tinsmithery, joinery, electro-technic, radio-technic, shoemaking, dressmaking, mechanical-knitting, dental mechanic, chemical laboratory assistants, and others.74 Moreover, two unique fishing hakhsharot were established in Ostia (Rome), along the Tyrrhenian coast, and in Fano (near Ancona), on the ­Adriatic coast. Indeed, this kind of vocational training was rare in Europe, since there was no fishing industry in Austria and Germany, with some exception on the northern Baltic Sea. In particular, the Fishing Center in Fano was described by the JDC as “the most unique of our projects.”75 The hakhsharah was situated in the small fishing town of Fano, and the refugees were housed in a section of a former fish canning factory. In February 1946, twenty-five girls and fifty-three boys were attending the hakhsharah, and by the end of the year, there were 131 students aged eighteen to twenty-seven years, of Polish, Hungarian, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Lithuanian origins, all survivors of the concentration camps.76 Finally, ORT Italy also established long-lasting cooperation with Italian technical institutes and firms. Among them was, for instance, the Italian State school “Righi” for radio technics which trained a group of thirty Jewish DPs in Rome area, and the well-known company for typewriters “Olivetti” which inaugurate a school for typewriter mechanics within its factory in Ivrea (Turin).77

112  Plural identities, one shared goal Children’s care and education

The presence of children and teenagers up to seventeen years of age grew considerably until 1947. In March, the JDC was assisting a total of 2,144 children in camps (1,214), hakhsharot (1,462), and cities (86). They made up 13.2% of the total Jewish DP population, which at that time was 20,861.78 In particular, the JDC registered an increasing number of newborn babies. In the refugee camps and hakhsharot, Jews tried to make life as normal as possible, and the natural consequence of this effort towards normality was the formation of new families. As noted by a JDC social worker: “The phenomenon of the prestigious birth rate continues. From discussions with refugees, nurses and doctors, I am convinced that these are wanted babies. The average Palestine-bound Jewish mother feels that child-bearing is her national duty – the decimated Jewish population must be increased.”79 On the one hand, the increasing number of children moved the JDC to improve specific subsidy programmes for children, mothers, and newly married couples. The JDC also provided layettes for newborn babies and tried to devise an educational programme for parents along with specific facilities for children, such as kitchens and nurseries. For instance, in June 1947, in refugee camps alone, the JDC distributed $148,000 among 372 pregnant women, $164,000 among 410 nursing mothers, and $294,000 among engaged couples for weddings.80 On the other hand, the JDC made every effort to coordinate and finance educational, recreational, and cultural programmes, pushing the Jewish DPs and their representative institutions to organize these kinds of activities. A driving force from this point of view was the soldiers and emissaries from Palestine, who encouraged, co-created, and influenced the development of cultural life among the Jewish DPs. From the sources analysed for this study, it appears that among the many actors involved in this task, the UN agencies played an indirect role in decision-making regarding the education of Jewish DP children in Italy. Indeed, here the conflicting pedagogical approaches of international humanitarianism and Zionism were mediated by the JDC, which – given the great extent of autonomy gained by the UNRRA in coordinating the relief efforts among the Jewish DPs – struggled hard to find a balance between international guidelines for child welfare and education and the Zionists’ approach.81 The JDC Education Department, despite its criticism of the Jewish DPs’ and Zionist organizations’ administration of the educational and cultural activities, finally surrendered to the impossibility of outlining an impartial and long-term programme. “The educational program in Italy must be a flexible one and respond to the fluctuating needs of the refugee community. […] Our aim has been to enhance the prestige, to strengthen the authority and to promote the [OJRI’s] efficiency,” the JDC reported in 1946. It was firmly convinced that compared to the cost of the other phases of the JDC

Plural identities, one shared goal  113 programme, the money spent on educational and recreational purposes were “most productive of morale building values and the most appreciated.”82 Besides supervising, the JDC made regular contributions to cultural programmes in both the refugee camps and hakhsharot, fitting out club and reading rooms; promoting public meetings, lectures, and events; supporting dramatic circles, musicians, and sports teams; and distributing reading and writing materials, radio sets, and sports equipment.83 The OJRI assumed direct responsibility for education in the camps in February 1947, following the JDC’s attempt to help the OJRI’s Cultural and Education Department build a systematic programme of activities. As we have seen, education and culture had played a crucial role since the inception of the first refugee camp, but it was now necessary “to bring order into this chaos,” as noted by JDC officer Gershon Gelbart: The educational and cultural phase of Jewish refugee life in Italy does not follow a blueprint, rather it runs parallel to the haphazard lines of development of refugee life in general. It is an outgrowth of a combination of facts, unrelated to each other, stemming from the chaos which followed the piecemeal liberation of the country. Centers of refugee life sprang up here and there, near Palestinian units or military camps vacated by the Allied Armies or by the retreating enemy forces. Almost immediately educational activities, of one kind or another, originated, either spontaneously or, more often, through the efforts of Palestinian soldiers or of chaplains, both American and British, who were anxious to bring the message of the Yishuv and world Jewry to the pitiful remnants of Europe’s Jewish community.84 The OJRI’s Culture and Education Department strengthened its programme, starting from formal education by providing DPs aged three to eighteen years old with education in kindergartens, schools, and gymnasia. For reasons related to the demographic composition and distribution of the Jewish DPs in Italy, children up to the age of ten usually attended classes suitable for their age group, whereas the older ones had to be divided into mixed-aged classes where programmes were inappropriate for their age group.85 In the process of organizing schools and kindergartens, the OJRI and the JDC met with recurring problems and obstacles concerning a lack of teachers, educational materials, and a common language in class, as well as difficulties related to the continuous departure and new arrival of students. Despite this precariousness, one year after the establishment of its Culture and Education Department, the OJRI was managing schools for 784 students and kindergartens for 252 children in ten refugee camps in Italy.86 OJRI records provide us with some details of the study programme taught in these schools. The intensive curricula, developed following the model of the school system in the Yishuv, included three main subject groups: “Jewish studies” (Bible and

114  Plural identities, one shared goal Hebrew), “general studies” (mathematics, history, geography, geography of Eretz Israel, and sciences), and “artistic studies” (drawing, music, gymnastics, and handcrafts).87 Despite this joint effort, in 1947, the corps of around one hundred teachers employed in the refugee camps, hakhsharot, kibbutzim, and towns were reported to be inconsistent, too few in number, and inexperienced. Between 1945 and 1948, in cooperation with the JDC and the UN refugee agencies, the OJRI organized six seminars to train and recruit more teachers from among the Jewish DPs. These two- or three-month training periods offered intensive study programmes that included Hebrew language and literature, the history of Zionism and the Jewish people, the geography of Palestine, the Bible, and general subjects such as history, pedagogy, psychology, sociology, biology, hygiene, and so on. For instance, the teacher training seminar held in Santa Maria di Leuca in July 1946 was attended by approximately seventy trainees. Nevertheless, even this attempted solution barely helped to fill the lack of teachers and instructors, especially because graduates left Italy as soon as they could.88 Child education in the refugee camps was not limited to schools, since the OJRI programme also included the organization of winter and summer residentials. Life in the refugee camps was considered demoralizing for children living outside of the children’s homes. For these reasons, the emissaries, with the support of the JDC, organized winter and summer residentials which combined education and recreational activities aiming to foster children’s physical and mental recovery and a sense of community. Teachers and emissaries often organized school exhibitions performed as public events and ceremonies, especially during Jewish festivals, involving the entire camp or hakhsharah population. The purpose was to reach the DP population at large, rekindling its connection to Jewish culture and traditions and the sense of belonging to a specific (national) group. Very often during these events, children on stage performed recitals, short plays, or speeches that symbolized the pioneers’ struggles and were notable for their accentuated Zionist overtones (Figure 3.2).89 The situation concerning children’s school education in the hakhsharot was often described by JDC supervisors as unsatisfactory. Aside from the common problems, the fact that the educational and cultural programmes in the hakhsharot were managed by the political movements that ran them and that schools were in some cases managed by non-professional staff was seen as the main cause of their failure. This led to varying levels of education and cultural activities among the different hakhsharot. Even though in 1946, almost all the hakhsharot provided classes in Hebrew, the history of the Jewish people, the history of Zionism, and the geography of Palestine on a regular basis, these teachings sounded like “not so much education as […] indoctrination” to the JDC.90 In children’s homes, where, as part of the hakhsharah system, the educational programme was managed by the Zionist youth movements, the

Plural identities, one shared goal  115

Figure 3.2 Children performing “Rain Rain” in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, 1946, Album 27, Photo 2, Zvi Aldouby’s Private Collection.

children’s choice between secular and religious education became a crucial debate within the Merkaz He-Halutz. This issue was raised by the emissaries from Torah Ve-Avodah, who repeatedly requested the Jewish Agency to send a commission to screen the Youth Aliyah installations in Italy in order to investigate the kind of education being provided there. Since moving children between religious and secular institutions was considered dangerous, the commission recommended that the Youth Aliyah should offer children a traditional non-partisan education. However, the Youth Aliyah did not support the above recommendations, and the emissaries from Torah Ve-Avodah opted to establish a religious children’s home instead. Max Varadi worked tirelessly to accomplish this goal, writing letters to the movement in Palestine to request more educators. At the beginning of 1946, the Giv’at Ha-Yeled children’s home, which could accommodate up to eighty children, was established in Florence. It initially hosted only eleven children and was run by Varadi himself, his fiancée Matilde ­Cassin, and other volunteers, among whom were two Jewish DP yeshivah graduates and Nurit Ravenna (an Italian Jew, member of the Sde Eliyahu Kibbutz, who returned to Italy for a private visit to her family and extended her stay in order to serve in Giv’at Ha-Yeled). The situation improved when Yehuda Dominitz and his wife Tamar arrived as emissaries from Palestine and the Florentine children’s home ultimately managed to host up to seventyeight children.

116  Plural identities, one shared goal Higher education

The JDC and UCII also made every effort to support academic students among the refugees, thus restoring the presence of the foreign Jewish students in Italian universities, which had been abruptly interrupted by the racial laws and anti-Semitic persecutions during the war.91 In 1946, the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) established a local branch in Italy and, in collaboration with the European Fund for Student Relief (FESR), the UNRRA, the Vatican, the Italian Government, and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Jewish DPs were able to regain support to access Italian universities. In 1946, approximately thirty students were receiving assistance from the JDC, some at the rate of 6,000 lira (unless they were receiving UNRRA assistance), others between 1,000 and 3,000 lira in addition to special grants for books, tuition, and supplies. Moreover, the JDC maintained a student hostel (Beit Ha-Talmid) in Turin, which considered as “special installation” among the hakhsharot (N/30).92 It was opened in December 1946, and during its first years, it accommodated approximately fifty students (boys and girls).93 Sport

Besides being considered a rehabilitative activity by the rescue network, sport was a central element of the training for aliyah and the Zionist ideal of creating a new Jew.94 The Jewish DPs demonstrated great interest in sport, and – according to the JDC – it was played at “a quite high level in camps.”95 Sports activities were supervised by the OJRI’s Recreational Department, with the support of the JDC and the UNRRA.96 Several teams were established on the initiative of the refugees themselves, such as the Makabi football club in Santa Maria al Bagno. The most popular game was football, but other sports were also found, such as volleyball, basketball, athletics, and swimming. The matches organized by the Jewish DP teams started by singing the future Israeli national anthem, the Tikwah. Sport was also central to children’s education and was part of the daily training in Zionist children’s homes. Sidney Zoltak remembered that, in Selvino children’s home, the morning started very early with callisthenics and the daily assembly flag rising before study and work, and that after dinner, children were encouraged to join many social activities, such as Israeli folk dancing, chess, checkers, and ping-pong.97 A visual testimony of the centrality of physical training in chidren’s homes is offered by a picture taken by Henry P. Gerber (UNRRA) which show the fitness activities organized for young Jewish DPs by the Jewish soldiers in Santa Maria al Bagno (Figure 3.3). Culture, creativity, and art

Early in the establishment of the OJRI in 1945, the Jewish DPs’ leaders founded an Artistic Ensemble in order to unite all Jewish DP artists in Italy

Plural identities, one shared goal  117

Figure 3.3 Jewish DP orphans exercising under Jewish soldiers’ guidance, Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, 1945.  Copyright © 2015 Jean A. Daniels.

and “to bring joy to the refugees through words and songs.”98 This group, directed by the Latvian poet Menachem Riger, included intellectuals, writers, journalists, musicians, singers, dancers, actors, sculptors, and painters, who formed the Society of Writers, Journalists and Artists. The Artistsic ­Ensemble’s headquarters was the Kibbutz Omanut (Hebrew for “art”), a special hakhsharah in Castel Gandolfo near Rome (S/15).99 The Artistic Ensemble’s task was to tour refugee camps and hakhsharot on behalf of OJRI in order to organize classes, give performances, train instructors, and encourage cultural and artistic activities. The journals circulating among the refugees reported about seventy concerts and dramatic performances organized in 1947 alone by the itinerant members of the Artistic Ensemble.100 Many cultural events were dedicated to theatre, which was perceived both as a form of entertainment and as a means of reconnecting with the Yiddish theatrical tradition.101 Dramatic circles took shape not only with the help of the experienced actors in the Artistic Ensemble but also following the initiative of the Jewish DPs scattered throughout the refugee camps. Miriam Moskowitz, a Polish DP in Santa Maria al Bagno, remembered a friend encouraging her to join the dramatic circles directed by another Jewish DP, Shlomo Moskowitz, who later became her husband: He formed a dramatic group. He was born in Bialystok and his father was a director from the Jewish Theatre in Bialystok. He knew all plays from memory, and he dictated [them to] another friend to write [them all down]. And he took children, like me, like ten others, and taught them how to [act] and directed them.102

118  Plural identities, one shared goal Dramatic circles toured the camps, entertaining not only Jewish DPs but also Allied troops and social workers. The JDC officers often reported their enjoyment of performances of works by the most famous Yiddish playwrights, such as Sholem Aleichem’s Tuvya the Milkman, H. Leivick’s The Golem, and S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk.103 While the Jewish DPs’ familiarity with these Yiddish plays helped them to reconnect with their past and restored their sense of home and family, other plays written in the DP camps dramatized wartime experiences and contributed to collectively processing the trauma of the Holocaust.104 The records from the emissaries testify that besides being a form of entertainment, bringing together culture and aesthetics, the theatre also served as an arena for political debate. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the mission of the emissary Zvi Aldouby, a representative of the leading Zionist labour party Mapai, who was in charge of “cultural affairs” in Santa Maria al Bagno. In his personal diary, he mentioned his meeting with the Aufbau (Yiddish for “construction”) dramatic circle, which was associated with the Bund. This circle was very active, and it was highly appreciated by the camp population. Aldouby was impatient to perform a Zionist-oriented theatrical repertoire and considered the Aufbau’s plays “still stuck in the diaspora.” When the Bundist company left the camps in order to move to the homonymous Bund Cooperative in Rome, Aldouby was finally able to build and direct a new dramatic circle, which he called the Tkumah (Hebrew for “revival”), whose members were asked to sign an agreement declaring their willingness to follow a Zionist programme. The Tkumah’s first performance was H. Leivick’s The Golem, which toured the refugee camps of Lecce province in 1946. Later, Aldouby was able to finally bring the new Hebrew theatre to the DP camps with a Yiddish translation of the play Ha-Adamah Ha-zot (This Land) by Aaron Ashman, which dramatizes the sacrifices of the pioneers in the Land of Israel (Figure 3.4).105 The press also played a leading role in this cultural revival within the refugee camps. A great variety of journals and newspapers was published, reflecting the Jewish DPs’ engagement in cultural and political debate, their participation in social and community life, and the high level of culture in the camps. Leon Bernstein, vice-president of the OJRI, argued that the J­ ewish DPs’ press was necessary for stimulating the creation of “shared Jewish cultural values.”106 The most popular newspaper, distributed in every camp, hakhsharah, or city where Jewish DPs were living, was the Yiddish weekly Baderekh (Hebrew for “on the way”). It was first published by the Merkaz Ha-Plitim in Bari in early 1944 in German, which at that time was the common language of the “old refugees” and was composed of different sections dedicated to news “from the homeland,” “the diaspora,” and “liberated Italy.” Moreover, it included a column titled “does anyone know the address of …?” through which the DPs attempted to collect information about their missing relatives, and some pages dedicated to the voices of the Jewish DP committees.107 After the establishment of the OJRI, the Jewish DPs’ leaders

Plural identities, one shared goal  119

Figure 3.4 The Tkumah dramatic circle during The Golem premier in the Santa Maria al Bagno, 1946, Album 4, Photo 1, Zvi Aldouby’s Private Collection.

turned Baderekh into its sole official newspaper, which provided important support for the refugee’s “mental training.”108 It was published weekly in Yiddish from late August 1945 to February 1949 with a circulation of 3,000 copies, and it can be defined as the Jewish DPs in Italy’s most consistent cultural project.109 Besides Baderekh, the Jewish DPs in Italy also launched a literary magazine in Yiddish, known as In gang: khoydesh-zhurnal far literatur un kunst (“On the move: monthly newspaper of literature and art”). It was edited by the Society of Writers, Journalists and Artists and was published between March 1947 and February 1949 with the purpose of reviving the diasporic culture. The first issue of In Gang indeed revealed that the editors intended post-Holocaust Jewish culture and creativity to be a form of revenge on Nazism, a sign of rebirth and duty to commemorate the destroyed Jewish communities.110 Literary creativity was promoted by the Society of Writers, Journalists and Artists through a contest, which invited the Jewish DPs to compose prose, poetry, or theatrical writings dealing with life during the war. The contest took place in summer 1946 and the board of judges – formed of OJRI ­members – received approximately forty works, of which twelve were deemed worthy of a JDC-sponsored prize.111 Two years later, in 1948, the Society of Writers, Journalists and Artists organized the first Cultural Congress of Jewish Refugees, which took place in Rome at the end of July. According to the JDC’s photo archives, the congress was inaugurated by the director of the OJRI’s Culture and Education Department, Eliezer Yerushalmi, followed by the leader of the Jewish DPs in Italy, Leo Garfunkel. Besides conferences

120  Plural identities, one shared goal and lectures, several DP organizations had the opportunity to exhibit their handicrafts and publications.112 In this vivid cultural environment, eighteen Jewish DP painters and sculptors also had the chance to display their talent during an exhibition organized at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome in February 1948.113 They were eleven students from the Art Academy (Accademia di Belle Arti) and seven experienced artists, some of whom had already received international recognition. Among the works exhibited were paintings, drawings, sculptures, postcards, ceramics, wood carvings, fashion designs, and interior decorations.114 The exhibition, which was visited by almost 1,000 people in only four days, was later moved to the Beverly Fairfax Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles by a delegation of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), who were in Rome and had visited the exhibition at the time.115 The flourishing of such a creative and wide-ranging cultural and educational programme is further evidence of the fact that Italy represented more than just a transit station where the Jewish DPs were passively awaiting their resettlement. The above-depicted picture testifies to the Jewish DPs’ enthusiasm for and agency in rebuilding their lives, engaging themselves in the building of a culturally and artistically vibrant community in transit. The support of the JDC and the refugee agencies and the encouragement of soldiers and emissaries from the Yishuv were crucial for the development of culture and education in the DP camps and hakhsharot in Italy. On the one hand, these programmes were elaborated in line with the attitude of contemporary international humanitarianism, which sponsored education and recreation as part of the refugees’ rehabilitation process. On the other hand, they took shape in the framework of the turbulent formation of a national Jewish identity among the Jewish DPs that evolved vis-à-vis the evocations of pre-war Jewish microcosms. Fears and expectations In August 1946, the day after the minor Jewish festival of Tu B’av – also known as the holiday of love (Hag Ha-’ahavah) – Yoseph Kleiman and his group of orthodox Jewish DPs received the news that their turn for aliyah had finally arrived. They reached “a desolate place by the sea” where a large sign read “JDC Summer Camp.” There, they were housed in very primitive accommodation as they waited for their departure. On the dark night on which Kleiman’s group was supposed to leave, they were told to destroy all sorts of documents attesting to their stay in Italy and to throw away anything that did not fit into the tarpaulin backpack that they were given by the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet. Their hands had to be left free to climb a rope ladder and board the ship. When I met Yoseph Kleiman in his house in Jerusalem at the end of 2019, he showed me what he was able to bring in that backpack: his clothes from his time as a prisoner in Auschwitz and the shirt that an ­American soldier had gifted him soon after his release. In his memoir, he

Plural identities, one shared goal  121 described his clandestine journey on the ship Four Freedoms from Bocca di Magra (La Spezia) to Palestine: Each of us was given a canteen and a bag in which to vomit. The ­ vercrowding was terrible, only the girls were allowed to lie down on o carelessly stretched hammocks, and in fact they were not tense. We were not even able to straighten our legs due to overcrowding. […] Sometimes the girls lying above vomited on us. In the morning, we were instructed to go to the water tap […]. Everyone was given a canteen of water for the whole day, which had to be enough to wash our face and hands and to drink. For eleven days, we did not receive cooked food or hot drinks. We were given canned fish and a wheel of cheese, which had already been mature for some years and was surrounded by a rind about an inch thick. […] We got crackers instead of bread, which were probably a remainder from the war. They broke into pieces and were suffocating when you ate them. But at the same time, we could not eat, because we were very thirsty all day. On some days, for reasons of secrecy, it was forbidden to go out of the cargo hold […] there were no windows inside, the suffocation was terrible.116 The epic dimension of the ma’apilim’s trips is central in the Zionist narrative of the embryonic Israel. The heroic image of the ships of the Mossad ­Le-Aliyah Bet bringing Holocaust survivors to the Land of Israel reverberated in political discourse, media, and literature. In contrast, Yoseph ­Kleiman’s memoirs tell us the flip side of the coin about the aliyah bet: his long wait, his sufferings, and his mixed feelings of fear and expectations. Many years after that trip from Italy to Palestine, he wrote: All of us came from concentration camps, and even though there were no elderly people or babies, and despite the fact that we were accustomed to a difficult life, we could not bear the situation easily. […] I personally had been through such a nightmare once. It had been two years before, on the way to Auschwitz, when we had not a drop of water to quench our thirst, and here after the coveted release, I had to experience a similar nightmare on my way to the Promised Land. That was the situation, and no stories of heroism could change the facts.117 Yoseph Kleiman’s dream of reaching the Promised Land crumbled when the Four Freedoms was intercepted by the British authorities and all of its passengers were brought to the internment camps for Jewish illegal immigrants in Cyprus.118 From there, he was able to leave for Palestine almost a year later.119 The Four Freedoms was not the first ship blocked by the British, as ­Mossad’s secret operations had been discovered in January 1946. At that time, a ship named after the Italian pioneer Enzo Sereni – Ada Sereni’s

122  Plural identities, one shared goal husband – left from Vado Ligure with almost 1,000 passengers on board but was stopped near the Palestinian shore, and its illegal migrants were escorted to the detention camp in Atlit (north of Haifa).120 Indeed, between the end of 1945 and the first half of 1946, the international political atmosphere in which the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet was moving radically changed. The AAC recommendation to grant European Jews 100,000 entry certificates to Palestine was supported, again, by Truman but opposed by the British, who were struggling managing their interests in Mandatory Palestine and the Middle East. The reactions to the AAC recommendations generated new scenarios and accentuated existing conflicts. First, the Allies’ opposing positions further altered their relationships and the international political balance in the Mediterranean. Second, the Jewish DPs in Italy – whose number also increased as a consequence of the contemporary escapes from Eastern Europe (especially after the Kielce pogroms in 1946) – remained neither silent nor passive before the British opposition to their free aliyah. Instead, they organized heated and widespread anti-British demonstrations, which sometimes escalated into violent episodes, as we shall see in the next chapter. Third, the situation in British Palestine was out of control: the Revisionist Zionist movements, the Lehi and the Etzel, triggered a violent anti-British campaign, while the Haganah concentrated its efforts on enhancing the aliyah bet.121 Finally, at the local level, Italy was still under British occupation and its position in the negotiations phase leading to the Paris peace treaties grew worse. Moreover, the process that led Italy towards the constitution of a republican democracy in June 1946 was a turbulent one, passing through the formation and collapse of different coalition governments, which eventually excluded the anti-Fascist parties. As noted by the historian Silvia Salvatici, “Italy’s response to the ‘foreign refugee’ problem took shape in this political context,” while this “fragile ruling alliance” was trying to manage both the construction of national democratic institutions and the dire economic and social crisis.122 Facing international pressure from the Allies, Italy saw the foreign refugee problem as a key factor in restoring national sovereignty and in repositioning itself in the international scene.123 On the one hand, the UNRRA started to require more collaboration from the Italian government in assuming responsibility for managing and taking care of foreign refugees in the country. On the other hand, the British authorities solicited Italy – which until that time had turned a blind eye to the aliyah bet – to adopt stricter control and repressive measures against the Jews’ illegal departures.124 Anyway, at that time Ada Sereni was convinced that the Italian government would not hindered the activities of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet. However: It seemed to me that Italy had a direct interest in our movement: with so many [nationals] unemployed, Italy could not want all those foreigners to remain in its territory; on the contrary, it wanted them to leave. The only homeland to which the Jewish refugees could return was Eretz Israel and the Italians had no reason to oppose that. […] The

Plural identities, one shared goal  123 feelings aroused by the sufferings generated by the war and the German ­occupation were still alive in everyone’s minds; the racial laws had been felt by many to be shameful for Italy.125 Shortly thereafter, her assumption proved right. According to her m ­ emoir – which Toscano judges to be quite reliable, despite the fact that it is not directly supported by archival documents – in the late spring of 1946, she was able to reach a secret agreement with leading figures in the Italian police and intelligence. With the mediation of Raffaele Cantoni, a leading figure among I­ talian Jews, Sereni leaned on the Italians’ anti-British sentiments in order to get support from the Italian authorities.126 Between August 1945 and May 1946, fourteen illegal ships (ten from Italy, two from Greece, one from France, and one from Romania) carrying 5,586 Jews managed to leave Europe. In ­contrast, in the following four months, Mossad was able to organize the departure of twelve other ships carrying 10,408 Jews, half of them from Italy.127 The Zionist narrative of nationhood immortalized the myth of the aliyah bet, relegating the Jewish DPs’ reality in the refugee camps to the margins. This contributed to the monolithic representation of the Jewish DPs in Italy as an undifferentiated mass of helpless people en route to Palestine and the idea of Zionism as the leading motivation that unconditionally led them to aliyah. If we abandon the mythologizing of the clandestine Jewish immigration to Palestine after the Holocaust, we will be able to grasp the complexities of their experiences of displacement and migration. Historians have developed new ways of interpreting the role of Zionism in the refugee camps after the war, stressing Jewish DPs’ agency and rejecting or mitigating the view of Zionism as an outgrowth of the Holocaust, a manipulative force exploited by the Yishuv for its own political ends, or an outcome of the post-war refugee policy that privileged the organization of refugees along national lines. They have spoken about “therapeutic” or “functional” Zionism, arguing that its peer culture offered self-affirmation, sense of community, and hope for the future.128 In this regard, Hagit Lavsky suggested: Life in the camps in general became a greenhouse for a new Jewish national identity and the formation of a shared public life while providing a unique setting for a new discourse. Lacking any prior assumed organizational styles or agreed-upon norms, codes, or behavioural habits, they had to create and negotiate these among themselves. The survivors’ sole common ground was their past and present difficult experiences and their deep desire to achieve, once again, a free, normal life. Here then developed a unique paradigm of public Jewish life that had to dictate to itself new, or renewed, norms and values and struggled to crystallize and achieve a common goal. The detailed analysis of the survivor’s experiences and activities in one DP camp unveils the various mechanisms involved in the formation of such a community in

124  Plural identities, one shared goal transit. Through their own mutual experiences they started a process of shaping and experimenting with a new complex post-Holocaust Jewish national identity.129 Indeed, Zionism – in all its forms depicted in this chapter – served as a ­cohesive force that was able to reconfigure the Jewish DPs as a collective political entity. However, if we reposition the focus of the analysis from the institutions and leadership above to the views of the Jewish DPs below, we will see that Zionism was reinterpreted in the DP camps as the result of the mediation between their experiences and their daily and long-term struggles to rebuild their lives. It offered a new social framework in which to develop a new meaning of home and family revolving around a new collective (national) identity and the concrete opportunity to resettle in Palestine as a new Jewish future. Notes 1 This testimony is taken from the biographical documentary “If You Survive,” which tells the story of Shmulik Shilo, available online: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=kbdgeoig524 (accessed January 2023). The section quoted is from 58:00 to 1:00:00. 2 For the history of the Jews of Lutsk during the Second World War and the Holocaust, see the dedicated page on the Yad Vashem project website: “The Untold ­Stories: The Murder Sites of the Jews in the Occupied Territories of Former USSR”: https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories (accessed January 2023). 3 See Sergio Luzzatto, I bambini di Moshe: gli orfani della shoah e la nascita di Israele (Torino: Einaudi, 2019); Yehuda Yaari, At ḥaki li ve-eḥzor: miktavei Moshe Zeiri [You Are Waiting for Me and I Will Come Back: Letters from Moshe Zeiri] (Israel: Moshe and Yehudit Zeiri’s heirs, 2006). 4 AJDC, AJDC Helps Jewish Children in Italy, undated, Italy, NY AR194554/4/44/5/631, Children, 1945–1954. 5 AJDC, Letter from Dr. Gershon Gelbart to Mr. Frederick C. White, 22.5.1946, G 45–54/4/13/14/IT.118, Italy, Miscellaneous 1946. 6 On the debate about child welfare after the war see Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard ­University Press, 2011). On childhood after the Holocaust, see Rebecca Clifford, Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020). 7 For Zionist children’s homes in Italy and the international debate on children’s best interests, see Chiara Renzo, “‘To Build and Be Built’: Jewish Displaced Children in Postwar Italy, 1943–48,” in Child Migration and Biopolitics: Old and New Experiences in Europe, ed. Beatrice Scutaru and Simone Paoli (London: Routledge, 2021), 105–23. 8 USC Shoah Foundation VHA, Shmoel Shilo, 1997. Interview 37546, Tape 9, 13:00–13:40 (accessed November 2021). I acknowledge the support of the USC Shoah Foundation for providing me online access to this interview. 9 AJDC, Letter from Mr. Elias Gordin to Mr. Jacob L. Trobe, Subject: Selvino Institution, 9.9.1946, G 45–54/4/13/14/IT.118. 10 She was also known as Rachel Varadi after her wedding to Max Varadi. 11 Meir (Max) Varadi (1912–2003) was a Florentine Jew who migrated to Palestine in 1940 to join the religious kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in British Palestine. Like other

Plural identities, one shared goal  125 Italian Jewish pioneers who had made aliyah during the 1930s, he came back to Italy after the war to help with the reconstruction of Jewish institutions and community life. Along with Leo Levi, Varadi played a major role as a representative of religious Zionism among both Italian Jews and Jewish DPs in Italy. For Varadi’s migration to Palestine in the context of Zionism among Florentine Jews, see Arturo Marzano, Una terra per rinascere: Gli ebrei italiani e l’emigrazione in Palestina prima della guerra (1920–1940) (Milan: Marietti, 2003), 125–30. 12 Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter YVA), Matilde Cassin to Moshe Zeiri, 14.11.1945, File Number 1299 Letters written by Rachel Vardi from ­Florence, Italy to Moshe at the Youth Aliyah [children’s home] in Selvino, Italy, 1945–1946, Collection RG O.75 Letters and Postcards. 13 YVA, Matilde Cassin to Moshe Zeiri, 17.11.1945, File Number 1299, RG O.75. 14 For the opening of Giv’at Ha-Yeled, see Menachem Weinstein, Peduim le-ẓion: tnu’ah “Torah Ve-Avodah be-kerev She’erit Ha-Pleitah be-Italiah [Redeemed to Zion: The “Torah ve-’Avodah” Movement among the Sherith Ha-Pletah in Italy 1945–1949] (Jerusalem: Ha-Sifriyah Ha-Tzionit, 2004), 27–28. 15 See Table 5. Between 1946 and 1948, the number of children in each children’s home varied: Selvino hosted between 165 and 288 children, Giv’at Ha-Yeled 47 to 78, Monte Mario 58 to 120, Avigliana 150 to 202, Livorno around 70, Grottaferrata around 40, and Nichelino around 60. See AJDC, Facts and Figures on AJDC’s Children Care in Italy, 31.1.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/5/631; AJDC, Letter from Mr. Martin Germandof to Mr. Jacob L. Trobe, Subject: Advantages of Hachsharoth over Camps, 2.10.1947, G 45–54/4/13/10/IT.97, Italy: IRO Vocational Training Hachsharot 1947–1949; AJDC, Population Report of Children’s Homes, 30.4.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/5/631. 16 Cited in Zeev Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 35. 17 CZA, Opening Speech by L. Garfunkel at the Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, Rome, 26.11.1945, 7–8, L16/521 L16/521, Sifron kinus ha-plitim be-Italiah be-ẓiruf ḥovrim tmunot protokolim mitkatvim ve-mavrikim [Booklet of the refugees’ conference in Italy, with pamphlets, minutes, letters and lists of visitors]. 18 Anna Holian, Between National Socialism and Soviet Communism: Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011), 176–77. 19 Holian, Between National Socialism, 178. 20 Yakov Markowitzky, “‘Elitah mesharetet o ẓaiadei nafshot politim. shliḥei ha-hityashvut ha-ovdot ve-ha-tnu‘ot ha-ḥaluẓiot be-maḥanot ha-akurim ­ ­be-Italiah (1945–1948)” [An Elite Servant Or a Hunter of Political Souls: Emissaries from the Working Class Settlement and the Zionist Pioneering Movements in the DP Camps in Italy (1945–1948)], Dapim lehaker tkufat ha-Shoah/­Institute for the Study of the Holocaust Period 15 (1998): 137. 21 Avraham Tory-Golub (1909–2002) was a Lithuanian attorney who was a Zionist activist before the war. He served as the secretary of the Jewish council (Ältestenrat) in the Kovno ghetto, where he kept a daily diary to document the Nazis’ crimes from the first days of the German invasion through to the last days of the ghetto. After the war, he moved to Italy as a DP, where Zvi Leiman introduced him to the activities of the Merkaz La-Golah. A testimony of his stay in Italy can be found in Massuah [Hebrew], ed. Massuah – The Institute for Holocaust Studies (Kibbutz Tel-Yizthak: Massuah – The Institute for Holocaust Studies, 1993), 159–75, here 161. 22 CZA, Arieh Stern (Oron) to Yehiel Duvdevani, 2.3.1946, S25/5243, Refugees situation in Italy, 1943–1947.

126  Plural identities, one shared goal 23 For an overview of the history of the kibbutz movement after the Second World War, see Henry Near, The Kibbutz Movement: A History. Volume 2: Crisis and Achievement, 1939–1995 (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007). 24 In February 1946, the JDC estimated a total population of 26,000 Jewish DPs in Italy: 10,000 in refugee camps, 7,000 in hakhsharot, and 4,500 in towns: see AJDC, JDC Program in Italy 1946, 12.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628, Italy: General, 1946. 25 AJDC, JDC Program in Italy 1946, 12.2.1947, 4, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 26 AJDC, Italian Program Second Quarter 1947, 1.10.1947, G 45–54/4/13/1/IT.1, Italy: 1947–1948. 27 In particular, Gordonia had 1,440 affiliates (16.6%), Dror Ha-Bonim 1,485 (17.1%), Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni 1882 (21.6%), Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir 1,445 (16.6%), Noham 450 (5.3%), Torah Ve-’Avodah 651 (7.6%), Agudat Israel 523 (5.9%), and Pahah 807 (9.3%). See Massuah Archives, Tel Itzhak, Israel (hereafter MA), He-Halutz ba-Brichah u-be-Ha’apalah 1946–1949 [The He-Halutz from the Brichah to the Illegal Immigration], 66, Testimonies, AR-T-00041-021 Photocopy of issue of Hehaluts (The Pioneer), publication of Hehaluts ha-Ehad in Italy, center in Rome, 1946-1949, (accessed online in January 2022). 28 MA, He-Halutz, 66–74. 29 MA, He-Halutz, 6. 30 At the moment of their arrival in Italy, they included three main sub-groups: (1) members of Bnei Akiva (the Mizrahi youth wing movement) from Hungary, the Carpathians, Slovakia, and Romania, who had already organized themselves in kibbutzim in their home countries soon after the liberation; (2) survivors affiliated with Torah ve-Avodah and Agudat Israel from Poland and Lithuania; (3) Jews who were not members of any parties who observed religious precepts (mitzwot) and traditions. See Weinstein, Peduim, 27–28. I would like to thank Esther Farbstein for drawing my attention to documents and testimonies related to the experiences of orthodox Jewish DPs in Italy during my postdoctoral fellowship at Yad Vashem in 2019. 31 AJDC, Arthur Greenleigh to Joseph Hyman, 30.11.1944, NY AR193344/4/36/1/71, Administration, General, 1943–1945; 1961–1962. 32 In August 1945, the Jewish DPs were able to set up three hakhsharot for mixed groups from Agudat Israel and Mizrahi: Ha-Shavim (The Returnees) and ­Niztahim (Eternals) in Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp, with seventy-five and seventy members respectively, and La-Moledet (To the Homeland) in Santa Cesarea with 300 members (including Rabbi Kutner’s group from Modena). See Shmoel Reznikovich, “Po’alei Agudat Isra’el ve-Agudat Israel be-maḥanot ­ha-akurim be-Italiah, 1945–1946” [Po’alei Agudat Israel and Agudat Israel in the Refugee Camps in Italy, 1945–1946], Dapim lehaker tkufat ha-Shoah 5 (1987): 159–60. 33 This interview with Rabbi Mendel Brickman was reported in a haredi magazine in an article by Yeruchem Landesman, “Fighting for Life,” Mishpacha: Jewish Family Weekly 237 (10 December 2008): 58–62. 34 Reznikovich, “Po’alei Agudat Israel,” 155–88, here 156. 35 Reznikovich, “Po’alei Agudat Israel,” 158–59, and Zalman Stiman, Kfar ­ha-no’ar ḥaredi be-Santa Kesarea-Kafrisin [The Haredi Youth Village in Santa Caesarea and Cyprus] (Bnei Brak: Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, 1976), 2. 36 Yoseph Zalman Kleiman, Hilaẓta nafshi me-mavet [Thou Hast Delivered My Soul from Death] (Jerusalem: Old City Press, 2010), 140–41. 37 Some information is available here https://www.hamichlol.org.il/%D7%99%D7 %A9%D7%99%D7%91%D7%AA_%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A8 _%D7%94%D7%92%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%94 (accessed January 2023). 38 See (S/4) in Table 5.

Plural identities, one shared goal  127 39 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJJDC New York, Subject: Yeshivah Meor Hagolah (Your General Letter No. 394), 25.11.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/4/660, Italy, Yeshiva Maor Hagolah, 1946–1950. 40 See the exchanges between the JDC and the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1949 in AJDC, NY AR194554/4/44/4/660, Italy, Yeshiva Maor Hagolah, 1946–1950. 41 This is a reference to Jacob ben Meir, best known as Rabbenu Tam, one of the most renowned Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis and a leading halakhic authority. See the letter from Rabbi Benjamin Mitz to the Rescue Committee of the Gur ­Hassidim, 5.2.1946, in Muvḥar ktavim [Selected Writings], ed. Gershom Harpens (Tel Aviv: Po’alei Agudat Israel, 1976), 335–36. 42 See Table 5 and MA, He-Halutz, 66. 43 Dov Knohl (1911–1988) was born in Eastern Galicia into a Hasidic Zionist family. He had been an activist in the Mizrahi movement since his youth and acted as secretary to the Bnei Akiva in Galicia. In 1934, he migrated to Palestine, where in 1940 he enrolled as a volunteer in the Allied army. After his return to Palestine, he served in the Haganah. 44 Knohl’s testimony can be found in Weinstein, Peduim, 28–31. 45 Weinstein, Peduim, 30–45. 46 MA, He-Halutz, 59. 47 Eliezer Eliner (1904–1980) was born in Germany, where he studied chemistry. He later studied at the rabbinical seminary in Berlin, and in 1927, he emigrated to Israel and studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the 1930s, he became active in the committee for the religious youth aliyah and in the workers’ organization Ha-Po’el Mizrahi. Eliner served as a teacher and later as the director of a Mizrahi school in Bnei Brak before going on a mission to Italy in late 1945. For Eliner’s mission as a Mizrahi emissary in Italy, see Weinstein, Peduim, ­ einstein, 98–103. For Varadi’s mission as a Mizrahi emissary in Italy, see W Peduim, 94–97. Varadi and Barukh Dudevani were later involved in the aliyah of Libyan Jews via Italy. 48 According to He-Halutz records, ten emissaries from Torah ve-Avodah operated in Italy between 1945 and 1948: see MA, He-Halutz, 79. The Religious ­Kibbutz Movement was established in 1935 as an umbrella organization, ­uniting those who sought to settle in religious kibbutzim. For an overview of the history of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, see Yossi Katz, “The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo, 1935–48,” Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 2 (1995): 253–80. 49 See Table 5 and MA, He-Halutz, 66. 50 MA, He-Halutz, 59. 51 Weinstein, Peduim, 63–65. 52 For more about Haim Lazar’s life and writings, see http://www.chaimlazar.com/ (accessed January 2023). I would like to thank Daniela Ozacky Stern for drawing my attention to Haim Lazar's writings during my postdoctoral fellowship at Yad Vashem in 2019. 53 Haim Lazar, Betar be-She’erit Ha-Pleitah [Betar among She’erit Ha-Pleitah] (Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House, 1997), 64. 54 The first issue of the Betar newspaper Nitzahon (Hebrew from “Victory”) was published in early November 1945. See Lazar, Betar, 64. 55 Lazar, Betar, 67. 56 See (S/22) in Table 5. 57 Lazar, Betar, 77. 58 Lazar, Betar, 74. 59 USC Shoah Foundation VHA, Nathan Gutman, 24.09.1998, Interview 45548, tape 7, 7:00–8:10 (accessed January 2022). 60 USC Shoah Foundation VHA, Nathan Gutman, 24.09.1998, Interview 45548, tape 7, 9:00–9:25.

128  Plural identities, one shared goal 61 AJDC, Extract from the Declarations Made by the Betar Victims, 17.11.1947, G 45–54/4/13/9/IT.48, Betar 1947–1948. 62 AJDC, Translation of Letter to Merkaz Irgun Haplitim in Italy (Rome), 20.11.1947, G 45–54/4/13/9/IT.48. 63 AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to AJDC Paris, 13.3.1947, G 45–54/4/13/9/ IT.48. 64 Yakov Markowitzky, “Aliyah ve-hityashvut. Betar be-She’erit Ha-Pleitah be-Italiah (1946-1945)” [Aliyah and Settlement: Betar among the She’erit ­ ­Ha-Pletah in Italy (1945–1946)], Ionim ba-tkumat Isra’el, 7 (1997): 283. 65 On the humanitarian organizations’ emphasis on labour among refugees and former deportees, see Daniel G. Cohen, “Regeneration through Labor: Vocational Training and the Reintegration of Deportees and Refugees, 1945–1950,” Procedings of the Western Society for French History 32 (2004): 368–85; Silvia Salvatici, “From Displaced Persons to Labourers: Allied Employment Policies in Post-War West Germany,” in The Disentanglement of Populations. Migration, ­ einisch Expulsion and Displacement in Post-War Europe 1944–9, ed. Jessica R and Elizabeth Withe (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 210–28. 66 AJDC, Letter from Reuben B. Resnik to Mr. S. M. Keeny, 2.8.1945, NY AR194554/4/44/9/664; AJDC; Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, 4, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 67 Bernard Gerber and Jean Daniels, Letters from Italy. The Personal Correspondence from Henry P. Gerber to His Family While Serving as “Activities ­Director” in an UNRRA Refugee Camp at Santa Maria di Bagni, Italy 1944–1945 (­Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2001), 287–88. 68 AJDC, J. D. C. Aid for Vocational Training, 24.7.1947, G 45–54/1/1/4/ ADM.162, JDC Reports 1946–1947. 69 The ORT was originally established in St. Petersburg in 1880 to promote ­vocational training in order to ameliorate the living and working conditions of the Jews in the Pale of Settlement. For an overview of the ORT activities in the pre-war years and during the Second World War within the ghettos, see Sara Kavanaugh, ORT, the Second World War and the Rehabilitation of Holocaust Survivors (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008), 1–56. 70 On the work of ORT with the Jewish displaced persons after 1945, see Kavanaugh, ORT, 57–131; Katarzyna Person and Rachel Bracha, ed., ORT and the Rehabilitation of Holocaust Survivors. ORT Activities 1945–1956 (London: World ORT, 2012), 1–54. More information on ORT in the DP camps is available at dpcamps.ort.org (accessed January 2023). 71 World Ort Archives, London (henceforth WOA), Report on the ORT Activities August 1946–July 1947, d05a014, 53. 72 WOA, d05a014, 53–54 and 120–121; WOA, Three Years of ORT Activities – Report for the Period August 1946–June 1949, d05a019, 84. 73 WOA, d05a014, 54–55. 74 WOA, d05a020, One Year of Ort Activities Report for 1950, 74–76. 75 AJDC, Report on the Hachsharah Fishing Centre Fano, 26.4.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy: Hachsharoth, 1945–1950. 76 AJDC, Jewish Youths Learn Seamanship, Fishing Arts in J.D.C. – Aided Center, December, 7 1946, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656. For more about the hakhsharah in Fano, see Stefania Pirani, Storia dell’haksharà di Fano dal 1945 al 1948 attraverso i documenti e le interviste ai testimoni (Bologna: Patron Editore, 2008). 77 WOA, d05a014, 55–56; WOA, Report on the Activities July-November 1947, d05a015, 65. 78 AJDC, Facts and Figures on AJDC’s Children Care in Italy, 31.3.1947, NY AR 194554/4/44/5/631, Italy, Children, 1945–1954. The number of Jewish

Plural identities, one shared goal  129 children in the DP camps in Europe increased in the second half of 1946, as the flow of Jewish DP infiltrees grew exponentially. According to ­Mankowitz, in the American zone of occupation in Germany, the number of children increased from 1,800 in December 1945 to 26,506 at the end of 1946, while the Jewish DP population grew from around 40,000 in the first months after the war to 142,084 by the end of 1946. See Mankowitz, Life Between Memory and Hope, 131. 79 AJDC, Report on the Activities for the Third Quarter 1947, Covering the Northern Region for July, August and September, 11.10.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627, Italy, General, 1947. 80 AJDC, Summary of Expenses for Camp Assistance in Italy – June 1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662, Italy, Refugees, 1947. 81 In contrast, for instance, Mankowitz described the relationship between the ­ merican Zionist organizations running children’s homes and the UNRRA in the A zone of Germany as “complex and tense.” The social workers’ methods of tackling the children’s individual needs through formal education clashed with the collectivist ethos of the youth movements, which privileged education in a less formal context. Mankowitz, Life Between Memory and Hope, 141. For the UN agencies’ child welfare policy in Germany, see Lynne Taylor, In the Children’s ­ ermany, Best Interests: Unaccompanied Children in American-Occupied G 1945–1952 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017). 82 AJDC, Report Education Department, 19.7.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 83 In 1946, the JDC spent 13 million lira on its educational programmes, comprising 2.7% of the total budget for its mission for that year. AJDC, JDC. Program in Italy – 1946, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 84 AJDC, Report Education Department, 19.7.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 85 CZA, Din ve-ḥeshbon shel ha-maḥleket la-tarbut al-iedei Merkaz Irgun H ­ a-Plitim Be-Italiah, 1947 [Report by the Cultural Department of the Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, 1947], J17/8443 Duaḥ ha-maḥlakah le-tarbut al hape’ulah ha-tarbutit ve-ha-ḥinukhit ben ha-plitim ha-yehudim ­be-Italiah (1947– 1948) [Report by the Cultural Department on the Cultural and Educational Activities among the Refugees in Italy (1947–1948)]. 86 See Table 6. 87 CZA, Din ve-ḥeshbon shel ha-maḥleket la-tarbut al-iedei Merkaz Irgun H ­ a-Plitim Be-Italiah, 1947 [Report by the Cultural Department of the Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, 1947], J17/8443. 88 AJDC, Contents, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 89 The private archives of the Mapai emissary Zvi Aldouby provide many references to school exhibitions and public events carrying a clear Zionist message: see Achinoam Aldouby, Michal Peles-Almagor and Chiara Renzo, “Theater in ­Jewish DPs Camps in Italy: A Stage for Political and Ideological Debate on ­Aliyah, Zionism and Jewish identity in Training for Aliyah: Young Jews in Hachsharot across Europe between the 1930s and late 1940s,” ed. Verena Buser and Chiara Renzo, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History 21, n.1 (2022), 103-154.. 90 AJDC, Report Education Department, 19.7.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 91 For this issue, see the correspondence between UCII and JDC in Archivio dell’Unione delle Comunità Eberaiche Italiane (hereafter AUCEI), Unione Mondiale degli studenti ebrei 1946–1947, Files 21–22 in Folder 44C Attività assistenziale, Attività dell’UCII dal 1934. For the situation of Jewish students in Italy during the anti-Semitic persecutions, see Valeria Galimi and Giovanni Procacci, ed., “Per la difesa della razza.” L’applicazione delle leggi antiebraiche nelle università italiane (Milan: Unicopli, 2009); Elisa Signori, “La gioventù universitaria italiana di fronte alle leggi antiebraiche,” in A settant’anni dalle leggi

130  Plural identities, one shared goal razziali. Profili culturali, giuridici e istituzionali dell’antisemitismo, ed. Daniele Menozzi and Andrea Mariuzzo (Rome: Carocci, 2010), 267–303. 92 See (N/30) in Table 5. 93 YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (hereafter YIVO), The First Anniversary of the Students Home Beyt Hatalmid at Turin, 1947, Folder 242, Roll 20, Frame 363, Series 4, RG 294.3 Displaced Persons Camps and Centers in Italy, 1945– 1949 (accessed via YVA, RG O.300, File n. 7); AJDC, Contents, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 94 On this topic, see Haim Kaufman and Yair Galily, “Sport, Zionist Ideology and the State of Israel,” Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 12, no. 8 (2009): 1013–27. 95 AJDC, Contents, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 96 AJDC, Report, Subject: Various Reports, 17.9.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628. 97 Sidney J. Zoltak, My Silent Pledge: A Journey of Struggle, Survival and Remembrance (Toronto: MiroLand, 2013), 131 and 34. 98 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, L16/521, Sifron kinus ha-plitim be-Italiah be-ẓiruf ḥovrim tmunot protokolim mitkatvim ve-mavrikim [Booklet of the refugees’ conference in Italy, with pamphlets, minutes, letters and lists of visitors]; CZA, The Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, 2.5.1946, L16/521. See also Martina Ravagnan, “I campi Displaced Persons per profughi ebrei stranieri in Italia (1945–1950),” Storia e Futuro 30 (2012): 20–21. 99 See Table 5. 100 Ravagnan, “I campi,” 20–21. AJDC, Contents, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/ 44/2/628. 101 For a study analysing the revival of Yiddish theatre among Holocaust s­ urvivors in the German DP camps, see Ella Florsheim, “Yiddish Theatre in the DP Camps,” Yad Vashem Studies 40, no. 2 (2012): 107–35. 102 USC Shoah Foundation VHA, Miriam Moskowitz, 21.3.1997, Interview 27443, tape 5, 14:00–15:00 (accessed January 2022). 103 AJDC, Contents, 18.2.1947, Italy, General, 1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628; AJDC, Letter from A.J.D.C., Leece to Director, A.J.D.C., Rome, Subject: Report for the Month of January 1947, 15.3.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662. 104 Even though during my research I have never come across documents that extensively report plays dealing with the Holocaust, I have found references to them in oral testimonies. See, for instance, the interview with Miriam Moskowitz interview: USC Shoah Foundation VHA, Miriam Moskowitz, 21.3.1997, Interview 27443, tape 5, 14:00–15:00. 105 Aldouby, Peles-Almagor, and Renzo, “Theater in Jewish DPs Camps in Italy.” 106 Ravagnan “I campi,” 21. 107 CZA, Duaḥ me-peʿilut merkaz ha-plitim be-Bari me-15 be-yanuar 1944 ad 15 be-marṣ 1944, 28.3.1944 [Reports of the Activities of the Merkaz Ha-Plitim be-Bari from 15 January to 15 March 1944], S25/4719, Plitim Me-Italiah 1943– 1944 [Refugees from Italy]. 108 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, L16/521. 109 The newspaper’s chief editor was Berl Kagan, who had been a teacher, general secretary of the Zionist party in Lithuania, and the editor of various Zionist newspapers before the war. See Ravagnan, “I campi,” 21. 110 Ravagnan, “I campi,” 21. 111 CZA, Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, November 26–28, 1945, L16/521; YIVO, Member Card of the Society of Writers, Journalists and Artists, 1948, Folder 335, Roll 25, Frame 575, Series 6, RG 294.3 (accessed via YVA); AJDC, Contents, 18.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628.

Plural identities, one shared goal  131 112 YIVO, Program of Conference, July 27–28, 1948, Folder 338, Roll 25, Frame 697, Series 6, RG 294.3 (accessed via YVA). 113 YIVO, Art Exhibition of Works by Refugees Artists, 1948, Folder 373, Roll 26, Frame 996, Series 6, RG 294.3 (accessed via YVA). 114 AJDC, Letter from A.J.D.C. Rome to A.J.D.C. New York, Subject: Art Exhibition, 13.3.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/9/665, Italy, Refugees: Art Exhibition, 1948–1949; YIVO, Art Exhibition of Works by Refugees Artists, 1948, Folder 373, Roll 26, Frame 996, Series 6, RG 294.3 (accessed via YVA). 115 AJDC, Letter from A.J.D.C. Rome to A.J.D.C. New York, Subject: Art Exhibition, 13.3.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/9/665; AJDC, Letter from Benjamin B. Goldman to Mr. Leo Gallin, 12.5.1948, AR194554/4/44/9/665; AJDC, Memorandum from S.H. Bucholtz to Wm, Katz, 9.2.1949, AR194554/4/44/9/665. 116 According to the Palmach Museum database, on 23 August 1946, the Four Freedom sailed from Bocca di Magra (Liguria), which had become a new headquarter of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet. See https://palmach.org.il/history/database/?itemId=5056 (accessed January 2023). However, according to ­Kleiman’s memoirs, the ship left from Livorno: see Kleiman, Hilaẓta nafshi ­me-mavet, 148–50. 117 Kleiman, Hilaẓta nafshi me-mavet, 151. 118 Throughout their three years of existence (1946 to 1949), the detention camps in Cyprus housed over 52,000 people and witnessed the birth of 1,500 ­children. ­ adjisavvas, “‘From For an overview of the Jewish DPs’ life in Cyprus, see Eliana H Dachau to Cyprus’: Jewish Refugees and the Cyprus Internment Camps – Relief and Rehabilitation, 1946–1949,” in Beyond Camps and  Forced Labour:  Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference, ed. Suzanne ­Bardgett, ­Christine Schmidt, and Dan Stone (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 145–64. For Cyprus’ renewed strategic importance in the context of British post-Second World War imperial retreat in relation to Jewish transmigration, see Alexis ­Rappas, “Jewish Refugees in Cyprus and British Imperial Sovereignty in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1933–1949,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 47 (2019): 138–66. 119 According to the Palmach Museum database, the Four Freedom was blocked by the British forty miles from the coast of Palestine on 2 September 1946. See Kleiman, Hilatẓa nafshi, 153–60. 120 Ada Sereni, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (Milan: Mursia, 1973), 95–108. On the British policy of hindering illegal aliyah, see Arieh J. Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 60–86. 121 Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).. 122 Silvia Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced ­Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 3 (2014): 527. 123 Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates,” 517. 124 Toscano, “La porta di Sion,” 68. 125 Sereni, I clandestini, 148–49. 126 Sereni, I clandestini, 154–62; Toscano, “La porta di Sion,” 91–101. 127 See Table 4; Toscano, “La porta di Sion,” 91. 128 See, in particular, Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in ­Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002); Avinoam J. Patt, Finding Home and Homeland: ­Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009); Atina Grossman, Jews German and the Allies:

132  Plural identities, one shared goal Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 129 Hagit Lavsky, “The Experience of the Displaced Persons in Bergen-Belsen: Unique Or Typical Case?,” in “We Are Here”: New Approaches to J­ewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany, ed. Avinoam J. Patt and Michael ­ Berkowitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), here 246–47.

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134  Plural identities, one shared goal Sereni Ada, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (Milan: Mursia, 1973). Signori Elisa, “La gioventù universitaria italiana di fronte alle leggi antiebraiche,” in A settant’anni dalle leggi razziali. Profili culturali, giuridici e istituzionali dell’antisemitismo, ed. Daniele Menozzi and Andrea Mariuzzo (Rome: Carocci, 2010), 267–303. Stiman Zalman, Kfar na-no’ar haredi be-Santa Kesarea-Kafrisin [The Ultraorthodox Youth Village in Santa Caesarea and Cyprus] (Bnei Brak: Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, 1976). Taylor Lynne, In the Children’s Best Interests: Unaccompanied Children in ­American-Occupied Germany, 1945–1952 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487515157. Toscano Mario, “La Porta di Sion:” L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). Weinstein Menachem, Peduim le-ẓion: tnu’ah “Torah Ve-Avodah be-kerev She’erit Ha-Pleitah be-Italiah [Redeemed to Zion: The “Torah ve-’Avodah” Movement among the Sherith Ha-Pletah in Italy 1945–1949] (Jerusalem: Ha-Sifriyah ­Ha-Tzionit, 2004). Weinstein Menachem, Peduim le-ẓion: tnu’ah “Torah Ve-Avodah be-kerev She’erit Ha-Pleitah be-Italiah [Redeemed to Zion: The “Torah ve-’Avodah” Movement among the Sherith Ha-Pletah in Italy 1945–1949] (Jerusalem: Ha-Sifriyah ­Ha-Tzionit, 2004). Yaari Yehuda, At ḥaki li ve-erzor: miktavei Moshe Zeiri [You Are Waiting for Me and I Will Come Back: Letters from Moshe Zeiri] (Israel: Moshe and Yehudit Zeiri’s heirs, 2006). Zahra Tara, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). Zeev Mankowitz, Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), https://doi. org/10.1017/CBO9780511497100. Zertal Idith, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), https://doi. org/10.1525/9780520921719. Zoltak Sidney J., My Silent Pledge: A Journey of Struggle, Survival and Remembrance (Toronto: MiroLand, 2013).

4 Confronting the past while building the future Long waits, responsibilities, unexpected outcomes

Handling the painful legacy of the war Exercising patience

Among the thousands of Jewish DPs crossing the Austrian–Italian b ­ order hoping to have a chance to reach Palestine was fifteen-year-old Guta ­ ­Goldstein. Born in Łódź in 1930, Guta lost her mother a few years before the war broke out. Her childhood was abruptly interrupted by the Nazi invasion of Poland, and she was confined to the ghetto, where she lost her father and her younger sister. Despite her physical weakness, Guta Goldstein was able to survive numerous selections and subsequent deportations. In August 1944, when the Łódź Ghetto was liquidated, she was deported to Auschwitz, and in the last phase of the war, she was transferred to Bergen-Belsen and later to Meltheuer, a slave labour camp from which she was ultimately liberated by the American army on 16 April 1945. Shattered by the knowledge that she had no family, home, or country to return to, Guta Goldstein decided to join her grandmother and aunts who lived in Jerusalem. In her words, “Rumour had it that Italy was the route to Palestine and that the Jewish Brigade, a unit of the British army, was stationed there and they would facilitate our endeavour to get to Palestine.”1 Therefore, Guta, her cousin Inka, and Inka’s future husband Hansi decided to sneak into Italy, crossing the Brenner Pass with the help of the Jewish soldiers. While waiting for resettlement, they were moved from camp to camp. In the meantime, Inka and Hansi were married and had two children, and Guta remained with the young family. Together, they eventually joined a hakhsharah in Florence accommodating young couples with small children. “Anyhow that was the nicest time of my life,” Guta Goldstein nostalgically revealed in her oral testimony recorded almost fifty years later. At that time, she greatly wanted to go back to school, “but we were always meant to be leaving for Israel in five minutes” and time passed until the honorary secretary of the organization for Polish expatriates in Florence helped her to find a teacher so that she could study English.2 Despite their strong desire

DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281-5

136  Confronting the past while building the future to go to Palestine, their initial willingness to wait and to make yet another effort to start anew their life crumbled when they heard the news of illegal Jewish migrants being detained in Cyprus. It was considered too dangerous for Inka’s two small children to participate in an illegal voyage with such an uncertain outcome. As a consequence, four and a half long years after the end of the war, Guta Goldstein was still a refugee without a home: Patience was one of the most overused words of the time and its virtue was wearing thin. We lived under unbearably stressful and unpleasant conditions. […] Nearly four years had passed. Our life as displaced persons still remained unchanged. With every passing year we grew more desperate and uncertain of our future. Every so often Hansi travelled to Rome to pay a visit to the offices of the Joint to make inquiries regarding our prospects for migration to somewhere, anywhere. Sometimes he was able to register our names on a waiting list of a country that would declare a quota for the intake of displaced persons. But nothing was certain, nothing concrete.3 They registered for every available resettlement opportunity via the JDC lists, “and eventually the Australian one came good.” “Did you know anybody in Australia?” Guta Goldstein was asked during her oral testimony. “Not a soul!” she answered, “Not only did we not know anyone in Australia; we didn’t know that Melbourne was a place. All we knew was that Sydney was the capital of Australia.” Indeed, only on the ship were Guta and Inka’s family notified by the Jewish Welfare Society that they had been allocated to Melbourne. “This was absolutely tragic because we didn’t know where it was, we didn’t know what that was.”4 A man on the ship succeeded in calming them down, describing Melbourne as “a very nice city.” On 17 September 1949, ten years after the beginning of the Second World War, the ship berthed at Station Pier in Melbourne, the city where Guta Goldstein rebuilt her life. Since Guta’s arrival in Italy immediately after the end of the war, the demographic profile of the Jewish DP population in Italy had profoundly changed, as had the national and international political climate in which the relief agencies were taking care of them. At the liberation, the Jewish DPs were essentially survivors of the concentration camps and death marches, followed by those pouring into the refugee camps from Eastern Europe: former partisans, Jews who had first returned home to seek loved ones and reclaim their properties (mostly in vain), those who had been in hiding, those who had passed on the “Aryan side,” and finally a large wave of Jews repatriating from the Soviet Union as so-called infiltrees. Moreover, in mid-1947, the arrival of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) on the refugee management scene marked another turning point. This organization was created by the UN as a temporary specialized agency charged with the task of bringing about “a rapid and positive solution of the problem of bona fide refugees and displaced persons,” either by repatriation or resettlement.5 Predictably, the IRO

Confronting the past while building the future  137 repatriation campaign met with only minimal success, especially among the Jewish DPs. New resettlement possibilities were opened by the migration quotas established by the IRO in agreements with national governments. In order to be eligible for IRO assistance, those who decided to give up their right to repatriation and opted for resettlement in another country were required to provide documents and testimonials to prove their identity and wartime history in order to demonstrate sound grounds for their refusal to go home. IRO officials had to distinguish “false pretences” from “genuine, bona fide and deserving refugees,” to use the terminology of the IRO eligibility manual.6 As the UNRRA had done before, the IRO continued to provide those found eligible with shelter, food, clothing, healthcare, child welfare services, and education. During the entire period of its operation (from July 1947 to December 1951), the IRO assisted a total of 1,619,008 refugees and displaced persons, dispersed over a wide geographical area that ranged from Europe to the Middle and Far East.7 In July 1947, 154,333 out of a total 450,000 Jewish refugees in Europe and the Far East were assisted by the IRO in Germany, Austria, and Italy.8 More precisely, according to Holborn, Austria hosted a population of 5,471 Jewish DPs, Italy 17,047, and Germany a total of 131,816 distributed among the British (10,808), French (1,884), and US zones (119,124).9 Moreover, IRO statistics show that most of the Jews in the refugee camps were Polish (120,986), Hungarian (8,034), Romanian (7,586), and Czechoslovakian (7,005).10 The records of the IRO’s Preparatory Commission (PCIRO) entrusted with the task of negotiating with the Italian government for the establishment of the IRO mission in the country provide a detailed picture of the refugee demographics in Italy. By the end of July 1947, the total number of DPs and refugees living under PCIRO care in the refugee camps in Italy was 22,665, 10,125 of whom were classified as Jews and 12,540 as non-Jews. According to the IRO criteria, almost 94% of the total refugee camp population were post-hostilities refugees. In addition, the PCIRO stated that the 7,203 Jews who were currently living in hakhsharot were also eligible for international assistance. Therefore, when the PCIRO started its mission in Italy, the total number of Jewish DPs under its responsibility was 17,328. Not surprisingly, most of them were of Polish nationality (11,531). From the first PCIRO eligibility survey, we also know that more than 60% of the Jewish DPs in the refugee camps and hakhsharot were men and that almost 80% of the total population were aged between eighteen and forty-five, followed by 15% aged up to eighteen and only 5% aged forty-six or over.11 Italy vis-à-vis the aliyah bet

Guta Goldstein’s long wait in the DP camps echoed the stories of many other men, women, and children who crossed the Alps in the hope of having an earlier and more concrete chance of leaving Europe, especially for

138  Confronting the past while building the future Palestine. However, given the limitations on permission for aliyah and the ­disproportion between the large amount of applications for resettlement and the restricted emigration quotas, the Jewish DPs had to wait much longer than they expected for their resettlement opportunity to come. Indeed, even when the dire conditions of the Jews in the refugee camps became known worldwide, neither the British Mandate on Palestine nor other overseas countries opened their doors to significant numbers of migrants. Moreover, the chance to migrate further decreased as the Mossad LeAliyah Bet’s clandestine Italian operation first became known to the British with the aforementioned unsuccessful voyage of the Enzo Sereni and later to the entire world with the incident of the Fede and the Fenice in La Spezia harbour (around 100 km south of Genoa). This episode, which occurred between April and May 1946, is better known as the La Spezia Affair.12 On 4 April 1946, a convoy of thirty-eight British army trucks carrying more than 1,000 Jewish DPs on their way to La Spezia harbour was stopped by a police roadblock. The Italian authorities, having received information that Fascists were preparing to sneak into Franco’s Spain, mistakenly identified the Jewish DPs as fleeing Fascists. In that chaotic moment, the Jewish soldiers escorting the convoys decided to hand themselves over to the Italian police as hostages and to be transferred to the harbour under guard. For more than a month, the Jewish DPs were confined in La Spezia, turning the spotlight of the international press on their situation. The Italians handed “this troublesome gift” over to the British occupation forces in the country but found themselves unintentionally entangled in the complicated British– Zionist relations.13 Fearing any direct British involvement in action requiring the use of violence, the Foreign Office instructed the British delegation in Italy to leave the interrogation of the refugees to the Italians. However, the Italians refused, and the situation in La Spezia became more complicated and unpredictable. In the turmoil of the fortuitous capture of the convoys, Yehuda Arazi, head of the Italian headquarters of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet, disguised himself as a refugee and boarded one of the ships. By acting as the refugees’ leader, Arazi was able to turn Mossad’s failed mission into an anti-British demonstration whose echoes in the international media shifted the focus from Italy to British Palestine. Boarding the Fede pretending to be a Holocaust survivor, Arazi spurred the refugees to unity and led their struggle for free migration to Palestine.14 Under his guidance, the refugees in La Spezia harbour defiantly refused to be removed from the vessels, demanding entry to Palestine, organizing a hunger strike, and threatening to set fire to the ship in order to commit collective suicide. As recalled in Ada Sereni’s memoir: Alon [aka Yehuda Arazi] selected the best among the refugees, tied a red band around their left arms and declared them members of the Jewish police to preserve internal order. Some of them were placed as guards at the quay gate and from that moment no one could enter or

Confronting the past while building the future  139 leave without their permission. On the entrance gate was written in large letters ZION GATE15 In the meantime, thanks to the joint efforts of Umberto Nahon and ­Raffaele Cantoni, the refugees in La Spezia received a visit from the Chairman of the British Labour Party, Harold Laski, who was on his way to Florence to participate in the Italian Socialist Party Congress. A professor of political science of Jewish origin, Laski promised to discuss the case with Bevin and to do all he could to help the refugees reach Palestine if they would end their hunger strike and any other acts of desperation. On the local level, the ­Italian government was under international pressure. Nahon (representing the Jewish Agency), Cantoni (representing the UCII), and Garfunkel (representing the OJRI) visited Alcide De Gasperi, who was in favour of the ships’ departure from La Spezia upon British authorization. Despite being subject to military occupation and the armistice regime, until this point, the Italian authorities had “officially ignored” the aliyah bet’s activities.16 However, the British occupation forces now required more cooperation from the Italians in controlling the Jewish DPs’ illegal entrances and departures. Therefore, during the La Spezia Affair, the Italian government preferred to leverage its subordinate role and to leave the decision in British hands, regardless of its support for the Jewish refugees’ demand for emigration to Palestine (whose motivations went beyond the Italians’ alleged sympathy for the Jews). In contrast, the Italian public response was clearer and more spontaneous. Indeed, when it became known that the people stuck in the harbour were not Fascists but Jewish survivors, the press aligned with the refugees’ protests and the local population showed its solidarity with the Jews detained in La Spezia. Ada Sereni recalled: Many citizens had come in person from La Spezia to see what was [going on, offering] their help to the refugees. Among these a young journalist boarded the Fede and, once the identity of the fugitives was ascertained, he offered his help. Alon, taking advantage of his presence, sent appeals to Italian and foreign political figures, and to the press.17 The intense diplomatic activities and the worldwide resonance of the situation in La Spezia led the British to allow the departure of the Fede and the Fenice as part of the regular immigration quota. On 8 May 1946, five weeks after the convoys had been stopped, the two ships, renamed Dov Hoz and Elihahu Golumb, left La Spezia for Palestine. When they were some distance from the Italian coast, Yehuda Arazi abandoned the migrants to return to his underground work in Italy. For almost a year, he continued to head the ­Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet, before going back to Palestine and passing the baton to Ada Sereni. As noted by Idith Zertal, all the actors involved in the La ­Spezia Affair learnt the lesson that the refugees, as Holocaust survivors, embodied a strong psychologico-political and propaganda power.18

140  Confronting the past while building the future The La Spezia Affair occurred in the middle of a combination of key national and international events which intertwined with – and to some extent influenced – the development of the British Mandate on Palestine and the steps leading to Italy’s regained sovereignty. On the international level, the publication of the AAC report reiterated Whitehall’s refusal to abandon the 1939 White Paper policy and confirmed Washington’s opposite position, which openly recommended free Jewish migration to Palestine as the only solution to the Jewish DPs’ plight. As a consequence of US involvement in British imperial issues in the Middle East, Britain’s position appeared compromised by the United States’ crucial role in the post-war order. Meanwhile, on the local level, post-war Italian foreign policy was tackling the international implications of the Jewish question in Palestine, carefully measuring whether and how to become involved in the delicate British– American relationship. However, while Italy was still able to officially ignore the underground activities of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet soon after the end of the war, the situation changed on the eve of the signing of the peace treaties in 1947. In the beginning, Italy’s blind eye to illegal aliyah was influenced by three main factors. First, the government did not directly face it because the political and economic problems weighed more heavily on it than any of its other issues. Second, the British occupation relegated Italy to a subordinate position, which “protected” Italy from exposing itself in this delicate international scenario. Third, political instability prevented Italy from defining a clear line to tackle foreign policy matters, including the issue of the Jewish DPs. Moreover, another practical factor motivated Italy to not interfere with the underground operations of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet: the necessity of reducing the number of refugees on its soil. On 2 June 1946, Italian internal politics was shaken by what the historian Paul Ginsborg has defined as “the single greatest achievement of the progressive forces in Italian society” after the war: the defeat of the monarchy in the referendum and the constitution of the Italian Republic.19 The subsequent elections formed a government headed by a limited majority of Christian Democrats (De Gasperi II Cabinet), whose power would be consolidated in the following years. These political changes led to the definition of a clearer national orientation in foreign affairs and refugee policy, but the real management of the inflow and outflow of the Jewish DPs continued to be muddled. In fact, as argued by Mario Toscano, until spring 1946, the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet had been operating in an atmosphere that could be defined as anti-Fascist, still very linked to the Resistenza, which was aware of both the political and humanitarian implications of the Jewish DPs’ situation. In contrast, from summer 1946, the humanitarian attitude “gradually faded” in favour of strategic considerations that attributed “a new political meaning” to the aliyah bet.20 The Jews’ illegal departures from Italy made the country a sort of political arena where the British and the United States indirectly discussed matters of international politics. In the new global set-up of the Cold

Confronting the past while building the future  141 War, the Italian government was eager to strengthen its economic, political, and cultural ties with the United States. In particular, De Gasperi targeted the Italian–American relationship as an opportunity to ameliorate Italy’s domestic and international position alike.21 Despite the gradual stabilization of a more moderate political coalition on the internal front, Italy – still under Allied military occupation – had to respond to insistent pressure from Britain to collaborate in controlling the Jews’ illegal entries and departures. The Italian response remained ambiguous. Regardless of the fact that there is evidence of more accurate border controls, Italy did not adopt a strict policy of denying illegal entries. This is demonstrated by the increasing number of Jewish DPs who arrived in Italy between the end of 1946 and the whole of 1947. At the same time, due to the necessity of finding a way of reducing its refugee population, Italy did not interfere with the aliyah bet’s activities. Indeed, as already mentioned, Ada Sereni asserted that between the end of July and the beginning of September 1946, the Italians cooperated with Mossad in covering up the departures of illegal ships.22 In these circumstances, Italy justified its difficulty in stopping these underground activities by claiming a lack of means, autonomy, and forces in an attempt to avoid pressure from the British. Officially, Italy instead pursued a policy of rejecting the entry of large groups of refugees into the country, but at the same time, it never missed an opportunity to reiterate its hospitable attitude towards Jewish refugees pending their quick evacuation. Evidence of this fact is, for instance, the case of the 25,000 Jewish refugees for whom the US embassy in Rome requested temporary accommodation in Italy. On that occasion, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained its refusal to accept such a large number of refugees by the impossibility of guaranteeing their immediate transfer elsewhere, explicitly hinting that aliyah bet activities in Italy were slowing down: It has been observed that until recently, the Jewish refugees’ entry into Italy corresponded with their exodus to Palestine. This exodus took place in part officially and in part clandestinely, and was in any case well regarded by the Italian authorities as it led to a progressive decrease of the Israelite refugees in Italy. However, following the recent events in Palestine, this outflow has been suspended and the situation in Italy is raising concern, since we do not currently know when these tens of thousands of Jewish refugees will be able to leave.23 Replying to the US embassy that the government would allow the Jewish DPs to enter the country under guarantee of their immediate evacuation, possibly to Palestine, Italy aligned with Truman’s position. In fact, in this climate of increasing bitterness regarding the prospected outcomes of the peace treaties, Italy aimed to play a trump card in an attempt to rehabilitate its credibility and to restore its place in international politics, especially in the Mediterranean.

142  Confronting the past while building the future Italy vis-à-vis responsibility for the Jewish DPs

In view of its regained national sovereignty, Italy’s responsibility towards the Jewish DPs was no longer exclusively limited to the control of their illegal entries or departures, as the ACC and the UN agencies were now more insistent in their requests that the Italian government take charge of the country’s foreign refugees. However, when negotiating the management of the refugees with international actors, Italy repeatedly refused either to assume moral responsibility or to make a significant financial contribution for international DPs in the country. The development of the Italian refugee policy towards aliyah bet and the assistance of the Jewish DPs should be viewed in the context of the complex socio-political changes and economic problems that were affecting Italy immediately after the end of the Second World War. The sequence of internal and international dynamics briefly analysed below did not always exercise direct effects on the Italian involvement in the issues revolving around the management of the Jewish DPs. Nonetheless, they opened a new phase of Italy’s national history whose outcomes unavoidably reflected the Italian attitude towards the Jewish DPs and their aspiration to make aliyah. Following the first eligibility survey that the UNRRA conducted among the DPs in Italy, the ACC urged the UN agency to be as flexible as possible in applying its eligibility criteria. The results of this survey did indeed hamper the transfer of camp administration from the ACC to the UNRRA, which was only completed in May 1946. However, at that time, there were still a dozen camps being administered by the ACC, which asked the Italian government to take responsibility for UNRRA ineligible DPs. Thenceforth, the Italian government declined any obligation towards these DPs, concealing its ultimately political motivations behind the country’s economic problems. Moreover, the Minister of Postwar Relief, the Communist Emilio Sereni, stated that the pressure from the ACC was unjustified according to the terms agreed in the 1943 armistice, which did not include any Italian responsibility for foreign refugees. This position was later sustained by De Gasperi (­Cabinet II), who at that time was covering both the post of prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. According to the Italian government’s memorandum to the ACC from 17 October 1946, foreign refugees on Italian soil were therefore under the Allies’ jurisdiction. Moreover, by virtue of Italy’s exclusion from the UN, it had no obligation to assist international DPs.24 The negotiations did not reach a substantial agreement, being further hindered by the disappointing terms of the Paris Peace Treaty signed in February 1947,25 the internal political crisis, and the direct repercussions of the Cold War on Italian internal politics.26 Especially in view of the launch of the Marshall Plan, the new government aimed to strengthen Italy’s ties with the United States, and, as part of this set-up, the refugee question acquired a twofold meaning.27 In this new phase of post-war politics, solving the refugee problem was seen as a priority for repairing Italy’s domestic situation

Confronting the past while building the future  143 and at the same time for ameliorating its position in international politics.28 From 1947, the Italian government started to intensify its control measures against the increasing number of Jewish infiltrees arriving in Italy from summer 1946. A census of the country’s alien population was conducted, which was concluded on 7 April 1947. This census resulted in the entry permit (permesso di soggiorno) being withheld from those arriving without proper visas. These resolutions triggered the rejection of infiltrees at the borders and the arrests of those found without regular entry visas inside the country.29 According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at that time, Jews entering the country could no longer be considered to be DPs, stating: “These people now abandon the countries in which they find themselves, without being forced by anyone, therefore freely and spontaneously, and move to Italy for the sole purpose of emigrating to Palestine.”30 This inflexibility on the part of the Italian government, more detectable in political analysis than in reality, was due to the feared outcomes of the end of the UNRRA mission in Italy. In that delicate moment for Italy, the increasing number of refugees represented a relevant factor of instability in the lengthy process of reconstructing the country. In this regard, the JDC mission in Italy feared that there [was] no doubt that with continued mass unemployment and the probability that Italy will be unable to maintain its limited bread ration this winter, more and more criticism will be voiced about the number of aliens residing in this country.31 At the same time, however, the JDC still hoped for “Italian goodwill,” assuming that “Italy [was] not eager to risk a political clash on this delicate problem of the Jewish refugees.”32 This was partially confirmed by De G ­ asperi after a conversation with JDC vice-chairman Moses Leavitt: Sir, With reference to our conversation of last Wednesday, I beg to inform you that the question of Jews who have sought refuge in Italy has been carefully studied by the relevant offices. I am, therefore, in a position to state that these refugees will continue to enjoy the benevolent hospitality they have enjoyed hitherto, pending their transfer to other countries. The agencies responsible for this group must, however, continue to provide for their maintenance. I would also inform you that, for obvious reasons, our frontier services must prevent the clandestine entry of other foreigners into the territory of the Republic.33 Ambiguously emphasizing Italy’s status as a “hospitable” country for the Jewish DPs, De Gasperi officially stated that the Italian government was

144  Confronting the past while building the future no longer willing to accept other infiltrees, especially if their evacuation ­opportunities were restricted. This response did not surprise the director of the JDC mission in Italy, Jacob Trobe, who interpreted the Italian interest in establishing a closer relationship with the United States as another aspect that the JDC could leverage in order to benefit from Italy’s alleged historical goodwill towards the Jews: It is to be noted that the Italian Government has had a record of twenty years of Fascism and therefore the choice of friendship for the Jews is partly political. But the Italian Government is definitely anti-alien, particularly because of the fact that Italy now has some two million unemployed and in addition to Jewish refugees they have a great number of Italian refugees from Africa, Venezia-Giulia, Pola, and other areas. However, Italy’s traditional friendship for the Jews is a good thing to work on. Secondly, the Marshall Plan has very important implications since some people in the Italian Government think that the JDC as an American organization has something to do with it.34 Nevertheless, when the PCIRO opened its offices in Rome to replace the UNRRA and the IGCR, requesting a financial contribution from the Italian government, Italy once more declined to take responsibility for foreign refugees. Indeed, at that time, the Italian government viewed the roughly 47,000 refugees generated by the loss of the Italian African colonies and the territories in the Istrian peninsula with great concern and considered the PCIRO request to be unacceptable.35 While the UNRRA had provided Italy with tremendous aid during its reconstruction alongside caring for the DPs, the PCIRO was instead now preparing the ground to exclusively undertake DP relief activities in cooperation with national governments. Despite denying any factual and moral responsibility for the DPs, in October 1947, Italy eventually signed an agreement with the PCIRO that limited its contribution to the provision of services and facilities.36 Refusing to allocate a contribution to the IRO budget, which the Italian government interpreted as privileging foreigners over nationals, Italy was not able to take up its responsibilities or contribute to assisting foreign war refugees.37 Troubled waters Infiltrees: disorders and arrests

During the negotiations between the PCIRO and the Italian government, the JDC mission in Italy shared its concerns with its central headquarters in New York and Geneva. Because of Italy’s very limited contribution to the IRO budget, the JDC feared losing some agreements that it had previously been able to reach with the UNRRA, thus prefiguring a general deterioration of

Confronting the past while building the future  145 the situation in the refugee camps.38 Moreover, as a consequence of the fact that illegal entrants were not eligible for international protection and assistance, the JDC had to take charge of caring for Jewish infiltrees. The JDC records document that the UNRRA’s departure had brought about great shortages of food, clothes, and medical care in the camps and had also affected the Jewish DPs’ morale, heightening insecurity and restlessness among the refugees.39 In conjunction with the passage from the UNRRA to the IRO mandate, a reduction of the refugee camps was planned. By the end of February 1947, the camps in Lecce province were closed, and the DPs were transferred to other refugee camps. The situation became quite tense both within the camps, as the DPs were unwilling to be transferred, and among the local population, who complained about their long-requisitioned properties that had served as accommodation for the refugees since late 1943. The owners of the villas constituting the Santa Maria al Bagno refugee camp started to pressure the local municipality for the restitution of their properties, reporting long lists of damages caused by the DPs. They even organized a “Popular Unrest Committee,” which called for a demonstration to stop the DPs’ “sadistic vandalism”: These refugees, instead of considering themselves guests, proved unworthy members of civilized societies, venting their blind anger against the result of work and sweat for several generations: people’s houses, villas, plants, nothing has escaped their systematic devastation. Well dressed and fed by the Allies, free and uncontrolled, they black-market what comes to them through thefts and robberies. All this must be stopped, both because we are not responsible for how many of them say they have suffered in German concentration camps and because the war is long over and everything must return to normalcy.40 The resentment of what was seen as the refugees’ underserved privilege of receiving international assistance reflected an old xenophobic cliché that was intertwined with frustration regarding the long-requisitioned and damaged properties. Indeed, these sentiments were further fed by discontent regarding the British occupation policy and the misleading perception that international aid protected foreign refugees rather than (and sometimes at the expense of) the local population. We do not know if the Popular Unrest Committee was eventually established, nor whether its protests took place, but in March 1947, the camps in Lecce province were officially closed, and the properties were returned to their legitimate owners. A total population of 2,349 Jewish DPs – including eighty-six pregnant women, 188 nursing mothers, and 242 children aged up to two years old – was transferred to other DP camps in the country.41 The movement of DPs from camp to camp generated by the end of the UNRRA mission also entailed administrative difficulties, especially when Jewish DPs were transferred to the mixed camps. Leon Bernstein – who was

146  Confronting the past while building the future elected OJRI president after Garfunkel’s resignation in late 1947 – informed the IRO that the mixed camps “would give rise to a natural, psychological tension,” for several reasons. First, the supposedly remarkable number of “elements [among the refugees] who belong to the category of people who collaborated with Nazism.” Second, Bernstein warned the IRO that another cause of controversies in the mixed camps was the fact that the Jewish DPs received supplementary assistance from Jewish voluntary organizations while non-Jewish agencies were failing to provide any such assistance. Finally, even the Jewish DPs’ tendency to self-govern was a cause of friction among mixed populations in the DP camps. For all these reasons, Bernstein recommended to the IRO that “the Gentile DP population should be transferred to nonJewish camps, which seem[ed] easily workable since there [was] plenty of vacant space in Gentile camps.”42 In other cases, however, the JDC records document a peaceful coexistence between Jews and non-Jews in the mixed camps. In autumn 1947, the Bari Transit camp was accommodating a mixed population of around 900 Jews and 300 to 400 non-Jews, most of whom were US affidavit holders. The JDC was satisfied to report that “cooperation [between] Jews and non-Jews in this camp [was] such that the non-Jews have elected a Jew to represent them on the committee.”43 With the arrival of the IRO, the DPs’ unstable conditions were now further compromised by the threat of limitations being imposed on the refugee camps, and the JDC warned that “it [was] clear from discussions both at Rome and Geneva, officially and unofficially, that IRO [found] distasteful the need of absorbing additional Jewish refugees.” The JDC supposed that this reluctance was based on the fact that Jewish refugees had entered Italy for the purpose of illegal immigration. Moreover, according to the IRO, it was much less expensive to care for refugees in Austria than in Italy, since the Austrian government made a substantial contribution to the IRO programme there.44 In August 1947, the problem became a reality when the IRO established a ceiling for the care and maintenance of all refugees (Jewish and non-Jewish) at 32,500, which had already reached by September. Therefore, the constant stream of unregistered refugees substantially increased the burden on the JDC. This situation created a backlog of refugees of 1,500 to 1,800 in via Unione 5 during the latter half of September (Figure 4.1).45 According to the Brichah statistics, the total number of Jewish refugees who crossed the Austrian border into Italy in 1947 was 16,913. While up until autumn 1946, most of the Jewish infiltrees were of Polish origin, later groups of Jews from Hungary and Romania started to join the Brichah movement. They were mainly poor Jews from the provinces, children, and members of Zionist groups, who often crossed the Italian border undernourished, in rags, or barefoot.46 According to the OJRI, the inflow of Jewish refugees would not have stopped even with the tightening of control measures at the borders. It argued that there were three main reasons that caused Jews to move to Italy: first, the more likely possibility of departing for Palestine;

Confronting the past while building the future  147

Figure 4.1 Refugees at via Unione, Milan, Fondo Israel Kalk, immediate post-war period, Album 12, inv. 283-album12-004.  Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

second, Italy’s warmer climate; and third, the fact that they preferred daily interactions with Italians over life with Germans or Austrians “because of the almost complete lack of anti-Semitism among the Italian masses.”47 In order to assist with this large inflow of Jewish DPs into Italy, the OJRI and the Merkaz La-Golah had come to an unofficial agreement with the JDC to allow several hundred people to stay in the Scuola Cadorna DP camp (Milan area) to await their registration with the IRO. In the meantime, the JDC would provide them with the necessary supply and care.48 In mid-July 1947, the JDC estimated that the Scuola Cadorna DP camp was accommodating an official population of 1,026 Jewish DPs, plus around 300 unregistered DPs.49 This happened because the IRO registration system only permitted the handling of fifty to sixty new applicants per day, even though at that time a daily average of 100 infiltrees were arriving in Italy. In less fortunate cases, they were detained by the police authorities or rejected at the frontier and had to make several attempts to enter the country. Throughout the summer of 1947, the Scuola Cadorna DP camp registered more than 4,300 new arrivals, most of whom were compelled to sleep on the floors or in the yard because of the lack of space. At that time, the living conditions in the northern camp regions were described by Jacob Trobe as “miserable.”50 In almost every camp, there were broken windows and no stoves for the winter; there were not enough toilets and bathrooms, and in general, the overcrowding threatened the sanitary and hygienic conditions. After

148  Confronting the past while building the future visiting Adriatica camp in Milan, the JDC official Theodore Sznejberg ­confidentially wrote to his colleague Julius Levine that this was “one of the saddest places” he had ever seen in Italy, referring both to the poor lodging conditions and to “the incredibly low level of general morale in the camp.” He was staggered by the number of people dealing on the black market and shocked to learn from some of the DPs of the existence of two or three brothels within the camp. Sznejberg, moreover, regretfully learnt from an anonymous man living in the area who held a responsible position in Jewish and non-Jewish public life that “there [were] two places in Milan considered by the Italian population as ‘infected’: these [were] the refugee transit home in via Unione 5 and the Adriatica camp.”51 At that time, the Italian Jewish Community Hostel in via Unione 5 in Milan, which could accommodate a maximum of 200 people, was housing more than 1,000 at the end of summer 1947 (Figure 4.2).52 The number of infiltrees continued to increase, with 764 new entries in September and 1,422 in October. The problem became particularly acute in November, when the JDC was supporting some 2,500 Jewish DPs still waiting to be registered by the IRO.53 The “freeze order” to limit the quota of eligible refugees established by the IRO forced the JDC to create some emergency refugee shelters in the Milan area in order to offer accommodation and care to those Jewish refugees who fell outside the UN mandate.54 One JDC shelter was set up in Chiari in October 1947 in order to replace the via Unione 5 reception centre, which had “long [been] condemned by the medical staff and by the city authority.”55 Up until January 1948, the Chiari camp accommodated 1,800 Jews who had been excluded by the IRO mandate and were being taken care of by the JDC.56 However, the establishment of a JDC reception centre in the Eugenio di Savoia former military barracks in Chiari provoked “protests and discontent among the local population who [were] reluctant towards these refugees especially for their miserable conditions.”57 The mayor of Chiari complained to the Italian Ministry of Defence and the local prefect that the presence of Jewish refugees in a building located in the city centre was a threat to morality and public order. Even the local bishop considered it “inappropriate and unseemly that the eminently religious and small town of Chiari should welcome a community that could give rise to demonstrations contrary to Catholic worship.”58 This exceptional refugee movement in Italy created heated tensions not only with the local population but also with the Italian police. In July 1947, the JDC was alarmed by the increasing number of refugees detained in the internment camps managed by the Italian Ministry of the Interior. Among them were also fifty Jews, most of whom had been arrested for not having an entry visa, for theft, or for black-market trading.59 The Italian camps allocated for the internment of “unwanted” or “undesirable” refugees were the former Fascist concentration camps and confinement locations of Farfa Sabina (Rieti), Lipari (Latina), Ustica (Palermo), Alberobello (Bari), ­Fraschette d’Alatri (Frosinone), and Fossoli di Carpi (Modena).60

Confronting the past while building the future  149

Figure 4.2 Refugees trading on the black market around via Unione, Milan, immediate post-war period, Fondo Israel Kalk, Album 12, inv. 283­ album12-004.  Archivio Fondazione CDEC, Milano.

The UCII expressed concern about this wave of arrests and asked the J­ ewish communities to refer any eventual cases to its central offices.61 Already in July 1946, Cantoni informed the UCII Board that Fossoli, which since 1943 had served as a transit camp for deportation to the Nazi concentration camps, was being used by the Italian police to detain refugees without proper documents or who had been caught black-marketing. According to Cantoni, this was the least suitable place for the internment of Jews who had

150  Confronting the past while building the future miraculously escaped death.62 The matter was discussed in a meeting with representatives from the IRO, the JDC, the OJRI, and the UCII, who decided that cases of Jews detained by the Italian authorities would be referred to the IRO’s legal counsel for examination. At the meeting, the IRO promised to put pressure on the Italian government in favour of a friendlier policy towards aliens, though they reiterated that in accordance with the Italian regulations, all refugees entering Italy without visas or leaving a camp without authorization were liable to be interned or deported.63 Archival records show that rejections at the Austrian border and arrests intensified during 1947, sometimes the refugees were released on precise conditions following the intervention of the JDC or the UCII. This was what happened in via Unione in January 1947, when the Milan police headquarters reported its supervision of “illicit activities” and the arrival of “aliens and unwanted elements” at the local Jewish Community’s Centre. On that occasion, the Italian police preventively arrested 110 Jewish refugees who had entered the country without the necessary documents. The provision was revoked thanks to the mediation of Jacob Trobe, who was warned that Italy was no longer willing to tolerate the illegal entries of foreign Jews “assisted by the American Joint, with the help of the worse elements of the local Israelite Community.”64 In addition, archival records document the intensification of controls and arrests among the Jewish DPs already in Italy. For instance, in December 1947, the UCII informed the JDC that in Bari, “about 40 Jewish refugees have been arrested by Italian authorities for being without proper documents or for participating in black market activities.”65 The Italian government indeed suspected instances of military activities, arms trafficking, and terrorist infiltrations among the refugees.66 Between the publication of the AAC report in spring 1946 and the recommendation of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) in November 1947, tensions were escalating. First, in this period, anti-British demonstrations organized by the Jewish DPs increased. The one that gathered the most support took place on 2 July 1946, following the Jewish insurgence in Palestine sparked by the Night of the Bridges, the Lehi attack on a railroad in Haifa, the Etzel kidnapping of six British officers, and the British reprisal actions against the Yishuv known as Operation Agatha. An emergency committee was jointly established by the UCII, the OJRI, and the He-Halutz, which called for a fast from sunrise to sunset and a general strike of all ­Italian and foreign Jewish workers. All the Jewish communities were invited to organize meetings and protests against the British policy on Palestine and the blocking of Jewish migration thereto. In Rome, a great demonstration took place between the Roman Forum and the Arch of Titus, where the Jewish leaders, including Cantoni and Garfunkel, delivered their speeches before a crowd of 6,000 people (as reported by the Israel newspaper).67 Second, in parallel to these protests organized in broad daylight, other activities occurred underground as the Etzel and the Lehi infiltrated the refugees. The effect of their propaganda came to a violent head on 31 October

Confronting the past while building the future  151 1946, when the press reported a terror attack at the British embassy in Rome. Two days later, the Etzel claimed responsibility for the dynamite attack via a public statement addressed to the UCII and the Italian government, declaring that the assault “to the center of anti-Jewish intrigues” marked the beginning of a military front in the Diaspora aiming to liberate their homeland from foreign domination and redeem the Jewish people.68 In the same statement, it apologized to the Italian government for the “troubles caused by the attack,” hoping for understanding from the Italians “who are also suffering because of this ‘democratic’ people [the British].”69 Any involvement in or support of the Etzel’s actions in Italy on the part of Italian Jews or the Jewish DPs was soon denied by an official statement jointly signed by the UCII, the OJRI, and the Italian Zionist Federation, who highlighted the fact that “the initiative was not taken in Italy.”70 Even though there is no evidence of other episodes like the October attack on the British embassy, the Etzel did successfully infiltrate the Jewish DPs in order to recruit and train new affiliates. Etzel leaflets calling for Jews in Italy to join its “liberation army against the British blood regime,” posters comparing British soldiers to the Nazis, and requests to donate gold for weapons and ammunitions circulated in Italy during this period. The language of the recruitment campaign echoed the tense situation in Palestine: Brother Jews, […]. The “state of war” shows that there is no longer any base for the British blood regime in our land, except for the bayonet, on which it is difficult to sit and impossible to sit on for any lengthy period of time. The self-liberating people will not withdraw and will not step back. Out of brotherly love and hearty unity in suffering, and blood and in tears, we shall lock arms, man and woman, old and young, around the fighting flag.71 In this context, the national press started to associate the Jewish DPs’ movement in and out of the country with the threat of terrorist infiltrations. The newspaper Il Corriere della Nazione reported “Sensational Revelations from the House of Commons” in the summer of 1947, suggesting that Jewish terrorists trained by Soviet specialists in the Caucasus were being smuggled into Italy.72 The fear of terrorist infiltrations was also shared by the British embassy, which pushed the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to strengthen police controls at the borders and within the camps.73 Besides the Revisionist military cells, the Haganah also conducted an underground recruitment campaign among the Jewish DPs in Italy. From 1946, the Merkaz La-Golah started to coordinate the selection of groups of Jewish DPs who had been trained in self-defence against rioters and military preparation in view of their potential integration into the Haganah. Two important sites, which were officially known as hakhsharot, served as Haganah training centres in the small towns of Pollone (in the Piedmont pre-alps)

152  Confronting the past while building the future and Piazzatorre (between Lake Como and Lake Garda).74 The Haganah’s activities in Italy intensified, especially after the UN General Assembly voted for the partition plan of Palestine proposed by the UNSCOP by the end of 1947. Young Jewish DPs were called to join the Haganah and to form “an iron-strong Jewish people’s army”: Brothers, remember: this time the front is our own, this time the struggle is fought not for foreigners and not on diaspora territory. This time the front is a Jewish one! This is not a final stand in order to die with valour, this is the last fight, in order to live and be able to continue our work of rebuilding. This is a fight for our only hope – for Eretz Israel. We shall win if the entire people will join in the fight!75 The turbulent socio-political atmosphere in Italy, the frustrating negotiations leading to the end of the British occupation and Italy’s regained sovereignty, and the tense international relationships provoked by the coming Cold War also had indirect repercussions on the aliyah bet. The intensification of controls on the Jews’ movements adopted by the British, including the implementation of new detention measures in Cyprus and Atlit, hindered the activities of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet. Between October 1946 and the beginning of March 1947, no illegal ships left the Italian coasts, causing overcrowding and chaos in the management of the refugee camps. Uncertain migration perspectives

In March 1947, the activities of the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet resumed as the Shabbetai Lusinsky sailed from Metaponto (between the heel and sole of Italy), successfully carrying a little more than 800 Jewish DPs to Palestine. In late March and April, it was followed by the departure of the Moledet and the Sha’ar Ha-Yishuv, which were intercepted by the British and diverted to Cyprus with their 2,331 passengers. In May, two other ships, the Tikvah (1,414 passengers) and the Moradei Ha-Ghetaot (1,457 passengers), left from Portovenere (Liguria) and Mola di Bari (Puglia), respectively, and were also intercepted and diverted to Cyprus.76 The Italian authorities continued to promise their collaboration in preventing illegal departures, even if they only informed the British authorities after the ships had left undisturbed, complaining about their lack of adequate means and forces to control the coast. On the eve of the establishment of the UNSCOP, the British warned Italy to deport any illegal migrants caught leaving Italy for Palestine.77 Italy, fearing making a wrong move that could delay its admission to the UN and eager to join the nascent Western Bloc, hoped for an international resolution to the Jewish DP question that would facilitate their smooth evacuation from the DP camps. Therefore, despite its interest in securing the Jewish DPs’ departure Italian authorities adopted

Confronting the past while building the future  153 a more cautious attitude towards the aliyah bet. As explained by Toscano, this decision was not a direct response to the requests from the British but was rather the result of a secret agreement between the Italian authorities and the M ­ ossad Le-Aliyah Bet leaders.78 The Jewish underground organization, which at that time was headed by Ada Sereni, changed its strategy, passing from the use of vessels to bigger ships with the purpose of crowding the Cyprus detention camps with a larger flow of migrants. Indeed, at the end of April 1947, the SS Exodus (President Warfield) reached Marseille from the United States and later moved to Portovenere, where Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet was meant to have organized the departures of 4,500 Jewish DPs. The impossibility of completing the equipping and boarding operations of such a large ship under pressure from the British led the Italian authorities to show them their “effective cooperation.”79 They agreed to verify the status of the ship and requested its return to its harbour of origin in France, refusing to assume responsibility for keeping it in unjustified custody in Portovenere, as requested by the British. Ada Sereni wrote regarding these circumstances: I knew very well that the Italian government, despite being uneager for a policy that was convenient for British but not Italian interests, did not dare to take a position of open help towards us. […] Our Italian friends, whose help had been invaluable, asked for a temporary suspension of departures to allow the mood to calm down. Would it have been productive to bring 4,500 people to the harbour and stage a struggle like that of the Fede?80 At the beginning of June, the Exodus sailed back to France and the story of the Jewish DPs’ infamous voyage from France to Palestine and their forced return to Hamburg became central in Zionist narratives, as historians have pointed out.81 Until the end of July, only the Halalei Gesher Ha-Ziv left from Italy (from an inlet in Migliarino Pisano), and its 685 passengers were brought to Cyprus by the British.82 Thereafter the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet in Italy abandoned the “big ships” policy and only restarted its activities in September 1947, when it was able to operate in a completely different international diplomatic and political landscape. At that time, the British troops were leaving Italy, which was eventually starting to regain its sovereignty after four years of armisticial regime. In the meantime, the UNSCOP submitted its report to the UN General Assembly, recommending the end of the British Mandate, the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, and a special international regime for the city of Jerusalem. The proposed partition (UN Resolution 181) passed the General Assembly vote and the news had “a marvellous effect” on the Jewish DPs in Italy, who started to envisage the establishment of the State of Israel and the consequent possibility of free migration there. The official OJRI statement

154  Confronting the past while building the future provides a picture of the atmosphere that was initially generated by the UN Resolution among the refugees: When the final announcement on the favourable solution come through on the 29 of November at midnight a storm of enthusiasm rose in every camp and kibbutz. […] [The following day] was marked by mass meetings and celebrations and school festivals in all camps and Kibbutzim. The general feeling prevails the Refugees that their suffering will be ended very soon, and that their struggle and patience and tears in the camps have now been justified and crowned by the glory and victory of justice. Even those who enlisted for emigration into overseas country join the joy of this remarkable day with greatest satisfaction and enthusiasm. The only political group that abstains from joining this great national festival seem to be the Revisionists. Even the Agudath Israel took part in meeting with speeches and frequent presence. […] It is generally expected that the new situation will have a great psychological influence on the Refugees here and will help them to bear the hardships which arose in connection with IRO budget cuts with firmness and heroism.83 Between September 1947 and May 1948, Ada Sereni organized the last eleven illegal departures from Italy before the establishment of the State of Israel and the beginning of the 1948 war. However, seven of these vessels were intercepted by the British and diverted to Cyprus.84 Despite the end of the occupation, the British continued to pressure the Italian authorities to stop the aliyah bet. Italy’s response continued to be cautious: as usual, it promised their cooperation, but in reality, they allowed the ships to go in the interest of reducing their refugee population. It was too early for Italy to take a firm position regarding the establishment of the State of Israel and to openly assign itself the role of “Zion Gate.” As Umberto Nahon reported to the Jewish Agency in his acute analysis of the Italian position following his meeting with Pietro Zoppi, Director-General of Political Affairs at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 1948: Italians are now troubled by the problem of the Mandate affecting their former colonies. They would like to avoid any public pronouncement. When the State [of Israel] arises, they will either have lost or have won the battle; in both cases, they will be freer than they are now. Mr Zoppi did not mention the Vatican at all, but I understand that they are worried by the possible reaction on the other side of the Tiber. But they realise that as candidates for the UN, they have to do everything that other UN powers are doing and have to recognize the State as soon as it comes about.85 To return to our analysis of the effects of the “morale booster” that the UNSCOP resolution created among the Jewish refugees, the JDC records

Confronting the past while building the future  155 show that it vanished quite quickly as they began to work out that their departure was still a long way off.86 Because of the prolonged difficulties involved in getting to Palestine, several DPs started to abandon the idea of aliyah, seeking new emigration opportunities in other countries. Murray ­Gitlin, chief of the northern region, wrote that the refugee had tired of waiting for his number to come up on the immigration quotas and nothing in the world situation gave him hope that any of the leading countries would change their stand on Jewish immigration. Since then some of the enthusiasm to go to Palestine has worn off.87 Sources neither provide a consistent estimation of the number of Jewish DPs who decided to not migrate to Israel nor a uniform picture of the motivations behind this decision, but they do contribute to a more accurate depiction of the reality. An interesting starting point is what the JDC called the “non-Palestine bound hakhsharot,” referring to those places accommodating Jewish DPs who had “changed their minds” and wished to be resettled in the United States, Australia, or other alternatives to Israel.88 There are sporadic traces of these hakhsharot in the minutes of a meeting between JDC representatives and a delegation from the Southern Region camps committee that took place in 1946. This reveals that already at that time, there was a group of 700 to 800 Jewish DPs who manifested an interest in emigrating to the United States. In December 1946, the US-oriented group living in the UNRRA camps in Lecce province, which was almost entirely formed of US affidavit holders, asked the JDC and the UNRRA to transfer them close to the US Consulate in Naples, in “community collectives […] as […] is done for those who plan to emigrate to Palestine.”89 The Jewish DPs’ representatives warned the JDC that its failure to help them would be widely publicized as a discriminatory action on their part. In that occasion, the JDC suspected that this request illustrated the group’s desire to leave the refugee camps for better accommodation and saw this situation as a forerunner of future similar claims. Even though the American Jewish organization recognized its moral duty to provide the same assistance to all Jewish DPs, it passed the matter on to the UNRRA in February 1947 without taking a position.90 The JDC records do not reveal whether this group’s request was satisfied, but they do document that in March 1949, there were twelve hakhsharot classified as “non-Palestine bound” that included a mixed population of Jewish DPs longing for resettlement both in Israel and, for the most part, in other countries.91 Besides the Bund Cooperative, these included eleven other hakhsharot, all of which were located in the area around Rome and accommodated a total population of 640 Jewish DPs. In these JDC documents, there is not enough data on resettlement plans for the entire population, but most of them (296) were seeking for resettlement in the United States, along with 250 in Israel and thirty-two in Australia.92

156  Confronting the past while building the future We can assume that there were both personal and practical reasons behind the decision of those Jewish DPs who “changed their minds” and opted for an alternative resettlement location. The Jewish DPs attempted to apply for migration overseas because they were discouraged by the difficulty of obtaining an entry visa for aliyah as well as by the political criteria that governed the selection of illegal migrants for the aliyah bet ships. With the establishment of the State of Israel and the consequent abolition of the British Mandate quotas on Jewish migration, the Israeli government adopted a mass immigration policy (later institutionalized by the “Law of Return”). This initiated a large inflow of Jewish DPs from Europe to Israel, which, however – as we shall see – did not result in their complete evacuation from the refugee camps. According to the IRO, Israel was the second-largest immigration destination for refugees from the Second World War after the United States, accepting 132,109 Jewish DPs under the IRO’s auspices.93 However, because of the outbreak of the first Arab–Israeli conflict, for a few months starting from May 1948, the director-general of the IRO suspended the funds for resettlement to Israel. As a UN agency, the IRO could not assist with immigration to a belligerent country, and especially could not jeopardize the efforts of the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) that had been called to mediate the conflict. Nevertheless, the IRO suspension did not interrupt the flow of Jewish DPs into Israel, which was pursued by the Jewish Agency in collaboration with the JDC. Only in April 1949, when the UNCCP declared that the question of IRO support for emigration to Israel was not within its competence, did the IRO once more grant its assistance to Jewish DPs en route to Israel. Between the second half of 1948 and the first half of 1949 alone, it assisted around 100,000 Jewish DPs from Germany, Austria, and Italy in emigrating to Israel.94 Legal aliyah from Italy started from the hakhsharot. The Merkaz HeHalutz was in charge of selecting migrants according to the usual criteria of “political groupings” in an attempt to maintain a sort of political balance among those who were permitted to enter Israel. By August 1948, eleven hakhsharot (three in the north and eight in the south) with a capacity of 900 people had already closed; another group of installations with a capacity of 400 to 600 had been dismantled by September 1948. By March 1949, only twenty-nine hakhsharot were still active (six of them set up after 1947), with a total population of 2,577.95 Between January and December 1949, the number of Jewish DPs in Italy decreased from 4,183 to 1,254.96 After 1948: Remnants and new arrivals Hard-core cases

During summer 1948, the rate of emigration to Israel was between 1,800 and 2,000 ‘olim per month. Indeed, even after 1948, Italy continued to serve as the main embarkation point for Israel for groups of DPs arriving from both

Confronting the past while building the future  157 Austria and Germany with the IRO’s support. To illustrate the magnitude of this migration, the JDC records reveal that between April and September 1949 alone, more than 21,133 Jewish DPs migrated to Israel from Italy, only 774 of whom originated from Italian assembly centres.97 While the mass migration from the DP camps proceeded at full capacity, at the end of 1949, the JDC mission in Italy was greatly concerned to report 478 “hard-core cases” and their 150 dependents, of a remaining Jewish DP population of around 1,250. This category included refugees who, mainly due to their advanced age or poor health, had very little chance of being admitted to resettlement programmes. As they did not represent a potential workforce, but rather a burden for the state that would welcome them, the hard-core DPs were cut off from the rare emigration quotas opened by overseas countries. Therefore, they were destined to remain in need of constant assistance. Hard-core cases among the Jewish DPs in Italy were mainly tuberculosis (TB) patients or patients undergoing post-TB rehabilitation (299), elderly people (55), elderly people with pathologies (45), people who were chronically ill (55), and psychiatric cases (24).98 Thanks to the JDC, most of them received the necessary care in specialized facilities: the elderly were accommodated in retirement homes in the main Jewish communities, which were improved with support from the JDC and the Central British Fund; psychiatric cases were mainly hospitalized in Italian hospitals, while the numerous patients suffering from TB were housed in the TB sanatorium in Merano (Bolzano) that opened in 1946 and the TB rehabilitation centre in G ­ rottaferrata (Rome), which were presumably inaugurated by the JDC in 1950 in order to allow those who had not fully recovered from TB to complete their rehabilitation cycle and only definitively closed in 1957. Among the hard-core Jewish DPs in Italy after 1948 was a German Jew, who – in order to escape persecution – reached Italy in 1939. As a foreign Jew, he was interned in the Fascist concentration camps of Civitella del Tronto and Campagna until liberation in 1944. From his IRO application, we know that he moved from DP camp to DP camp in Puglia until 1950, when he requested international assistance for resettlement in the United States, where one of his nephews lived. As a stateless and formerly persecuted person, he was declared eligible for IRO assistance with resettlement, care, and maintenance and for political and legal protection. However, when he was diagnosed with serious health issues, his application to the United States was rejected. The JDC took charge of the seventy-two-year-old DP and permanently moved him from the Sant’Antonio refugee camp to the retirement home supported by the Florentine Jewish community.99 The impact of health issues on resettlement opportunities for this small group of Jewish DPs hindered their chances of autonomously rebuilding their lives. Even when Israel became open to legal emigration, hard-core cases were excluded as the newborn state had neither the economic resources nor suitable infrastructures to take care of aged and chronically ill people. Likewise,

158  Confronting the past while building the future any prospect of admission to other emigration quotas was e­ specially limited for TB patients, who had to prove their complete recovery and guarantee that they would not relapse. One exception was the specific resettlement programme launched by the Swedish government to welcome thirty patients from Merano to specialized sanatoria in Sweden, where they would be helped to settle in the country after making a complete recovery. In 1949, the selection of candidates for emigration to Israel from TB rehabilitation centres followed two main criteria. From the medical point of view, Israel only admitted patients who could prove eighteen months of remission. According to the “social criteria,” candidate migrants were declared eligible once they had satisfactorily completed a full course of educational and vocational training. Indeed, it was important to show that “they [had] changed from invalidism to a healthy physical and mental attitude toward normal living.”100 Therefore, the JDC intensified its vocational training, Hebrew language courses, classes on general aspects of socio-cultural life and conditions in Israel, and individual discussions with welfare workers and organized committees consisting of JDC TB specialists, social workers, and directors of the vocational schools or rehabilitation centres in Italy in charge of selecting eligible emigrants.101 Moreover, the JDC and the ORT launched a vocational programme for TB patients in Merano and Grottaferrata. It was estimated that fifty-three patients in Merano and eighty-three in Grottaferrata were receiving training to obtain diplomas in order to become radio technicians, leather-workers, electricians, dressmakers, shoemakers, poultry farmers, dental technicians, and watchmakers. The ORT reported that the programme “raised great hopes in the life of these exceptionally unhappy Jewish DPs,” especially when the Israeli government declared that it would accept twenty-five hard-core cases each month who had successfully completed a vocational training course.102 Despite the efforts of the Jewish voluntary organizations, the difficulty of obtaining a certificate of good health and completing a vocational programme created tensions among the hard-core cases. In March 1950, the Patients’ Committee in the Grottaferrata rehabilitation centre made a statement to the JDC, asking them for help to migrate to Israel and explaining the limits of the international refugee regime: We are well aware that the problem of [chronic illness] in a modern state is no longer an individual problem for the unfortunate person, but a social problem. […] We do not ask for relief anymore, or for any kind of protected existence; we only ask for an immediate occupation. There are periods in history that demand sacrifice from generations, and we do understand this, but what for others means only hardship for us may result in life-long invalidity.103 In 1952, however, the TB rehabilitation centre in Grottaferrata was still accommodating sixty people. Some of the hard-core cases found a way out of

Confronting the past while building the future  159 Italy as part of the MALBEN programme, which was established by the JDC and the Jewish Agency in order to assist Israel in receiving and caring for the hard-core cases in the DP camps, comprising elderly, sick, disabled survivors, and TB patients who were entirely dependent on assistance.104 Libyan Jews

Another matter of concern for the JDC after 1948 was an unexpected flow of Jews being smuggled into the refugee camps in Italy from North Africa, especially from the former Italian colony of Libya. Between the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 and September 1949, the JDC estimated that almost 8,000 Jews entered Italy illegally from the southern shores of the Mediterrenean in order to apply for refugee status and to obtain international assistance to resettle in Israel.105 This clandestine movement from the northern shores of the Mediterranean, which forced the JDC to modify its plan to gradually shut down its refugee programmes, had much earlier origins. In 1943, after the British occupation of Libya, Italian colonial aspirations began to wane while nationalist forces gained ground, challenging the existence of the Jewish minority in the country. In this situation, the presence of the Jewish soldiers from ­Palestine in the British army in 1942 and 1943 played a crucial role in rescuing the Jews from conditions of extreme hardship and in mediating the reopening of community institutions following years of discrimination and persecution under Italian Fascist rule.106 When the Jewish soldiers started to move to Europe, the shlichim continued their task, encouraging Libyan Jews towards aliyah. This recovery process, which was extremely difficult for the Jewish community, especially in Tripoli, was hindered by the anti-Jewish riots of November 1945. The discounted rumours, the late intervention of the British authorities, and the widespread distribution of violence resulted in 130 deaths, thirty widows, ninety orphans, hundreds of casualties, and thousands of people in need of help. Historians have suggested framing this violence in a changing political context starting from 1943, when some panIslamic and nationalist groups began to leverage popular unrest and religious sentiment in order to gain support.107 While at the beginning of their mission, the emissaries registered very few candidates for aliyah, the 1945 riots marked a turning point. The Mossad ­Le-Aliyah Bet sent an emissary, Israel Gur, who devoted his mission in Libya to training self-defence groups and smuggling small groups of Libyan Jews into the refugee camps of Italy and France, where the Jewish organizations were able to assist them to make aliyah. When a second wave of riots broke out in June 1948, the self-defence techniques learned from Gur and – on this occasion – the prompt intervention of the British authorities limited the damage to the Jewish community. However, years of discrimination and violence, the emergence of Arab nationalism, and an unsuccessful attempt to be recognized as a minority in the turbulent progression towards Libyan

160  Confronting the past while building the future independence left the Jews facing a choice: to stay in the country or to leave. In 1948, there were 32,670 Jews in Libya, some 30,400 of whom (nearly 90%) made aliyah over the next three years.108 The JDC, which until that time had concentrated its efforts on the reconstruction of the Jewish community, established an office in North Africa and started a specialized relief and rehabilitation programme. At the end of 1948, concern for the Libyan Jews’ situation also affected the JDC mission in Italy. In November, it reported the presence of 350 infiltrees from Libya, and their number doubled in the following month.109 Ben Segal of the Central British Fund investigated the Tripolitan Jews’ situation, reporting that “the solution must be found in a large-scale emigration” that should begin with the children.110 In fact, at that time, the JDC reported that 100 Jewish children had arrived from Tripoli, describing them as “healthy and happy, all anxious to go to [Israel],” and foresaw the imminent arrival of another group of about 100 minors. In this regard, James Rice from the JDC in Geneva reported to Moses W. Beckelman (vice-president of the European headquarters of the JDC based in Paris) that he had spoken with Mrs Lane and Miss Dickinson of the IRO, who reassured him about Libyan Jews’ eligibility for international assistance. Rice reported this hilarious but comforting conversation: Just how the children had arrived from Tripoli, Mrs. Lane was unable to say. Miss Dickinson had implied that perhaps they had walked across the water. I told Mrs. Lane that since these children were Jewish children, it was more likely that the waters of the Mediterranean had parted in the Biblical tradition of the Red Sea episode. Mrs. Lane stated that she was sure IRO would take responsibility for these children as well as for a second group of one hundred if they should turn up mysteriously in Italy. She said Miss Dickinson was most sympathetic to Israel movement […]. Mrs. Lane said further that we should not worry about any technical decision on eligibility by IRO Geneva. She was sure that in Italy they would find a way to get around any unfavourable decision. In other words: “eligibility-shmeligibility.”111 In his oral testimony, Haim Fedlon, a Tripolitan Jew who had been trained by Gur, gave a detailed account of his involvement in the organization of illegal aliyah from Libya in his early twenties.112 Fedlon revealed that during a business trip to Italy in 1947, he had met some representatives of the Jewish Agency, including David Golding, a delegate of the Aliyat Ha-No’ar, and Ada Sereni of the Mossad le-Aliyah Bet. Together, they discussed the possibility of transferring Jewish children and young people from Tripoli to Italy with the purpose of preparing them for aliyah in the hakhsharot.113 According to Fedlon, between the end of 1948 and 1949, at least 400 minors were clandestinely moved from Tripoli to Sicily (often to Syracuse and its surroundings), whence they were sorted into the refugee camps and

Confronting the past while building the future  161 ­ akhsharot on the p h ­ eninsula. From late 1948, it was not only children were being smuggled into Italy, and the number of Libyan Jews in the country grew considerably.114 Jews arriving from Libya in the last quarter of 1948 were absorbed into the hakhsharot, but as the arrivals increased, the Merkaz He-Halutz began to push the JDC to grant its assistance to the newcomers as well. At the end of 1948, the two organizations reached an agreement to manage this emergency: the Merkaz He-Halutz would continue to autonomously manage “all the normal DP population” (i.e., all European Jewish DPs) distributed among six hakhsharot, while the remaining six hakhsharot in the Rome area would host the Libyan Jews and would be administered by the Merkaz He-Halutz under the supervision of the JDC. Finally, Libyan Jewish minors would be accommodated in two children’s homes, the only ones still active in Italy.115 In its handling of the flow of Libyan Jews into the Italian refugee camps, the JDC was confronted with two questions. The first concerned their health: many Libyan Jews were suffering from TB, trachoma, and other contagious diseases. Their precarious health represented a danger of infection to the refugee camp population as well as the main reason why Libyan Jews were declared ineligible for emigration. The second problem was the IRO policy according to which Libyan Jews could not be considered “refugees,” despite the initial reassurance that the Geneva branch of the IRO had given to the JDC. To solve the first problem, the JDC and the OSE (Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants) organized a specialized preventive and care programme in Libya which also aimed to speed up the process of direct migration to Israel.116 Despite the fact that the new emissaries who had moved from Italy to Libya – Baruch Duvdevani and Max Varadi – were working to organize direct emigration to Israel, Italy remained one of the more popular channels for those making aliyah from Tripoli. Hence, in late summer 1949, the JDC was forced to change its strategy. Rather than sorting the arrivals from Tripoli into hakhsharot, it divided them into two groups: those who needed further medical care were transferred to the transit camps in Marseille, while those healthy enough to make aliyah were housed in a single transit camp near Naples, in Resina (today Ercolano). Between July and September 1949, 3,052 North African Jews (mostly Libyans) passed through Italy, 2,393 of whom had emigrated to Israel and 659 of whom had been transferred to Marseille. In contrast, in the same quarter, about 200 people remained in Resina, mostly family members of TB patients undergoing treatment in JDC facilities, who were guaranteed assistance for the entire duration of their hospitalization by the American Jewish organization.117 During its brief existence (September to November 1949), the dreadful conditions in the Resina camp were reported to the JDC by an American Jewish woman who had visited the camp and defined it “inconceivably atrocious.”

162  Confronting the past while building the future […] No concentration camp in Germany could have been worse, nor as far as any documentary films that I have seen, was any worse! The place was a factory – no heat – today was cold and rainy – children r­ unning around in bare feet, in rags – no warm clothing for old or young – they aren’t given any – no soap or dentifrice has been given to them – a seven or eight year old boy is lying there paralyzed in the camp – each person is supposed to receive 300 lire a day for food. Many don’t receive it. They eat off the cement floor between rows of broken down doubledecker beds covered with dirty mattresses – no bed linen of any kind – torn old blankets. No organized activity of any kind. There was no one in authority around when we were there.118 The JDC explained that the Resina camp – which was run by the Merkaz ­He-Halutz – had been the only available place at the time to respond to the emergency. Furthermore, the JDC stressed that Resina was in a modest condition when compared to the standards of the other refugee camps, attributing part of what the woman had seen to “North African habits.”119 Fortunately, at the end of November 1949, the Italian government requisitioned a former hospital in Brindisi to house North African Jews in transit and the JDC funded the transfer of refugees from the Resina transit camp, which was definitively closed. The new Brindisi transit camp, which had a population of 961 on 20 December 1949, was also administered by the Merkaz ­He-Halutz, and up to that month, it had registered the passage of more than 3,000 North African Jewish refugees (Libyans and Egyptians), who had already been partially transferred to Marseille or emigrated to Israel.120 Meanwhile, the discussion regarding the Libyan Jews’ eligibility for IRO assistance took a different turn to what Mrs Lane had hastily anticipated to the JDC. In December 1948, the chief of the IRO mission in Italy reported an increasing number of applications submitted by Libyan Jews. “In order to determine whether or not these people [were] within the mandate of this Organization,” the IRO mission in Italy addressed a request for official information regarding the conditions of the Jews in British-occupied North Africa to the British embassy in Rome. After a preliminary screening conducted by the IRO, it was determined that Libyan Jews were reaching Italy illegally with the help of “Jewish committees” based in Italy and that the reason for leaving Africa is said in every case to be the desire to avoid Arab persecution. Some state they have lost close relatives during recent disturbances, and one man showed wounds received, he claimed, from an Arab knife. The general picture conveyed by their stories is one of sporadic Arab attacks on Jewish communities in Libya, with occasional outbursts on a larger and graver scale, and of the police forces being unable or unwilling to afford the Jews adequate protection.121

Confronting the past while building the future  163 Confronted with the IRO’s hesitation to consider Libyan Jews as refugees escaping from persecution, the JDC – despite its apolitical attitude – took a firm position and submitted a report to the IRO titled “The Plight of the Tripolitanian Jews.” The JDC highlighted that the Italian occupation, despite having “introduced civilization,” had gradually affected Jewish life through the Racial Laws. Later, with the German occupation of North Africa, “the virus of German anti-Semitic propaganda was generously and skilfully instilled among local Arabs that bore its sad and tragic fruits after the liberation,” generating the explosion of violence that took place in 1945.122 The JDC affirmed that the Libyan Jews were experiencing a direct consequence of those fatal years and that in this atmosphere of constant terror, the Libyan Jewish community had not managed to start a reconstruction programme and was still in a deplorable condition. Therefore, the JDC warned the IRO that the violent episodes, which could not be considered isolated cases, had reoccurred in June 1948, definitively compromising “the millenary cohabitation” between Muslims and the Jewish minority in the country: Without going into any political aspects which caused or aggravated the present plight of Tripolitanian Jews, it can be stated from a purely humanitarian point of view that the general position of this Community is one of complete lack of security and imminent fear of annihilation. […] The fate of Tripolitanian Jews who succeed in reaching Italy must be considered within the same framework of the assistance extended by IRO to other DPs from whom they only differ by the mere facts that they have become displaced only at a later stage but by exactly the same causes rooted in war events. Their present plight therefore is nothing but the direct outcome of antisemitic and racial propaganda in an Axis ruled territory during the war.123 The JDC statement was also supported by the Central British Fund, the Alliance Israelite Universelle, and the World Jewish Congress. Nevertheless, the IRO rejected any responsibility for Libyan Jews, and the JDC had to assume full responsibility for providing them with all the necessary support. When Libyan Jews arrived in the refugee camps in Europe, they entered a political, social, and cultural scenario in which the category of “genuine refugee” had already been shaped and the figure of the Jewish refugee had already been consolidated as that of a “victim par excellence” of a peculiar form of persecution that had already obtained historical and political recognition within the system that governed war refugees.124 This approach, which was closely linked to Eurocentric view of the Second World War and the Holocaust that characterized the refugee regime of that time, did not help the Libyan Jews to receive international recognition either as war refugees or as victims of persecution.

164  Confronting the past while building the future “Little by little people started to go …” Like Guta Goldstein mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, in the attempt to find a way to leave the refugee camps and start a new life, many Jewish DPs explored alternative emigration options to Palestine, or Israel after 1948. Along with her cousin’s family, Guta was selected for the Australia resettlement scheme, which opened in September 1947 for a quota of 4,000 people and greatly expanded in the following years.125 From 1949, the JDC referred to a “mass registration for Australia,” especially in Bari, where only 20% of the Jewish DPs were awaiting departure for Israel, while the remainder wanted “almost unanimously” to go to Australia.126 In November 1949, between sixty and 100 Jews registered for Australia, nearly all of whom were ineligible for emigration to the United States or were outside the IRO mandate.127 Thanks to the support of the Federation of Australian Jewish Welfare Societies, the number of Jewish DPs who were resettled in Australia increased considerably, such that the JDC Emigration Department reported that Australia was the main migration destination in the first half of 1949. Among the Jewish DPs living in hakhsharot in Santa Maria al Bagno who gave up on the idea of emigrating to Israel and eventually ended up in Melbourne were the Polish Holocaust survivors Isaak and Pola Hoppe with their two-year-old son Jack, who was born in Bari in July 1947. They hoped to sail for Palestine as part of the aliyah bet operation and were finally selected for departure at the end of 1946. However, when they were about to board the ship, the Hoppe family was rejected because Pola was expecting her second baby, and the trip was deemed too dangerous for a pregnant woman. At the same time, rumours regarding the ordeals of life in Palestine from Isaak’s sister, who had already moved there, further discouraged him from planning aliyah at that time.128 Similarly, Linda Penn (born Lubia Kremer) and her mother, who had been liberated by the Red army in Theresienstadt, were among the thousands of Jewish DPs who in 1947, after a long stay in the Bad Gastain DP camp (Austria), decided to sneak into Italy, crossing the Alps on foot with the sole purpose of reaching Palestine. The two women were sent to the Cremona DP camp, where they realized that leaving for Palestine/Israel would once more expose them to war and hardships: We got stuck [in Italy] until the Israeli war broke out, then it was 1948 so [definitely] you couldn’t go … we live in those camps, it was liveable, but no life because it was no life, it had had enough of it! We suffered through the war and it was already 1948 and we wanted to start a life, we wanted to have a beginning in some place, to set up roots. So we waited and waited and waited, and little by little people started to go to America. So, my mother found out the she had an older uncle [and he] had some cousins, second or third cousins of ours, and they were able to sign paper for us […] that they would be responsible for us.129

Confronting the past while building the future  165 In 1951, Linda Penn and her mother arrived in the United States and slowly started to build their new existence. The American quota desired by many Jewish DPs, however, remained very limited and was almost exclusively restricted to affidavit holders until 1948, when the US government passed the DP Act that allowed the admission of about 400,000 refugees into the country between July 1948 and December 1951. With this “revolutionary decision in US history,” a total of 306,705 DPs were resettled in the United States from Western Germany, Austria, and Italy. The act, however, included provisions that disadvantaged the Jewish DPs. First, it established December 1945 as the cut-off date for arrival in the French, American, or British zones of occupation, thus excluding more than 85% of the Jewish DPs who arrived from Russia or Poland after 1946. In June 1950, when most of the Jewish DPs had migrated en masse to Israel, it was extended to include DPs who had arrived in the refugee camps by January 1949. Moreover, the 30% of the quota reserved for agricultural workers and the 40% reserved for DPs coming from areas annexed by the Soviet Union after the war further worked against the Jews, as very few of them were farmers and the vast majority of the Jewish communities in the Baltic countries and Ukraine had been annihilated during the Holocaust.130 The JDC records show that the US DP Act had a minimal impact on Jewish DPs in Italy, even though the country served as an interim location and point of departure for thousands of Jewish DPs from Germany and Austria who were leaving for the United States. For instance, between January and December 1949, 4,932 people (2,720 of whom were transients) left for destinations other than Israel, 1,396 of whom left for the United States under the DP Act (281 were transients) and the other 269 under the regular migration quota (105 were transients).131 In some cases, national governments placed considerable emphasis on occupational skills when selecting refugees for migration quotas agreed with the IRO.132 In mid-June 1948, a commission from Canada arrived in Rome in order to select skilled furriers under labour selection schemes: in two days, they interviewed 170 candidates, and selected ninety all Jews, most of whom were ORT graduates, exceeding the original quota that the IRO had fixed at fifty. The JDC suspected that Canada was selecting migrants at an accelerated rate, fearing that the implementation of the US DP Act would lead to the United States taking the best elements from among the Jewish DPs. This was seen as a “favourable competition” that could accelerate the Jewish DPs’ evacuation from Italy.133 As early as 1946, the Canadian government initiated the “Nominated Close Relatives Scheme,” which allowed people residing in the country to nominate their relatives to the Immigration Branch for admittance. Under this scheme, around 600 Jewish orphans were brought to Canada under the auspices of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society. We can find some traces of this programme in the JDC’s correspondence, which mentions ten Jewish DP children who left Italy to be interviewed by the Canadian Consul in Paris.

166  Confronting the past while building the future However, to great disappointment, only five of them were selected, and those who were rejected came back with “the bitter knowledge that they are not well.”134 The strict selection criteria made migration to Canada extremely infrequent, especially from Italy: of a total 536 Jewish DPs resettled from Italy in 1949, only twenty-seven left directly from Italy, while the rest were transients.135 The JDC also reported Latin American countries as emigration destinations from 1946. In particular, the JDC Emigration Department reported cases of resettlement to Cuba, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. Although an analysis of JDC records shows that Latin American countries were constantly named as resettlement destinations, numerical data (ranging from isolated cases to around thirty per country) do not support the idea that there was significant Jewish migration from Italy.136 Therefore, the Jewish DPs in Italy did not exclusively opt for aliyah. The establishment of the State of Israel finally opened the doors of Eretz Israel to the Jews from the DP camps in Europe. However, at the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and the Arab countries in 1948, the DPs were faced with the dilemma of grabbing the opportunity to make aliyah towards yet another war or postponing again their departure pending a visa for another destination. In support of this, it is worth noted that, besides those who changed their mind while still in the refugee camps, the JDC documents also record another occasionally registered phenomenon: that of “the returnees.” After 1948, the JDC reported that groups of Jews who had previously migrated to Israel but had been dissatisfied with life there were arriving in Italy in the hope of obtaining international help with resettlement in other overseas countries. However, as migrants, they did not have access to refugee status and were often reported to be living in extremely impoverished conditions.137 The growing number of post-hostilities refugees who crossed the Alps in 1947 and the arrival of an unexpected flow of Jews from North Africa in 1948 complicated the precarious situation of the refugee camps in Italy. Moreover, with Italy skilfully avoiding to assume more responsibility for international refugees, the burden of taking care of the Jewish DPs weighed exclusively on the IRO and the Jewish humanitarian organizations. Indeed, for at least a decade and a half after the Second World War, Italy was confronted with an unprecedented refugee crisis, which included both foreigners and nationals displaced following the defeat of Fascism, and “repatriates” from the territories that Italy lost with Paris Peace Treaty of 1947. In this period, reflecting post-war intergovernmentalism, Italy’s management of the refugees produced a “binary regime” through which it categorized and dealt with refugees by dividing them into nationals and internationals.138 However, Italy’s constant negotiation to reduce its moral and factual commitments towards caring for the refugees should be framed also as a political choice based on its longed-for sovereignty and especially the failure to process its controversial past.

Confronting the past while building the future  167 Notes 1 Guta Goldstein, Towards the Future: A Memoir (Melbourne: Jewish Holocaust Centre, 2018), 16–17; MHM, Guta Goldstein – Survivor Testimony, Melbourne, 22.12.1992 [JHCAVA0313], 2:40:50–2:41:35. 2 MHM, Guta Goldstein [JHCAVA0313], 2:41:40–2:44:00. 3 Goldstein, Towards the Future, 81–82. 4 MHM, Guta Goldstein [JHCAVA0313], 2:44:40–2:45:55. 5 Louise W. Holborn, International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Nations. Its History and Work, 1946–1952 (Oxford: Oxford ­University Press, 1956), 47. 6 International Refugee Organization, ed., Manual for Eligibility Officers, available online: https://digital-library.arolsen-archives.org (accessed January 2023). 7 These figures included 1,037,404 displaced persons living both in and out of the camps in Germany (850,774), Austria (147,864), and Italy (38,766) not being taken care of by the military authorities and the UNRRA. Among the refugees and DPs under the IRO mandate were a small minority of pre-war refugees and a large majority of displaced persons. The former group included the so-called Nansen refugees, the Spanish Republicans, Italians who had fled the Fascist regime, and some German and Austrian refugees (mainly Jews) who had been driven into exile by the Nazi dictatorship. The second group included former forced labourers forcibly deported to Greater Germany during the war, people who had formerly been persecuted for racial, political, and religious reasons who refused to return to their former homes, and a limited number of Soviet prisoners of war. To this latter group must be added the so-called neo-refugees, referring to “those persons who preferred liberty at any price to living in a country under a Communist regime”: Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 171 and 197. 8 Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 175. 9 Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 199. 10 In Italy in particular, there were 11,262 Polish Jews, 2,513 Romanians, 1,213 Hungarians, 846 Czechoslovakians, 279 Yugoslavians, 204 Lithuanians, 196 Austrians, 118 Jews from Soviet countries, 110 Germans, sixty-eight Greeks, thirty-three Latvians, twenty-two Jews from Spain, three Jews from Switzerland, nineteen Turks, thirteen Palestinians, one Argentinian, five Jews from Belgium and Luxembourg, nine Bulgarians, one Estonian, three Jews from France, two Jews from the United States, thirty-two Jews who were stateless, and ninety-five Jews registered as “other.” See Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 199. 11 Archives Nationales Paris (hereafter ANP), PCIRO Operations, Italy. DPs and Refugees Receiving PCIRO Assistance as of 31 July 1947, AJ/43/776 Mission de l’O.I.R. en Italie. Rapports mensuels, juillet 1947–juillet 1948. 12 The La Spezia Affair has been widely analysed in international historiography: Maria Grazia Enardu, “L’aliyah beth dall’Italia, 1945–48,” in Italia Judaica. Gli ebrei nell’Italia unita 1870–1945. Atti del convegno internazionale (Siena, 12–16 giugno 1989) (Rome: Ministero Beni Culturali e Ambientali, 1993), 514–32; Enardu, “L’immigrazione illegale ebraica verso la Palestina e la politica estera italiana, 1945–48,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali 1 (1986): 147–66; Mario Toscano, “La Porta di Sion:” L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), 76–101; Arieh J.Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 238–45; Eliana Hadjisavvas, “Journey through the ‘Gate of Zion’: British ­Policy, Jewish Refugees and the La Spezia Affaire, 1946,” Social History 44, no. 4 (2019): 469–93.

168  Confronting the past while building the future 13 For an analysis of the relationship between the British, Italians, and Zionists in their handling of the La Spezia Affair, see Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 17–61. 14 According to Zertal, Arazi’s boarding of the ship pretending to be a Holocaust survivor “symbolically bridged with his own body the chasm that had opened with the Holocaust between the Zionist collective in Palestine and the Diaspora”: Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power, 35. 15 Ada Sereni, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (Milan: Mursia, 1973), 120. 16 Italics in the original. Toscano, “La porta di Sion,” 76. 17 Sereni, I clandestini, 118. 18 Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power, 27. 19 On 2 June 1946, Italy voted in favour of becoming a republic by 54.2% to 45.8%: see Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003), 99. 20 Toscano, “La porta di Sion,” 103. 21 For De Gasperi’s profile, see Piero Craveri, De Gasperi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006). On the relationship between Italy and the United Sates during De Gasperi’s cabinets, see Guido Formigoni, La Democrazia cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale (1943–1953) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996). 22 See Table 2.4. 23 Original document quoted in Toscano, “La porta di Sion,” 127–28. 24 According to Silvia Salvatici, the Italian government used these negotiations with the ACC and the UNRRA as a way to reaffirm national sovereignty and make a claim for membership of the United Nations: see Silvia Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 3 (2014): 526–28. 25 In order to regain its sovereignty, Italy had to pay $360 million war reparations and surrender its colonies in North and East Africa, the Italian Islands of the Aegean, and most of the Istrian peninsula. The other part of Istria and the province of Trieste instead formed the Free Territory of Trieste, which was divided in two zones (A and B) governed by a provisional government under the responsibility of the United Nations Security Council until 1954. The dissolution of the Free Territory of Trieste was only formalized in 1975 by the bilateral Treaty of Osimo, awarding Zone A to Italy and Zone B to Yugoslavia. Moreover, with the Paris Peace Treaty, Italy had to recognize Albanian independence and cede the villages of the Tende valley and La Brigue to France but retaining the Aosta Valley and South. For Italy and the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, see Sara Lorenzini, L’Italia e il trattato di pace del 1947 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007). 26 The complicated socio-political changes that occurred in post-war Italy cannot be properly analysed here. For an overview on the cited topics, see Ginsborg, A  History of Contemporary Italy, 98–112; Guido Formigoni, Storia d’Italia nella guerra fredda (1943–1978) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2016). 27 On Italy and the Marshall Plan, see Federico Romero, Gli Stati Uniti in Italia: Il piano Marshall e il Patto Atlantico, in Storia dell’Italia Repubblicana, vol. 1: La costruzione della democrazia. Dalla caduta del fascismo agli anni Cinquanta (Turin: Einaudi, 1994), 231–89; Francesca Fauri, Il Piano Marshall e l’Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010). 28 See Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates,” 528–31. 29 AJDC, Report, Subject: Quarterly Report, 18.8.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627, Italy, General, 1947. 30 Original document quoted in Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 162.

Confronting the past while building the future  169 31 AJDC, Research Department Report No. 35, 12.10.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 32 AJDC, Report, Subject: Quarterly Report, 18.8.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 33 AJDC, Letter from De Gasperi a Moses A. Leavitt, 16.6.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662, Italy, Refugees, 1947. 34 AJDC, Minutes Meeting of the Administration Committee of the Joint Distribution Committee, 23.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662. 35 On the refugees generated by the loss of the territories in the Istrian peninsula and decolonization, see Raul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: Le persecuzioni, le foibe, l’esilio (Milan: Rizzoli, 2005); Pamela Ballinger, The World Refugees Made: Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2020); Ballinger, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). 36 Italy became an IRO member a year later. 37 Salvatici, “Between National and International Mandates,” 529–51. 38 In particular, the JDC feared that the IRO would discontinue its assistance to the so-called out-of-camp DPs, which included not only the hakhsharot members, but also almost 5,000 Jewish DPs living in towns or cities. The IRO, however, continued to cooperate with the JDC to support this category of DPs. ANP, Division of Welfare – Report on the Operation for the Period 1 January to 15 April 1948, AJ/43/776 Mission de l’O.I.R. en Italie. Rapports mensuels, juillet 1947–juillet 1948; AJDC, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 15.1.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662, Italy, Refugees, 1947. 39 AJDC, Research Department Report No. 35, 12.10.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 40 Archivio di Stato di Lecce, Volantino Comitato di Agitazione Popolare, 15.5.1946, Prefettura Gabinetto(I versamento 1862-1957), b. 350, fasc. 4297. 41 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Lecce to AJDC Rome. Subject: Report for the Month of February 1947, 8.3.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662. 42 ANP, OJRI to Varricchione: Mixed Camps, 23.11.1947, AJ/43/1036, folder 31/5 – Réfugiés juifs en Italie, 1947–1948. 43 AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 44 AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 45 AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627; AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July– September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 46 Yehuda Bauer, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970), 294–318. 47 AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 48 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJDC Paris, Subject: Jewish DP Camp Population in Italy, 25.7.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144, Italy: Refugees 1947–1949. 49 The JDC estimated that there were 1,800 Jewish DPs in Adriatico, 800 in Rivoli, 900 in Grugliasco, 900 in Cremona, 616 in Cinecittà, 780 in Bari transit camp, and 1,500–1,600 in Palese. It also reported that in Scuola Cadorna, there were approximately 1,300 Jewish DPs, of whom only 1,026 were officially registered by the IRO. AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJDC Paris, Subject: Jewish DP Camp Population in Italy, 25.7.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144. 50 AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627.

170  Confronting the past while building the future 51 AJDC, Letter from Theodore Sznejberg to Mr. Julius Levine, Subject: I­ mpressions from My Trip to the North, 26.6.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144. 52 AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627; AJDC, Research Department Report No. 35, 12.10.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. In Tradate, around 50 kilometers north of Milan, two other camps were active north of Milan, see: Alberto Gagliardo, A cercare un posto nel mondo. Storie di sopravvissuti ebrei in transito. Tradate 1945-1948, (Milano-Udine: Mimesis Edizioni, 2021). 53 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJDC Paris, Subject: Infiltrees, 7.11.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144. 54 In late August 1947, IRO executive personnel in Rome and Geneva agreed to admit some 1,500 Jewish infiltrees who, in addition to 750 non-Jewish cases, would have filled the quota, allowing no further refugees to be admitted. AJDC, Quarterly Report, Italy Third Quarter, July–September, 1947, 1.9.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 55 AJDC, Quarterly Report October–December 1947 Chief, Northern Region, 6.1.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 56 AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to Mr. Jacob Joslow, Subject: Quarterly Report for Period, October, November, December 1947, 16.2.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 57 ACS, Prefettura di Brescia al Ministero degli Interni, 30.12.1947, Ministero dell’Interno (hereafter MI), Direzione generale pubblica sicurezza (hereafter DGPS), Divisione affari generali e riservati (hereafter DAGR), A16 – Stranieri ed ebrei stranieri (1946–1954) b. 17 Ebrei stranieri emigrati all’estero causa leggi razziali, f. 46 Brescia 1947–1948. 58 ACS, Lettera inviata in data 9 settembre corrente dal comune di Chiari al Ministero della Difesa e, per conoscenza, al Prefetto di Brescia, 9.9.1947, MI, DGPS, DAGR, A16, b. 17, f. 46; ACS, Trasferimento da Milano a Chiari del centro ebraico avente in atto sede in via Unione di Milano, 30.9.1947, MI, DGPS, DAGR, A16, b. 17, f. 46. The difficult situation in Chiari is also mentioned in Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 250. 59 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJDC Paris, Subject: News item, 14.7.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144. 60 For Fossoli, see Costantino Di Sante, Stranieri indesiderabili. Il campo di Fossoli e i “centri raccolta profughi” in Italia (1945–1970) (Verona: Ombre Corte 2011), 36–68; for Ustica, see Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 163–65. 61 AJDC, Arrests of Aliens, 14.11.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662. 62 CAHJP, Verbale del Consiglio dell’UCII del 23–24 Luglio 1946, P218 ­Collezione Sergio Minerbi, Folder 8 Fotocopie di documenti riguardanti R. Cantoni, da: Archivio dell’Unione delle Comunità Israelitiche Italiane, Delibere del Commissario, 1945–1946, Verbali del Consiglio, 1946–1952. 63 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJDC New York and AJDC Rome, Subject: Minutes of Conference of Executive Staff AJDC Italy, 12.12.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662. 64 AJDC, Letter from Levi Minzi to Mr. Jacob L. Trobe, Subject: Group of 71 Jewish Refugees from Austria, 16.6.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144; AJDC, Jacob L. Trobe to Mr. Beckelman, 17.6.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144; ACS, Questura di Milano, 21.1.1947, MI, DGPS, DAGR, A16, b. 17, f. 20 Milano 1947. 65 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to AJDC New York and AJDC Rome, Subject: Minutes of Conference of Executive Staff AJDC Italy, 12.12.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662. 66 The Italian authorities feared that the aliyah bet could serve as a means for the infiltration of Soviet elements in the Middle East. This aspect is also analysed in Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 247–55 and 267–93.

Confronting the past while building the future  171 67 Una grande manifestazione di protesta a Roma, Israel, 4.7.1946, anno XXXI, n. 43. 68 Archivio Storico dell’Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane (Historical Archives of the Union of the Italian Jewish Community, hereafter AUCEI), Irgun Zvai Leumi Beeretz Israel to On. De Gasperi, 2.11.1946, Attività dell’UCII dal 1943, b. 91A Eretz Israel e Stato Ebraico, f. 5 Eretz Israel 1945–1946, Irgun Zvai Leumi. 69 AUCEI, Irgun Zvai Leumi Beeretz Israel to On. De Gasperi, 2.11.1946, Attività dell’UCII dal 1943, b. 91A, f. 5. 70 AUCEI, Comunicato dell’Unione delle Comunità Israelitiche Italiane, Organizzazione dei Profughi in Italia, Federazione Sionistica Italiana, 4.11.1946, ­Attività dell’UCII dal 1943, b. 91A, f. 5. 71 YIVO, Brider Idn, August–September 1947, Collection 294.3 Displaced P ­ ersons Camps and Centers in Italy. Records, 1945–1949, Series 6: Organizations, Folder 348/Roll 26/358/Irgun, Propaganda Materials, 1947–1948 (accessed via YVA, RG O.300, File n. 7). Translation from Yiddish by Danielle Charak. 72 ACS, “Il terrorismo ebraico manovrato da Mosca?” Il Corriere della Nazione, 14.8.1947, MI, DGPS, DAGR, A16, b. 17, f. 26 Ebrei sospetti di terrorismo 1947. 73 Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 144. 74 Yakov Markowitzky, Niẓanei Ha-Tḥiyah: ha-merkaz la-golah ve-ha-pe’ilut, hayishuvit be-italyah 1944–1948 [Buds of Resurrection: The Center for the Diaspora and Local Activities in Italy] (Tel Aviv: Merkaz La-Golah, 1997), 44–50. 75 YIVO, Ale Tsu Der Mobilizatsye, Collection 294.3 Displaced Persons Camps and Centers in Italy. Records, 1945–1949, Series 6, Folder 348/Roll 26/347 (accessed via YVA). Translation from Yiddish by Danielle Charak. 76 See Table 2.4. 77 Upon the formation of the UNSCOP, the UN exhorted its member states to not interfere with the commission’s work and to hinder illegal immigration to ­Palestine as much as possible. At that time, Italy was not yet a UN member; for its admission to the UN in 1955, see Enrica Costa Bona e Luciano Tosi, L’Italia e la sicurezza collettiva. Dalla Società delle Nazioni alle Nazioni Unite (Perugia: Morlacchi, 2008). 78 Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 186. 79 Minute of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cited in Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 179. 80 Sereni, I clandestini, 230. 81 The history of the Exodus has been extensively analysed by Aviva Halamish, The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998). See also Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power, 52–92. 82 Sereni, I clandestini, 246–57. 83 AJDC, Statement on the Reaction of the Jewish Refugees in Italy in Connection with the Decision of the UNO on Partition of Palestine and Establishment of a Jewish State, 1.12.1947, G 45–54/4/13/17/IT.144. 84 See Table 2.4. 85 Document quoted in Toscano, “La Porta di Sion,” 278. 86 AJDC, Minutes Meeting of the Administrative Committee of the Joint Distribution Committee, 23.12.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/9/662; AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to Mr. Jacob Joslow, Subject: Quarterly Report for Period, ­October, November, December 1947, 16.2.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 87 AJDC, Quarterly Report October–December 1947 Chief, Northern Region, 6.1.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 88 AJDC, Memorandum from Esther C. Elbin to M. J. Joslow, Subject: Hachsharah Program in Italy (Excerpted from Louis Horwitz’ Letter Dated

172  Confronting the past while building the future March 14, 1949 Regarding Celia Abusch and Other Families), 25.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharot, 1945–1950. 89 AJDC, Letter from Jacob L. Trobe to AJDC Paris, 31.12.1946, G 45–54/4/13/ IT. 107, Italy: 1947. 90 AJDC, Letter from Herbert Katzki to Jacob L. Trobe, Re: American Oriented Hachsharoth, 14.2.1947, G 45–54/4/13/14/IT.107. 91 See Table 3.1 [b]. AJDC, JDC, Hachsharot Population, March 1st, 1949, 11.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656. 92 AJDC, Letter from Welfare Bureau to Mr. L. D. Horwitz, Subject: Summary of Emigration Plans of People in Hachsharoth, 11.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656. 93 Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 415–18. 94 On the absorption of the Holocaust survivors in Israel, see Hanna Yablonka, Survivors of the Holocaust: Israel after the War (New York: New York University Press, 1999). 95 Table 3.1 [a]. The JDC also pushed for the closure of the hakhsharot as they were extremely expensive to maintain; see AJDC, Memorandum from Esther C. Elbin to M. J. Joslow, Subject: Hachsharah Program in Italy (Excerpted from Louis Horwitz’ Letter Dated March 14, 1949 Regarding Celia Abusch and Other Families), 25.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656; AJDC, Letter to Mr. Herbert Katzki from the Budget and Research Department, 7.8.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656; AJDC, Letter from Welfare Bureau to Mr. L. D. ­Horwitz, 11.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656. 96 AJDC, Italian Quarterly Report January–March 1949, 21.2.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625, Italy, General, 1949; AJDC Activities in Italy, ­January– March 1949, 23.6.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625; AJDC, Q ­uarterly Report on Italian Program October–December, 1949, 1.12.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 97 AJDC, AJDC Activities in Italy, April–June, 1949, 29.8.1949, Italy, General, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625; AJDC, JDC Activities in Italy, July–September, 1949, 23.11.1949, Italy, General, 1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 98 AJDC, Quarterly Report on Italian Program October–December, 1949, 1.12.1949, Italy, General, 1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 99 Bad Arolsen Online Archives (BAOA), File 03020102 010.305 , 3.2.1.2 IRO Care and Maintenance Program: Files Originated in Italy; AJDC, Hard Core Grants for 2 Aged Persons, 4.9.1952, G 45–54/4/13/19/IT.169 Homes for the Aged 1949–1953. 100 AJDC, Criteria for Selection of Candidates from TB Rehabilitation Cantors for Emigration to Israel, 18.3.1949, G 45–54/4/27/3/P.I.142, Israel: Emigration of Post TB Patients from Rehabilitation Centre. 1949–1950, 1954. 101 AJDC, Preparation and Proposing of Candidates, 18.3.1949, G 45–54/ 4/27/3/P.I.142. 102 WOA, Three Years of ORT Activities – Report for the Period August 1946–June 1949, d05a019, 87; AJDC, Criteria for Selection of Candidates from TB Rehabilitation Cantors for Emigration to Israel, 18.3.1949, G 45–54/4/27/3/P.I.142. 103 AJDC, Letter from Patients’ Committee, Rehabilitation Center, Grottaferrata to Chief European Mission AJDC, 17.3.1950, NY AR194554/4/44/7/653, Italy, Medical: TB Facilities, Merano and Grottaferrata, 1946–1954. 104 MALBEN (an acronym formed from Mossadot Le-Tippul be-Olim Nehahalim; Institutions for the Care of Handicapped Immigrants) was established in 1949. The programme converted former British army barracks as well as other buildings into homes for the aged, hospitals, TB sanitaria, and rehabilitation centres. 105 According to the JDC, between May 1948 and the end of January 1949, when Great Britain de facto recognized the State of Israel and the British forces in

Confronting the past while building the future  173 Libya authorized direct emigration from Tripoli, 2,500 Libyan Jews made ­aliyah via Italy. AJDC, American Joint Distribution Committee Country Directors’ Conference Paris, 1.10.1952, G45–54/4/22/4/NA.58 North Africa: ­Country Directors Conference Paris 1952. In 1949, the JDC estimated that there were 1,107 Libyan Jews in Italy between January and March, 1,335 between April and June, and 2,393 North Africans between July and ­September. See AJDC, AJDC Activities in Italy, January–March 1949, 23.6.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625; AJDC, AJDC Activities in Italy, April–June 1949, 29.9.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625; AJDC, AJDC Activities in Italy, July– September 1949, 23.11.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. This topic has been more extensively analysed in Chiara Renzo, “‘Attraversarono il mare su terra asciutta’”: gli ebrei di Libia nei campi profughi in Italia e nel regime internazionale dei rifugiati (1948–1949),” Italia Contemporanea 295 (2021): 193–221 [an English version is also available: Chiara Renzo, “‘They Crossed the Sea on Dry Land’. The Jews of Libyain Italian Displaced Persons Camps and the ­International Refugee Regime in the Aftermath of the Second World War (1948– 1949),” Italia Contemporanea Yearbook 2021 (2022), 65–92]. See also Danielle Willard-Kyle, “When the Waters of the Mediterranean Parted: Jewish Libya and the Trajectory of Escape,” Sephardic Horizons 11 no. 1–2 (2021). 106 In the 1940s, there were 30,000 Jews living in the Tripolitan region and 6,000 in Cyrenaica. For the history of the Jews in Libya, see Renzo De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land: Libya, 1835–1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Maurice M. Roumani, The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2008); Harvey E. Goldberg, “Libya,” in The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, ed. Reeva Spector Simon, Michael M. Laskier, and Sara Reguer (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 431–43. On the persecutions of the Jews, see also Patrick Bernhard, “Behind the Battle Lines: Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs, Berbers, and Jews in North Africa during World War II,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 26, no. 3 (2012), 425–46; Jens Hoppe, “The Persecution of Jews in Libya between 1938 and 1945: An Italian Affair?” in The Holocaust and North Africa, ed. Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 50–75. 107 For the period of British occupation and anti-Jewish violence, see De Felice, Jews in an Arab Land, 185–233, and Roumani, The Jews of Libya, 38–67. 108 Rachel Simon, “Schlichim from Palestine in Libya,” Jewish Political Studies Review 9, no. 1/2 (1997): 33–57; Simon, “The Social, Cultural and Political Impact of Zionism in Libya,” Jewish Political Studies Review 6, nos. 3/4 (1994): 127–33; Romani, The Jews of Libya, 106–58. 109 AJDC, Letter from Louis D. Horwitz to Jacob Joslow, Subject: Report on AJDC Activities in Italy October–December 1948, 15.2.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 110 AJDC, Letter from Dr. Joseph Schwartz, 7.2.1949, G 45–54/4/23/3/LY.22, ­Tripolitania: Program Reports 1946–1954. 111 AJDC, Letter from James P. Rice to Mr. M. W. Beckelman, Subject: Project to Send Children from Tripolitania to Italy, 14.12.1948, G 45–54/4/23/4/LY.31, Tripolitania: Tripoli 1948–1949. 112 OHD, Haim Fedlon’s Interview, 1987, (187) 7, The Jews of Libya. 113 This episode is also confirmed by Roumani, The Jews of Libya, 135. 114 OHD, Haim Fedlon, 1987 (187) 7, The Jews of Libya, 1:28:38–1:29:10. 115 AJDC, Letter from Louis D. Horwitz to Jacob Joslow, Subject, 15.2.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 116 The OSE was founded in Russia in 1912, when it was known as the Society for the Health Protection of the Jewish Population. From the 1930s, it settled

174  Confronting the past while building the future in France, where it became the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (Society for ­Assistance to Children), committed to safeguarding and assisting children during the war. After the war, the OSE changed its name to the Jewish Health Organization. Between 1949 and 1952, OSE staff in Libya examined an average of 150 to 200 people per day for a total of 31,661; see Roumani, The Jews of Libya, 74–82. 117 AJDC, American Joint Distribution Committee, 23.11.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 118 AJDC, Letter form A. J. D. C., New York to A. J. D. C. Paris, Re: Camp Rosina, Naples, Italy, 22.11.1949, G 45–54/4/13/14/IT.115. 119 AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to Mr. Melvin S. Goldstein, Subject: Resina Camp, 28.12.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 120 AJDC, Excerpts from the Quarterly Report on the Italian for the Period October–­ December. 1949, 1.12.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 121 ANP, International Refugee Organization Italy to the British Embassy in Rome, 15.12.1948, AJ/43/1036, 31/5 – Réfugiés juifs en Italie, 1947–1948. 122 AJDC, The Plight of the Tripolitanian Jews, 1.12.1948, G 45–54/4/23/4/LY.31. 123 AJDC, The Plight of the Tripolitanian Jews, 1.12.1948, G 45–54/4/23/4/LY.31. 124 This was discussed in Daniel G. Cohen, “The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950,” Immigrants & Minorities 24, no. 2 (2006): 125–43. 125 In the period between 1945 and 1961, approximately 25,000 Jewish DPs emigrated to Australia. For the resettlement programmes implemented by the IRO, see Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 393–96. For the specific case of the Jewish DPs’ migration to Australia, see Suzanne D. Rutland and Sol Ence, “Three ‘Rich Uncles in America’: The Australian Immigration Project and American Jewry,” American Jewish History 95, no. 1 (2009): 79–115. 126 AJDC, Emigration Activities in Italy, 28.2.1950, NY AR194554/4/44/6/635, Italy, Emigration, 1950–1952. 127 See, for instance, AJDC, AJDC Activities in Italy, January–March 1949, 23.6.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625; AJDC, AJDC Activities in Italy, April– June, 1949, 29.8.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625; AJDC, JDC Activities in Italy, July–September, 1949, 23.11.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 128 MHM, Issak Hoppe – Survivor Testimony, 27.11.1994, [JHCAVA0575], 1:49:00–2:08:00. 129 USC Shoah Foundation VHA, Linda Penn’s Interview, Houston, 24.1.1992, Interview 55144, 12:00–14:52 (accessed January 2023). 130 The US policy towards the Jewish migration after the Holocaust “reflected the lawmakers’ desire to exclude Jews”: see Leonard Dinnerstein, Dinnerstein ­Leonard, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia ­University Press, 1982), 163–254. See also Beth B. Cohen, Case Closed: ­Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers ­University, 2007). 131 AJDC, Quarterly Report on Italian Program October–December, 1949, 1.12.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 132 The total number of refugees resettled in Canada during the IRO mandate was 123,479 (60% under the labour scheme and 40% nominated cases): see Holborn, International Refugee Organization, 396–99. For Jewish Holocaust survivors’ resettlement in Canada, see Adara Goldberg, Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947–1955 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2015); Antoine Bugard, “Visualising Holocaust ChildSurvivors in Canada: From Post-War Humanitarian Campaigns to National Memory,” Cultural and Social History 17, no. 5 (2020): 731–54. 133 AJDC, Emigration Division, Rome – Quarterly Report, April–June 1948, NY AR194554/4/44/2/627.

Confronting the past while building the future  175 134 AJDC, Letter from Celia Hoffman to Mr. L. D. Horwitz, Re: Minor Orphan Activity Period; Oct. 15–Jan. 15, 1.1.1948 NY AR194554/4/44/2/627. 135 AJDC, Quarterly Report on Italian Program October–December, 1949, 1.12.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/2/625. 136 See, for instance, AJDC, Emigration – Monthly Report, July 1946, 17.7.1946, NY AR194554/4/44/2/629, Italy, General, 1946; AJDC, JDC Activities in Italy, July– September, 1948, 13.12.1948, NY AR194554/4/44/2/626, Italy, General, 1948. 137 For instance, a JDC report from 1952 reported about 134 returnees in Italy. AJDC, Letter from AJDC Rome to Miss Dorothy Speiser, Re: Group of Israel Returnees in Rome, 4.9.1952, NY AR194554/4/44/9/668, Italy, Refugees: Returnees from Israel, 1949–1950, 1952; AJDC, Letter from AJJDC New York to Mr. Milton Steinberg, Re: Group of Israel Returnees in Rome, 29.8.1952, NY AR194554/4/44/9/668. 138 Leading historians such as Pamela Ballinger and Silvia Salvatici have demonstrated that “Italy’s rebirth after World War II was deeply entangled with the genesis of the postwar international refugee regime.” Salvatici, “Between National ­ orders and International Mandates”; Pamela Ballinger, “Borders of the Nation, B of Citizenship: Italian Repatriation and the Redefinition of National Identity after World War II,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49, no. 3 (2007): 713–41; Ballinger, “Entangled Histories Or ‘Extruded’ Histories? Displacement, Refugees, and Repatriation after World War II,” Journal of Refugee Studies 25, no. 3 (2012): 366–86; Ballinger, The World Refugees Made.

Bibliography Ballinger Pamela, “Entangled Histories or ‘Extruded’ Histories? Displacement, ­Refugees, and Repatriation after World War II,” Journal of Refugee Studies 25, no. 3 (2012): 366–86, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fes022. Ballinger Pamela, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), https://doi. org/10.1515/9780691187273. Ballinger Pamela, The World Refugees Made: Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2020).Bauer Yehuda, Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970) Bugard Antoine, “Visualising Holocaust Child-Survivors in Canada: From Post-War Humanitarian Campaigns to National Memory,” Cultural and Social History 17, no. 5 (2020): 731–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2019.1658698. Cohen Beth B., Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America (New ­Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, 2007). Cohen Daniel G., “The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950,” Immigrants & Minorities 24, no. 2 (2006): 125–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/02619280600863572. Costa Bona Enrica e Tosi Luciano, L’Italia e la sicurezza collettiva. Dalla Società delle Nazioni alle Nazioni Unite (Perugia: Morlacchi, 2008). Craveri Piero, De Gasperi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006). Dinnerstein Leonard, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), https://doi.org/10.7312/dinn90230. Di Sante Costantino, Stranieri indesiderabili. Il campo di Fossoli e i “centri raccolta profughi” in Italia (1945–1970) (Verona: Ombre Corte 2011). De Felice Renzo, Jews in an Arab Land: Libya, 1835–1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985).

176  Confronting the past while building the future Enardu Maria Grazia, “L’aliyah beth dall’Italia, 1945–48,” in Italia Judaica. Gli ebrei nell’Italia unita 1870–1945. Atti del convegno internazionale (Siena, 12–16 giugno 1989) (Rome: Ministero Beni Culturali e ambientali, 1993), 514–32. Enardu Maria Grazia, “L’immigrazione illegale ebraica verso la Palestina e la politica estera italiana, 1945–48,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali 1 (1986): 147–66. Formigoni Guido, La Democrazia cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale (1943–1953) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996), 117–52. Formigoni Guido, Storia d’Italia nella guerra fredda (1943–1978) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2016). Francesca Fauri, Il Piano Marshall e l’Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010). Gagliardo Alberto, A cercare un posto nel mondo. Storie di sopravvissuti ebrei in transito. Tradate 1945-1948, (Milano-Udine: Mimesis Edizioni, 2021). Ginsborg Paul, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (London: Penguin, 1990). Goldberg Adara, Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947–1955 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2015). Goldberg Harvey E., “Libya,” in The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, ed. Reeva Spector Simon, Michael M. Laskier, and Sara Reguer (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 431–43. Goldstein Guta, Towards the Future: A Memoir (Melbourne: Jewish Holocaust ­Centre, 2018). Hadjisavvas Eliana, “Journey through the ‘Gate of Zion’: British Policy, Jewish Refugees and the La Spezia Affaire, 1946,” Social History 44, no. 4 (2019): 469–93, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2019.1655892. Halamish Aviva, The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998). Holborn Louise W., International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Nations. Its History and Work, 1946–1952 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956). Hoppe Jens, “The Persecution of Jews in Libya between 1938 and 1945: An Italian Affair?,” in The Holocaust and North Africa, ed. Boum Aomar and Abrevaya Stein Sarah (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 50–75. Kochavi Arieh J., Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and the Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Markowitzky Yakov, Niẓanei Ha-Tḥiyah: ha-merkaz la-golah ve-ha-pe’ilut, ­ha-yishuvit be-italyah 1944–1948 Buds of Resurrection: The Center for the Diaspora and Local Activities in Italy (Tel Aviv: Merkaz La-Golah, 1997). Pamela Ballinger, “Borders of the Nation, Borders of Citizenship: Italian Repatriation and the Redefinition of National Identity after World War II,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49, no. 3 (2007): 713–41, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0010417507000680. Pupo Raul, Il lungo esodo. Istria: Le persecuzioni, le foibe, l’esilio (Milan: Rizzoli, 2005). Renzo Chiara, “Attraversarono il mare su terra asciutta”: gli ebrei di Libia nei campi profughi in Italia e nel regime internazionale dei rifugiati (1948–1949),” Italia Contemporanea 295 (2021): 193–221, https://doi.org/10.3280/ic295-oa1. Renzo Chiara, “‘They Crossed the Sea on Dry Land’. The Jews of Libyain Italian Displaced Persons Camps and the International Refugee Regime in the Aftermath of the Second World War (1948–1949),” Italia Contemporanea Yearbook 2021 (2022), 65–92, https://doi.org/10.3280/icYearbook2021-oa004.

Confronting the past while building the future  177 Romero Federico, Gli Stati Uniti in Italia: Il piano Marshall e il Patto Atlantico, in Storia dell’Italia Repubblicana, vol. 1: La costruzione della democrazia. Dalla caduta del fascismo agli anni Cinquanta (Turin: Einaudi, 1994). Roumani Maurice M, The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2008). Rutland Suzanne D. and Ence Sol, “Three ‘Rich Uncles in America’: The Australian Immigration Project and American Jewry,” American Jewish History 95, no. 1 (2009): 79–115. Salvatici Silvia, “Between National and International Mandates: Displaced Persons and Refugees in Postwar Italy,” Journal of Contemporary History 49, no. 3 (2014): 514–536, https://doi.org/0.1177/0022009414528262. Sereni Ada, I clandestini del mare. L’emigrazione ebraica in terra d’Israele dal 1945 al 1948 (Milan: Mursia, 1973). Simon Rachel, “Schlichim from Palestine in Libya,” Jewish Political Studies Review 9, no. 1/2 (1997): 33–57. Simon Rachel, “The Social, Cultural and Political Impact of Zionism in Libya,” ­Jewish Political Studies Review 6, no. 3/4 (1994): 127–33. Toscano Mario, “La Porta di Sion:” L’Italia e l’immigrazione clandestina ebraica in Palestina, 1945–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). Yablonka Hanna, Survivors of the Holocaust: Israel after the War (New York: New York University Press, 1999). Willard-Kyle Danielle, “When the Waters of the Mediterranean Parted: Jewish Libya and the Trajectory of Escape,” Sephardic Horizons 11, no. 1–2 (2021). Zertal Idith, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), https://doi. org/10.1525/9780520921719.

Conclusions

In September 1946, the American psychologist David Boder, who was travelling through Europe to record what today represents the earliest ­ attempt to collect oral testimonies from Holocaust survivors, arrived in Tradate displaced person (DP) camp (near Milan) in order to interview young people who were living in a hakhsharah.1 Among them was twentyyear-old Esther Krueger from Kielce, Poland. Their half-hour conversation mainly revolved around her wartime experience in forced labour camps producing munitions in Poland and the fate of her extended family, who did not survive deportation. At the end of the recording, Esther seemed disappointed by the fact that she had given such a brief account of her painful experiences. She concluded her meeting with Boder with what sounds like a promise to herself and to the people who had experienced the same sufferings: “In the future, we will describe all that, and write long books about our experiences.”2 Since the establishment of the Jewish historical commissions in the DP camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy, countless memoirs have been published, dozens of testimony projects have been released, and archives are continuously collecting new documents on the Holocaust, offering scholars from different disciplines the chance to study the Jews’ experiences from a multitude of perspectives.3 There is also a wealth of documentation produced by post-Holocaust rescuers: national governments, military bodies, humanitarian organizations, Zionist institutions, and individuals. This great variety of sources allow us to construct a detailed portrait of the history of the Jews in the refugee camps. In contrast, Holocaust survivors’ accounts of post-war displacement are often limited to the last few minutes of their testimonies or a few pages of their memoirs. Focusing on wartime, they situate their personal experience of post-war displacement on the margins of their personal narratives. Different factors have contributed to this marginalization. It primarily revolves around the development of the Jewish DPs’ representation as a collective entity, which cast a shadow upon the heterogenous backgrounds and ­identities of the Jewish population in the refugee camps. DOI: 10.4324/9781003272281-6

Conclusions  179 In the immediate post-war period, the Jewish DPs’ leadership and central committees in Germany, Austria, and Italy placed the Holocaust and Z ­ ionism at the core of urgent questions of identity and belonging. This shaped J­ ewish DPs’ understanding of themselves as Holocaust survivors rather than as migrants and refugees. Therefore, this focus on survival as a common experience of European Jews encompassed their radically differentiated war experiences. Survivors of concentration camps as well as those who survived in hiding or exile at the edges of Europe or even far beyond it, came under the umbrella of “the saved remnants,” the She’erit Ha-Pleitah. Survival, moreover, was given a Zionist interpretation. With its second meaning of “the ­surviving remnants,” the term “She’erit Ha-Pleitah” attributed to survivors the historical responsibility for the final rejection of the diaspora in favour of the Zionist national project. Aliyah was described in redemptive terms in all the public discourses of the Committee of Liberated Jews in the British sector of Germany, the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Bavaria in the US sector, the International Committee for Jewish Concentration Camp Inmates and Refugees in Transit in Vienna and the Jewish Central Committee in Linz, and the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy. During his opening speech at the first OJRI conference, Leib Garfunkel explicitly linked the struggle for survival to migration to Palestine and the creation of the Jewish state: With holy thoughts of redemption by means and within Palestine, we lived in the ghettos, concentration camps, and forests. Beyond the high fences of barbed wire, bearing the medieval yellow sign, in hunger and cold, enduring pain and foreseeing our terrible deaths at every moment, we prayed for the grand vision of our redemption and a free Jewish land. This vision has augmented our force and pride to lift the banner of revolt against our hangmen and has urged our youth to start their fight as partisans in the forests. Now, having escaped from the murderers’ hands, Palestine has become the only goal of our whole future life, and to her are connected all our further hopes and endeavours.4 The Jewish DPs’ political narrative constituted the first factor in the construction of the monolithic representation of them as Holocaust survivors en route to Palestine, especially for those who spent that transitional time in Italy. From the perimeters of the refugee camps, this collective image of the Jewish DPs as survivors and its direct connection to Palestine were internationally cemented by the Harrison Report in August 1945. Earl Harrison described the Jews who were still “behind barbed-wire fences” as “the first and worst victims of Nazism” and linked the problem of the Jewish DPs in Europe to a territorial solution in Palestine, which was later also recommended by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. The passage from military to civilian administration of the refugee crisis and the subsequent intervention of the UN refugee agencies undeniably

180 Conclusions crystallized this view of the Jewish DPs. In the politicized environment of the refugee camps, the Jewish DPs progressively found recognition as a distinct national group, as explained by Daniel Cohen: Holocaust survivors, constructed as a displaced and migrant population, have been forcefully recognized as a community of victims deserving of material and symbolic entitlements. Recognition was first a matter of status: Jewish DPs in Germany were eventually framed, even if for a short period, as “ideal-types” of asylum seekers in international refugee policies. Recognition was also historical: […] contrary to postwar national environments in which, especially in western and eastern Europe, survivors were diluted into the abstract family of “victims of fascism,” Jewish refugees were acknowledged as paradigmatic victims entitled to specific migratory and “resettlement” claims. Finally, recognition was political: it was as displaced refugees that Jews were ultimately “nationalised” as a people entitled to self-determination.5 The post-war refugee system sponsored by the UNRRA and the IRO, which experimented with involving the refugees in the management of the camps, introduced another factor that standardized this representation of the ­Jewish DPs. As we have seen, the Jewish DPs self-government took the forms of committees and collective models of living, both of which were primarily organized along political lines and coordinated by centralized bodies (such as the Merkaz He-Halutz or the OJRI). This centralized organization (and in some cases subordination), which downplayed the diversity of the Jewish DP population, emphasized their univocal collective identity as Holocaust survivors who were all seeking to be resettled in Palestine that was promoted by their political leaders. Besides emerging as a nationalizing environment, the refugee camps were notable for their patronizing character, which becomes especially apparent from observing the relationship between the Jewish DPs and the humanitarian organizations and that between the Jewish DPs and the Yishuv representatives. On the one hand, the refugee agencies and humanitarian organizations tended to look at refugees as recipients of their policies, apathetic and in need of re-education in order to assume a role in society. On the other, the Jewish DPs’ agency in the refugee camps was simultaneously minimized by the Zionist narrative of nationhood. Even if Jewish DPs were claimed as nationals by the Zionists in the struggle for the creation of the Jewish state, they were perceived as passive, inclined to idleness, and demanding with no sense of citizenship. The Yishuv’s attitude posed a challenge to the Holocaust survivors’ integration in Palestine (and later in Israel). As pointed out by Hanna Yablonka: In the meeting between the soldiers of the Jewish Brigade and the Holocaust survivors the most commonly expressed feeling was one of

Conclusions  181 brotherhood. This changed, however, on the arrival of the survivors in Palestine and the words most often used to describe these immigrants were now “human dust,” “refugees,” “elements,” “rejects,” “human matter.” These words, which all express a sense of alienation, of collective difference, deny any feeling of individuality and are firmly based in a patronizing point of view.6 In the eyes of the Yishuv and its emissaries in Europe, Holocaust survivors in refugee camps had to be trained to become “good pioneering material” for the political and military struggles in the establishment of the Jewish state. With this premise, it is not surprising that in early Israeli historiography and public memory, the Jewish DPs’ endeavour to rebuild their existence while still displaced in Europe was delegitimized by the emergence of the Jewish ghetto fighters and partisans as iconic figures of the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust and by the heroic enterprises of the Jewish soldiers and the Haganah to rescue and bring the hopeless survivors of the diaspora to Palestine. At the core of what has been defined by Idith Zertal as “the powerful and colourful Zionist rhetoric of rescue and redemption” stood the epic of the aliyah bet rather than the resilience of the Jewish DPs in the refugee camps. The Holocaust survivors absorbed in Palestine/Israel internalized this feeling of alienation and exclusion, which contributed to the removal of the “DP moment” from mainstream historical and public discourse.7 The end of the Cold War is recognized as the turning point that sparked a shift in the study of post-war displacement. Since then, scholarship on the topic has started to position the analysis of the refugee crisis in the broader context of European history after 1945, changing our understanding of migration, humanitarianism, democracy, and nationalism. Thanks to increased access to archival collections, historians began to investigate the most controversial issues of the war and its aftermath, adopting “‘alternative’ historiographical frameworks – such as those of international, transnational and global history.”8 In this revitalized historiographical landscape, the case of the Jewish DPs has probably received the most attention as a result of the parallel explosive development of Holocaust studies. However, in this atmosphere of historiographical renovation, while studies of the ­Jewish DPs’ experiences in Germany have evolved along multiple disciplinary and methodological perspectives, the historical analysis of their transit in Italy has long struggled to overcome the interpretative barrier of Italy being a waystation to Palestine. Only recently have historians started to explore the social, cultural, and political aspects of the Jewish DPs’ time in Italy, decentralizing the focus of their investigation from the enterprise of the aliyah bet to life in refugee camps and hakhsharot. Important inputs in this direction came also from the bottom up, from former DPs and their families, and from local associations that tried to encourage institutions to take an interest in preserving the memory of specific transit sites for the Jewish DPs. This was the case for the rediscovery of the Fascist

182 Conclusions Sciesopoli boarding school in Selvino, which served as a ­hakhsharah for ­children. In 1983, a visit from a group of around sixty former DP children from Kibbutz Tze’elim in Israel and other overseas countries drew attention to Sciesopoli, whose postwar history is currently displayed in the Sciesopoli Jewish Children’s Home Memorial Museum (MuMeSE: Museo Memoriale di Sciesopoli Ebraica Casa dei Bambini di Selvino), established in 2019. Similarly, in Santa Maria al Bagno, a group of locals established the Association for the Safeguarding of Jewish Graffiti (Associazione pro-murales ebraici) at the end of the 1980s, which prompted the related municipality of Nardò to preserve three pieces of graffiti attributed to the Betar activist and Romanian Jewish DP Zvi Miller. It took a long time for the graffiti to be restored, and the Museum of Memory and Welcoming (Museo della Memoria e dell’Accoglienza) was inaugurated in Santa Maria al Bagno in 2009. The fact that four years previously the municipality of Nardò had been awarded the gold medal for civil merit by the then President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was probably decisive. Not surprisingly, the justifications behind this recognition reflects the narrative of the Italian goodwill towards the Jews: In the years between 1943 and 1947, the Municipality of Nardò, in order to provide the necessary assistance to Jews who had been freed from the extermination camps on their way to the nascent State of Israel, created a centre of exemplary efficiency. The whole population, in the wake of religious and cultural tolerance, collaborated to alleviating the exiles’ suffering, and, by offering structures to allow them to freely profess their religion, gave proof of the highest sentiments of human solidarity and elected civic virtues.9 The second generation also played a major role in arousing public interest in their parents’ post-Holocaust experiences in Italy. The 2015 film Shores of Light: Salento 1945–1947 (directed by Yael Katzir), which traces the stories of three women born to Jewish DP parents in post-war Italy, has been streamed on countless occasions ranging from commemorative and educational events to film festivals. In this film, the three protagonists, Shuni ­Lifshiz, Rivka Cohen, and Esther Herzog, travelling in Puglia in the footsteps of their parents almost seventy years earlier, discover “what kind of reality [they were] born into.” The three women were born in the hospital of Santa Maria di Leuca to newlywed Jewish DP couples in that transitional time between the Holocaust and the long wait for the chance to resettle in Palestine. They described their parents’ stay in Puglia in terms of rebirth: their marriages, the arrival of their first children, their involvement in the collective life of the camp, and the friendship and solidarity of the locals. In recent years, also exhibitions have contributed to bringing knowledge of this chapter of history to the general public. In 2016, the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv inaugurated an exhibition entitled “In Response to an Italian Captain: Aliyah Bet from Italy, 1945–1948,” which was the first-ever

Conclusions  183 assembly of an incredible collection of rare documents, photographs, films, propaganda leaflets and posters, testimonies, and artefacts that shed light on the daily lives of the Jewish DPs and the atmosphere of political ferment and cultural renaissance that animated the refugee camps in Italy. It portrayed the Jewish DPs’ transit through Italy as a complex time of suffering and hope for the future, where the aliyah bet took centre stage. When the exhibition was launched on the museum’s website, the aliyah bet was described as a joint enterprise “made possible by the immigrants’ perseverance, effective organization, and the persuasiveness of Ada Sereni vis-à-vis the ­Italian ­establishment,” once again highlighting the generosity and help of the ­Italians as crucial in this event10 The exhibition at the Eretz Israel Museum was reproduced in Italy: first at the Shoah Memorial in Milan and the Shoah Museum in Rome and later in two crucial transit sites for the ­Jewish DPs: Terminal 1 in La Spezia and the Jewish Museum in Lecce. Readapted for the specific spaces and places that hosted it, this itinerant exhibition brings the history of the Jewish DPs and the aliyah bet closer to local and national ­history, emphasizing “the role of Italy as a refuge and Gateway to Zion.” Finally, among these efforts to tell about and remember the transit of the Jewish DPs in post-war Italy, it is worth to mention the recent film Promised Land (original title Terra Promessa, 2020), directed by the late Daniele Tommaso. It revolves around the events of the aliyah bet, but thanks to the involvement of many international scholars and testimonies, it frames the Jewish DPs’ stay in Italy in an international historical context and illustrates less-known aspects of their experience in the refugee camps. These important initiatives of recovery and memory have been crucial in drawing the attention of institutions and the general public to some historical events and sites that would otherwise have been forgotten. However, there are two recurrent themes that risk eclipsing the reality and the most controversial aspects of the Jewish DPs’ temporary stay in Italy. The first is the almost exclusive focus on the Jewish DPs as survivors of Nazi concentration camps, that leaves Italy’s Fascist past and legacy unexplored. The second and interconnected aspect is the emphasis on Italy’s benevolent hospitality towards the Jews, while the reality that emerges from this study is more complex and nuanced. Traces of this kind of narrative glimpse, and sometimes are predominant, in the public representation of the history of the Jewish DPs in Italy. This perspective – the product of one of the most enduring myths about modern Italy, which promoted the image of Italians as good people (italiani brava gente) – may well be misleading and producing distorted memory. The sympathy and assistance that everyday Italians offered the Jewish DPs were not isolated cases, as is especially shown by the Jewish DPs’ fond memories. However, this must be framed and sized (and sometimes downsized) in the context of a country that was struggling to re-emerge from twenty years of Fascist regime, which consolidated racial and anti-Semitic stereotypes that are still reluctant to die.

184 Conclusions As shown by this study, in order to be integrated into Italian history, the Jewish DP’s transit should be contextualized in a broader framework, from Italy’s recent Fascist past to its difficult confrontation with its responsibility after the war. Moreover, in order to measure the dimension and impact of this chapter of transnational history, the Jewish DPs’ experiences deserve to be placed in a global picture that allows us to look at them as military, political, national, and humanitarian subjects, and above all as human beings. Notes 1 Alan Rosen, The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Boder’s oral interviews are available on the Illinois Institute of Technology website: https://voices. library.iit.edu/ (accessed January 2023). For an overview of Tradate, see Alberto Gagliardo, “L’Aliyah Bet a Tradate: Il soccorso ai profughi,” in Per ricostruire e ricostruirsi. Astorre Mayer e la rinascita ebraica tra Italia e Israele, ed. Marco Paganoni (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2010), 89–100; Alberto Gagliardo, A cercare un posto nel mondo. Storie di sopravvissuti ebrei in transito. Tradate 1945–1948 (Milan: Mimesis Edizioni, 2021). 2 For Boder’s interview with Esther Krueger and an English transcript, see https:// voices.library.iit.edu/index.php/interview/kruegerE (accessed January 2023). 3 According to Laura Jockusch, the Jewish historical commissions embodied the survivors’ earliest attempts to chronicle and research the Holocaust from the ­Jewish perspective; see Jockusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 4 CZA, Opening Speech by L. Garfunkel at the Conference of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, Rome, 26.11.1945, 8–9, L16/521, Sifron kinus ha-plitim be-Italiah be-ẓiruf ḥovrim tmunot protokolim mitkatvim ve-mavrikim [Booklet of the refugees’ conference in Italy, with pamphlets, minutes, letters and lists of visitors]. 5 Daniel G. Cohen, “The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950,” Immigrants & Minorities 24, no. 2 (2006): 128–29. According to Cohen, the Jewish DPs’ situation after the war introduced “persecution” as a key component of the refugee definitions and served as a matrix for post-war human rights and international law. These arguments are analysed in Cohen, In War’s Wake. Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).. 6 Hanna Yablonka, Survivors of the Holocaust: Israel after the War (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999), 77. 7 Daniel G. Cohen, “Remembering Postwar Displaced Persons: From Omission to Resurrection,” in Enlarging European Memory: Migration Movements in Historical Perspective, ed. Mareike König and Rainer Ohliger (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2006), 87–97. 8 For the impact of the end of Cold War on historiography, see Mark Mazower, “Reconstruction: The Historiographical Issues,” in Post-War Reconstruction in Europe: International Perspectives, ed. David Feldman, Mark Mazower and ­Jessica Reinisch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 17–28; Pamela ­Ballinger, “Impossible Returns, Enduring Legacies: Recent Historiography of Displacement and the Reconstruction of Europe after World War II,” Contemporary European History 22, no. 1 (2013): 128. 9 “Shoah, medaglia per Nardò ‘Ospitò migliaia di ebrei,’” La Repubblica, 27 January 2005. 10 See https://www.eretzmuseum.org.il/e/366/ (accessed January 2023).

Conclusions  185 Bibliography Ballinger Pamela, “Impossible Returns, Enduring Legacies: Recent Historiography of Displacement and the Reconstruction of Europe after World War II,” Contemporary European History 22, no. 1 (2013): 127138, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0960777312000513. Cohen Daniel G., “Remembering Postwar Displaced Persons: From Omission to Resurrection,” in Enlarging European Memory: Migration Movements in Historical Perspective, ed. König Mareike and Ohliger Rainer (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2006), 87–97. Cohen Daniel G., “The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950,” Immigrants & Minorities 24, no. 2 (2006): 125–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/02619280600863572. Cohen Daniel G., In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Gagliardo Alberto, “L’Aliyah Bet a Tradate: Il soccorso ai profughi,” in Per ricostruire e ricostruirsi. Astorre Mayer e la rinascita ebraica tra Italia e Israele, ed. ­Paganoni Marco (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2010), 89–100. Gagliardo Alberto, A cercare un posto nel mondo. Storie di sopravvissuti ebrei in transito. Tradate 1945–1948 (Milan: Mimesis Edizioni, 2021). Jockusch Laura, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), https://doi.org/10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780199764556.001.0001. Mazower Mark, “Reconstruction: The Historiographical Issues,” in Post-War Reconstruction in Europe: International Perspectives, ed. Feldman David, Mazower Mark, and Reinisch Jessica (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 17–28. Rosen Alan, The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof: oso/9780195395129.001.0001. Yablonka Hanna, Survivors of the Holocaust: Israel after the War (Basingstoke: ­Macmillan Press, 1999).

Transit 2,500

IT 54 Pescantina (Verona) IT 77 Milan IT 76 Milan IT 78 Como

Piedmont

IT 82 Cremona IT 18 Domodossola IT 19 Novara IT 17 Turin IT 21 Montecalieri

Transit   800 Transit

IT 53 Verona IT 52 Verona

Lombardy

Static

IT1 Padua

Outcome between 1945 and 1946

Static Jews Italians Italians UN (mostly French) Italians

Transit Transit 1,000 Transit

UN nationals Italians Statics and dissidents

UN nationals Italians, Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, and Western Austrians Mixed nationalities

Jews and Istrians

Fair Fair Good

Description of Accommodation

Poor (huts and tents) Very good

(Continued)

Handed over to the Italian authorities Handed over to the UNRRA* Excellent Handed over to the Italian authorities

Retained until 1946 Handed over to the Italian authorities Reduced in capacity (2,500) and Excellent reserved for Jews in 1946 Handed over to the UNRRA* Good Handed over to the Italian authorities

Reduced in capacity (1,000) in 1946

Jews were moved to Cremona in Good November 1945; camp handed over to the Italian authorities and reserved for Istrians and statistic dissidents Closed in November 1945 Good Handed over to the Italian authorities

Mixed nationalities Reduced in capacity (1,000) Mixed nationalities Reduced in capacity (1,000) Germans and Austrians Reduced in capacity (500) in 1946

Static 1,500 Transit

Transit 1,000 Transit 3,000

3,000

Transit 2,000 Transit 2,000 Transit   800

Trieste IT4 Udine IT 23 Bolzano

Friuli-Venezia Giulia Trentino-Alto Adige Veneto

Type of Capacity Groups in the Camp Camp

Site

Region (Today)

Table 1  Distribution, Type, and Administration of the Refugee Camps in Italy, 1945a

Tables

Static

Static Static Static Static

Static

IT 87 Riccione

IT 41 Forlì IT 42 Forlì IT 46 Modena IT 43 Reggio Emilia

IT 44 Reggio Emilia IT 47 Bologna IT 48 Bologna

EmiliaRomagna

Transit   400 Transit 3,000

3,000 3,000

3,000

1,000

Transit Transit Transit   550

IT 72 Genoa IT 73 Bordighera IT 71 Genoa

Liguria

Italians Italians UN nationals (French, Dutch, Belgians, Luxembourgers, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes) Static dissidents (Yugoslav families) Static dissidents Static dissidents Static dissidents (Serbs) Static dissidents except for Poles, Yugoslavs, Jews, Russians, Rumanians, Albanians, Hungarians, and Balts Poles desiring repatriation UN nationals Italians

Type of Capacity Groups in the Camp Camp

Site

Region (Today)

Table 1 (Continued) Description of Accommodation

Handed over to the UNRRA* Handed over to the Italian authorities

Reduced in capacity (2,500)

Reduced in capacity (500) and handed over to the UNRRA* Closed Closed Handed over to the UNRRA* Reduced in capacity (2,500) and reserved for overflow of Jews from Lecce area

(Continued)

Good

Bad Bad Good Good

Good

Handed over to the Italian authorities Handed over to the Italian authorities Retained until 1946 Excellent Handed over to the UNRRA*

Outcome between 1945 and 1946

188 Tables

Barletta and Static Trani IT 36 Santa Cesarea IT 39 Tricase IT 35 Santa Maria di Leuca IT 34 Santa Maria al Bagno Ferramonti 1,000

7,000

9,000

Transit 2,000

Transit 2,000

a

Handed over to the UNRRA*

Handed over to the UNRRA*

Handed over to the UNRRA* Handed over to the UNRRA* Handed over to the UNRRA*

Closed

Outcome between 1945 and 1946

UN (Greeks, Albanians, and Yugoslavs for reception by sea) Static Poles not desiring repatriation Yugoslavs, static Managed by UNRRA since 1945 Jews not desiring repatriation, stateless, including ex-Russians

UN (British, American, Abyssinians, Turks)

Static dissidents (Yugoslavs) Static dissidents (Croats) Static Slovenes Static dissidents (Croats) Static dissidents (Slovenes)

WO, Allocation of Centres to Non-Italian Nationals, 31.1.1946, WO 204/3504.

Calabria

Puglia

Campania

1,000

1,500   500 2,500

2,000

Transit 1,500

Static

IT 90 Servigliano

IT 33 Cinecittà Reception Center IT 32 Aversa Reception Center IT 31 Bari

Static Static Static

IT 91 Jesi IT 88 Senigallia IT 89 Fermo

Lazio

Static

IT 92 Fano

Marche

Type of Capacity Groups in the Camp Camp

Site

Region (Today)

Table 1 (Continued)

Fair

Fair

Good

Bad

Description of Accommodation

Tables  189

190 Tables Table 2  Results of UNRRA Eligibility Survey, May 1946a Camp

Eligible for UNRRA Care

Ineligible for UNRRA Care

Total

Santa Maria al Bagno (LE) Santa Cesarea Terme (LE) Santa Maria di Leuca (LE) Tricase Porto (LE) Bari Aversa (CE) Cinecittà (RM) Fermo Jesi (AN) Senigallia (AN) Servigliano (FM) Riccione (RN) Bologna IT 47 Bologna IT 48 Reggio Emilia IT 43 Reggio Emilia IT 44 Cremona Forlì (Hospital) Modena Genoa Milan Turin Total

2,152 1,206 720 611 301 418 370 4 33 13 15 22 5 2 17 20 1,042 9 16 26 36 882 7,920

6 3 331 7 602 1,253 557 1,967 791 470 1,193 412 228 39 837 221 17 54 1,056 51 530 17 10,642

2,158 1,209 1,051 618 903 1,671 927 1,971 824 483 1,208 434 233 41 854 241 1,059 63 1,072 77 566 899 18,562

WO, Eligibility Survey, Attachment V: Eligible and Ineligible Displaced Persons in UNRRAACC Camps, 1.5.1946, WO 204/10837, UNRRA Policies with Regard to DPs and Situation in Italy.

a

Tables  191 Table 3  Estimated Jewish Refugees in the UNRRA Camps, Italy 1946a May 15 October 5 November 1 December 1 December 31 Southern Camps Santa Maria al Bagno Santa Maria di Leuca Santa Cesarea Terme Tricase Bari (a) Rome Region Cinecittà (a) Northern Region Milan (a) Turin (Grugliasco) Cremona Rivoli Genoa (a) Total Transit Camps (a) Total All Camps

5,474 2,312

4,875 1,825

4,643 1,865

4,629 1,840

4,472 1,788

1,415

1,030

1,133

1,130

1,050

1,082

935

938

932

930

665 –

635 450

634 73

640 87

630 74

200 2,414 200 1,085 987 – 142 542

600 1,677 450 330 867 30 – 1,500

500 2,664 800 731 869 264 – 1,375

396 4,144 1,064 895 993 1,192 – 1,547

605 5,187 1,190 1,581 1,027 1,389 – 1,870

8,088

7,152

7,816

9,169

10,265

AJDC, Tables JDC Program in Italy 1946, 12.2.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/2/628, Italy: ­General, 1946. The camps signed with (a) are transit camps.

a

Table 4  Ships Organized by the Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet from Italy 1945–1948a Name of the Ship

Date of Departure

Dallin Nettuno (Natan 1) Albertina (Pietro 1) Nettuno (Natan 2) Albertina (Pietro 2) Hannah Senesh Enzo Sereni

29 August 1945 4 September 1945 17 September 1945 1 October 1945 22 October 1945 25 December 1945 17 January 1946

35 79 168 73 174 252 990

Wingate

26 March 1946

238

Eliyahu Gollumb and 13 May 1946 Dov Oz Josiah Wedgwood 27 June 1946 Katriel Jaffe

13 August 1946

Number of Place of Arrival Passengers

1,014 1,257 604

Caesarea Caesarea Shefayim Shefayim Shefayim Nahariya Captured and brought to Haifa Captured and brought to Haifa La Spezia Affaire Captured and brought to Haifa Captured and brought to Cyprus (Continued)

192 Tables Table 4 (Continued) Name of the Ship

Date of Departure

Kaf Gimel Yordai Ha-Sira Amiram Schochat Four Freedoms

15 August 1946

Palmaḥ

22 September 1946

611

Bracha Fuld

22 October 1946

806

Shabbetai Luzinski

12 March 1947

823

Moledet

29 March 1947

1,563

Sha’ar Ha-Yishuv

23 April 1947

768

Hatikvah

17 May 1947

1,414

Mordei Hagetaot

24 May 1947

1,457

Ḥalilei Gesher Aziv

28 July 1947

685

Af-Al-Pi-Khen

27 September 1947

434

Kadima

16 Novembre 1947

794

Lo-Tafḥidenu

22 December 1947

850

United Nations

1 January 1948

537

Lamed He (The Convoy of 35) Yerushalayim Haneẓura Yeḥiam

31 January 1948

274

12 February 1948

670

28 March 1948

769

Tirat Ẓvi

12 Aprile 1948

798

Laniẓaḥon The State of Israel Kerev Emek-Yilon

17 May 1948 17 May 1948 29 May 1948

189 243 706

16 August 1946 2 September 1946

Number of Place of Arrival Passengers 790 183 1,024

Captured and brought to Cyprus Caesarea Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Captured and brought to Cyprus Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Tel Aviv

Nativei haẓalah ve-ha’apalah: Merkaz La-Golah Be-Italiah: 1944-1948 [Rescue and Illegal Immigration Routes: The Merkaz La-Golah in Italy] (Tel Aviv: Merkaz La-Golah, 1984), 71.

a

Villa Mayer, Abbiate Guazzone

Cusano Milanino, Piazza Monte Roma, 4 Palazzo Vescovile, Genivolta Villa Fagiana, Magenta (Boffarola) Ceriano Laghetto Villa Segre, Nichelino, Via Castello, 11 Villa Viso, Luserna San Giovanni Colonia Alpina, Pollone Arignano Villa Bello Sguardo, Luserna San Giovanni, Villa Ferro, Bussoleno Castello Vernea, Nichelino Via dei Gasperi, 27 – Genoa Bogliasco – Pieve Ligure Albergo Fiorito, Acqui Terme Villa Vitale, Valmadonna (Alessandria) Villa Prof. Bisbini, Modena Villa Terrachini, Reggio Emilia Villa Roma, Nonantola Rome, Via Camelucci, 86 Rome, Via Camelucci, 45

N/1

N/2

N/27 N/28 N/29 S/1 S/2

N/32 N/33 N/25 N/26 N/14 N/21

N/15 N/16 N/19 N/31

N/3 N/7 N/10 N/13

Location

N.

Table 5  List of Hakhsharot, 27 March 1947a

Emilia Romagna Emilia Romagna Emilia Romagna Lazio Lazio

Piedmont Piedmont Liguria Liguria Piedmont Piedmont

Piedmont Piedmont Piedmont Piedmont

Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy Piedmont

Lombardy

Lombardy

Region

60 180 180 140 120

86 120 225 170 125 64

55 100 250 81

100 90 30 100

42

100

Capacity

Pahah Pahah Dror Pahah (Atid Ha-Am) Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir (Havanah)

Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir Gordonia Agudat Israel Mizrahi

Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni Noham Zofit Agudat Israel

Dror Gordonia Italian Jews Ha-’Oved

Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrahi (Torah Ve-Avodah) Ha-’Oved (Ha-’Oved)

Affiliation (and Name)

(Continued)

Mostly invalids Family group Youth group Family group with babies Youth group

Youth group Family groupd Family group with children Youth group Families with children Youth group

Youth group Youth group Scouts Family group

Youth group Youth group Youth group No data available

Family group

Youth group

Group Description

Tables  193

Rodhi Group, Via Pietralata Via Cortina d’Ampezzo, Monte Mario (Roma) Ostia, Viale Vittorio, 13

Ostia, Viale Vittorio, 11

Ostia, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo Ostia, Via Rutilio Namanziano, 33 (Fishing school) Ostia, Via Rutilio Namanziano, 25 Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo, 24 Meshek Po’alot – Viale della Pinetta, 23 Castel Gandolfo, Via Buozzi, 32 Castel Gandolfo, Via Buozzi, 2 Castel Gandolfo, Via Albalenga, 2 Castel Gandolfo, Via Albalenga, 2 Castel Gandolfo, Villa Pascolare Grottaferrata, Villa Cicerone

S/5b S/50b

S/8b

S/9b

S/21

S/14b S/16 S/17b S/18b S/19b S/20b

S/11 S/12b S/13

S/10

Grottaferrata, Villa Cavalletti

Rome, Via Latina, 41

S/3

S/7b

Location

N.

Table 5 (Continued)

Lazio

Lazio Lazio Lazio Lazio Lazio Lazio

Lazio Lazio Lazio

Lazio

Lazio

Lazio

Lazio

Lazio Lazio

Lazio

Region

60

122 49 145

65 120

40 65 54

60

80

90

Dror (Frumka) Gordonia (Ma’apilim) Dror (Dror Kadima) Dror (Alonim) Gordonia (A. D. Gordon) Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir (Josef Kaplan) Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (Lamrot Ha-Kol)

Mizrahi (Netzal Israel) Ha-’Oved Agudat Israel

Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (Ha-Tzofè) Ha-’ Shomer Ha-Tza’ir (Ba-Hazit) Agudat Israel (Sha’ar Yishuv) Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir (Le-Hagshamah) Gordonia (Zevulun)

120 100

Pahah (Mordekhai Anielewicz)

Affiliation (and Name)

100

Capacity

Youth group

Youth groupe Youth group Family group Youth group Youth groupc Youth groupe

(Continued)

Youth group (orthodox) Youth group(orthodox)c Orthodox girls and women

Youth group

Youth groupc

Family group (orthodox)c

Family groupe

Survivors of Rodhi group Youth groupd,e

Youth group

Group Description

194 Tables

Grottaferrata, Via Campo d’Annibale, 58 Rocca di Papa, Via del Lago

Ladispoli, Via degli Aldebrandi Ladispoli, Villa Margherita Ladispoli, Villa Moretti Villa La Selva, Bagno A Ripoli (Florence)

Villa Almansi, Florence

Villa Gaiana, Genzano (Nemi) Gallicano, Lucca

Nemi Soriano del Cimino Soriano del Cimino Bagnaia

Anzio

Acquasanta Fano (Fishing school)

S/23b

S/25 S/27b S/48b S/29

S/30

S/33b S/34b

S/49b S/35 S/36 S/37

S/38b

S/39 S/40

S/24

Location

N.

Table 5 (Continued)

Marche Marche

Lazio

Lazio Lazio Lazio Lazio

Lazio Tuscany

Tuscany

Lazio Lazio Lazio Tuscany

Lazio

Lazio

Region

225 160

135

95 60 160 100

125 90

55

60 56 75 120

90

56

Capacity

Pahah (Ha-Yehudi Ha-Lochem) Mixed & Noham (Zofit) Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (Migdalor)

Gordonia (Yosef Bussel) Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (La-Nitzahon) Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni Dror (Hannah Senesh) Dror (Dror) Mizrahi (Bitahon)

Ha-’Oved (Ha-’Oved)

Ha-No’ar Ha-Zioni (Barzel) Ha-Bonim (Ha-Bonim) Ha-’Oved (Ha-’Oved) Noham (Noham) Ha-’Oved (Ha-’Oved)

Mizrahi (Namalah)

Affiliation (and Name)

Youth group Youth group (Continued)

Children’s homee Youth group Youth group Family group and some babies (orthodox) Family group with childrenc

Family group Family groupc Youth groupc Family group with young children wishing to emigrate overseas Family group with young children wishing to emigrate overseas Youth groupe Mixede

Family group

Youth group (orthodox)c

Group Description

Tables  195

Bari, Via Salerno, 159

Bari, Via Salerno 207

Bari, Via Salerno 213 – Bari Bari, Via Re David, 230 – Bari

Grumo Positano

S/41

S/42

S/43 S/44

S/45 S/46

Lazio

S/4

Yeshivah Me’or La-Golah, Rome

Lazio 90

35

120

150 270 70 75

Piedmont Lombardy Tuscany Tuscany Piedmont

120

250

120 76

84

75

Capacity

Lazio

Puglia Campania

Puglia Puglia

Puglia

Puglia

Region

N/33 Castello Vernea, Nichelino Special Installations S/15b Castel Gandolfo, Via Buozzi, 32

Children’s Homes S/50b Via Cortina d’Ampezzo, Monte Mario (Rome) N/20 Children’s home, Avigliana N/6 Children’s home – Selvino S/32 Campolecciano, Livorno S/31 Florence, Via Poggiolino, 16

Location

N.

Table 5 (Continued)

Agudat Israel

Kibbutz Omanut

Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (Ha-Tzofe) Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir Gordonia Agudat Israel Mizrahi (Giv’at Ha-Yeled) Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni

Dror Ha-Bonim & Borochow (Dror Ba-Ma’ale) Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (Aba Berdiczen) Gordonia (Eliezer Geller) Agudat Israel (Nachlat Binjamin) Mixed No data available (Meshumadim)

Affiliation (and Name)

(Continued)

Artistic Ensemble (special installation) Rabbinical college (orthodox) Special installation

Family group

Children Children Children’s home (orthodox) Children’s home (orthodox)

Youth groupe

Youth group (84 orthodox) No data available

Youth group Youth (orthodox)

Youth group

Youth group

Group Description

196 Tables

Location 50 75 50 40 200 80 55 45 80

Lazio Lombardy Piedmont Lazio Lazio Lazio Veneto

Capacity

Lombardy Piedmont

Region

Betar Betar Betar Betar Betar

Bund (Aufbau) Betar (Josef Glasman)

Special installation Special installation

Affiliation (and Name)

Youth group Youth (orthodox)c,d Youth group Youth group Youth group

Bund Cooperative Youth group

Reception centre Student home

Group Description

b

a

AJDC, Letter from Mr. Trobe to AJDC Paris, 27.3.1947, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharoth, 1945–1950. Still active in 1949 [AJDC, Hachsharah population, 1.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharoth, 1945–1950. Among the hakhsharot still active in 1949, there were also Children’s Home S/60 in Genazzano (Gordonia or Youth Aliyat Ha-No’ar), the S/52 Partisans’ hakhsharah a Castel Gandolfo non-Palestinian bound, and S/53 Olevano Romano (for Tripolitanians)]. c Non-Palestinian Bound in March 1949 (AJDC, Hachsharah population, 1.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharoth, 1945–1950. Among the non-Palestinian Bound hakhsharot active in 1949, there was also S/52 Partisans’ hakhsharah a Castel Gandolfo). d Hakhsharah converted to Children’s Home in 1947 (AJDC, Advantages of the Hachsharoth overs Camps, 2.10. 1947, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharoth, 1945–1950). e Hakhsharot hosting Tripolitanian Jews in March 1949 (AJDC, Hachsharah population, 1.3.1949, NY AR194554/4/44/12/656, Italy, Hachsharoth, 1945–1950 + S/53 Olevano Romano).

Via Unione, 5 – Milano Bet Ha-Talmid (student home), Corso Boncalieri, 167 – Turin Hakhsharot Not Part of the Merkaz He-Halutz Rome, Villa Cassetta Mattei, 12 S/6b N/8 Casa Balleati, Cassina Nuova (Battiloca) N/34 Villa Farraggiana, Meina S/22b Grottaferrata, Via Veneto, 25 S/26b Ladispoli, Via Abruzzi, 33 S/28 Ladispoli, Via Abruzzi N/11 Villa Bisacco, Chirignago (Venice)

N/9 N/30b

N.

Table 5 (Continued)

Tables  197

2

3

1

1,200 56 6 8 16 2

2,000 120 6 8 34

Rivoli

2

1,000 60 5 5 25

Grugliasco 600 56 3 4 21

Fermo

No data 2 available

1,000 98 3 2 50

Chiari

3

2,000 130 6 10 33

Barletta

700 14 4 2

Bari

No data No data available available

450 7 2 1

Cinecittà

a

CZA, Din ve-ḥeshbon shel ha-maḥleket la-tarbut al-yedey Merkaz Irgun Ha-Plitim Be-Italiah, 1947 (Report by the Cultural Department of the Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy, 1947), J17/8443 Duaḥ ha-maḥlakah le-tarbut al ha-pe’ulah ha-tarbutit ve-ha-ḥinukhit ben ha-plitim ha-yehudim be-Italiah (1947–1948) [Report by the Cultural Department on the Cultural and Educational Activities among the Refugees in Italy (1947–1948)].

1,400 129 5 7 35

2,450 114 6 8 38

Residents School students School classes Schoolteachers Children in kindergartens Teachers in kindergartens

Scuola Cremona Cadorna

Adriatica

DP Camp

Table 6  School and Kindergartens in Refugee Camps, 1947a

198 Tables

Glossary

Agudat Israel  non-Zionist political movement of Orthodox Jewry founded Poland in 1912. Aliyah bet  underground aliyah Aliyah  literally “ascent,” Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel. Aliyat Ha-No’ar (Youth Aliyah)  it was a scheme established by the Jewish Agency in 1934 to bring young Jews from the Nazi-controlled territories to Palestine. Betar (acronym of Brit Yoseph Trumpeldor)  Revisionist Zionist Party. Brichah  literally “flight,” the underground movement of Jewish departure from Eastern Europe to Palestine. Bund  abbr. of “General Jewish Workers’ Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia”; it was the Jewish socialist movement born in Russia at the end of the ninetieth century that promoted Jewish autonomism in Eastern Europe. Dror  literally “freedom,” pioneering socialist youth movement established in Poland in 1915, affiliated with the United Kibbutz movement. Eretz Israel  The Land of Israel. Gordonia  pioneering socialist, non-Marxist youth movement founded in Poland in 1925 and named after Aron David Gordon, whose writings inspired the foundation of the Labour Zionist movement. It was associated with Hever Hakvutzot. Ha-Bonim (or Dror Ha-Bonim)  literally “the constructors,” Zionist Labour movement, associated with the United Kibbutz Movement. Haganah  literally “defence,” the main paramilitary organization of the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine. Hakhsharah (pl. hakhasharot)  literally “preparation.” Training for kibbutz life, or a group undergoing such training. Halutz (pl. halutzim)  pioneer, agricultural labourers in Palestine. Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni (Zionist Youth)  non-socialist pioneering youth movement, active in eastern and central Europe from the early 1930s. ­Affiliated to the United Kibbutz Movement.

200 Glossary Ha-’Oved Ha-Tzioni (the Zionist Worker)  Organization of settlements of the Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni youth movement. Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrahi  Left-wing section of the Mizrahi religious Zionist movement. Also known with its slogan Torah ve-Avodah, “Torah and Work.” Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair (the Young Guard)  Pioneering Zionist youth movement founded in I917. Associated with the Kibbutz Artzi Movement. Hever Ha-kvutzot (Union of Kvutzot)  The third-biggest kibbutz movement. Irgun Zvai Leumi (or its acronym Etzel, the National Military Organization)  The paramilitary organization born as an extreme nationalist ­offshoot of the Haganah. Kibbutz (pl. kibbutzim)  the term used to refer agricultural settlement in Palestine or collective groups organized by Zionist youth movements in post-war Europe. Kibbutz Artzi (full name Kibbutz Artzi shel Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir)  the National Kibbutz [Movement] of Hashomer Hatzair, founded in 1927 by graduates of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir. Kibbutz Dati (the Religious Kibbutz Movement)  Orthodox Jewish kibbutz movement, affiliated politically to Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrahi. Kibbutz Me’uhad (United Kibbutz [Movement])  founded in 1927 by the unification of kibbutz Ein Harod with a number of smaller groups. Lehi (acronym of Loḥamei Ḥerut Isra’el  Fighters for the Freedom of Israel)  extreme anti-British underground resistance movement (also known as the Stern Gang, after its leader Avraham Stern). Ma’apilim  illegal migrants to the Land of Israel. Madrikh (pl. madrikhim)  leader, guide, title applied to instructors of Zionist youth groups. Mapai (acronym of Mifleget Poalei Eretz-Israel)  Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel. It was the leading party in the Labour Zionist movement. Leaders include David Ben-Gurion, Berl Katznelson, and Moshe Sharett. Merkaz Ha-Plitim  Refugee Centre, it was established by the Jewish soldiers in Bari in January 1944. Merkaz He-Halutz (also referred as to He-Halutz)  Pioneer Centre. An umbrella organization of Zionist youth movements that worked to train its members for aliyah to Palestine. Merkaz La-Golah  Centre for the Diaspora. Following the establishment of the Jewish Brigade in October 1944, the Merkaz Ha-Plitim was moved to Rome and its name was changed to Merkaz La-Golah. Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet  it was a branch of the paramilitary organization Haganah that operated to facilitate Jewish illegal immigration to ­Palestine in violation of governmental British Mandate restrictions. Noham (acronym of No’ar Ḥaluẓi Me’uḥad, United Pioneering Youth)  this movement was formed by the United Zionist Organization in the American

Glossary  201 Zone of Occupied Germany and was intended as a ­comprehensive ­Zionist pioneering movement for all Jewish youths in Bavaria. Pahah  (Yiddish acronym of Partizaner, Hayalim und Halutzim), the United Partisans Organization, the Jewish resistance movement established by Communist and Zionist partisans in the Vilna ghetto. Palmach  acronym for Plugot Maḥaẓ “strike force,” was the elite fighting force of the Haganah from 1941 to 1948, combining military duties with work on the kibbutzim. Palyam  naval department of the Palmach. Shaliach (pl. shlichim)  emissary, representative from the Yishuv assigned to promote Aliyah from the Diaspora. In general, shlichim were affiliated to specific political movements or parties. She’erit Ha-Pleitah  “surviving remnant” or “the survived remnant,” term used to refer to the community of Jewish Holocaust survivors in Europe. Yishuv  literally “settlement,” it refers to the Jewish community in Palestine.

Archives

Archives Nationales, Paris Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, New York and Jerusalem Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome Archivio di Stato di Lecce, Lecce Archivio storico dell’Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane, Roma Bad Arolsen Online Archives (formerly International Tracing Service) Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (CDEC), Milan Melbourne Holocaust Museum (formerly Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne) Massuah International Institute for Holocaust Studies, Tel Yitzhak Oral History Division, Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Wiener Holocaust Library, London United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D. C. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, Los Angeles War Office and Foreign Office, UK National Archives, Kew (accessed via “Post-war Europe: Refugees: Exile and Resettlement 1945–1950,” the digital collection of the UK National Archives at The Wiener Holocaust Library, London) World Ort Archives, London Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (accessed via Yad Vashem Archives) Zvi Aldouby’s Private Collection, Jerusalem

Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables, italic page numbers refer to figures. Adriatica Camp 148, 198 Agudat Israel 97, 100–5, 193–4, 196, 199 Aldouby, Zvi 115, 118, 119 aliyah 2, 24, 53, 58, 72–5, 93, 100–1, 108, 120–1, 123, 155–6, 164, 166; and the AAC 75–8; and the British Mandate on Palestine 12, 22, 99; and the Italian government 122, 137–42, 152–4; from Italy during the war 73–5; Jewish DPs’ training for 3–4, 20, 23, 50, 52, 70, 96, 109–10, 116; from Libya via Italy 159–63 Aliyat Ha-No’ar 24, 161, 197, 199; see also Youth Aliyah Alliance Israelite Universelle 163 Allied Commission (AC) 11 Allied Control Commission (ACC) 11, 16, 28, 73, 75, 142 Allied Military Government on Occupied Territories (AMGOT) 11, 16 Allies: DPs Sub-Commission 22, 59; occupation of Italy 3, 10–12, 15–16; refugee policy 16–17, 19, 22, 25, 27, 48–9, 72–3; and the refugees’ movement 51, 54–7; and UNRRA 3, 59, 109 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) 3, 32, 73, 79, 101, 103, 108, 136, 144–5, 146– 50; begins its mission in Italy 27– 9; aid in camps and hakhsharot 59–70; and child welfare and education 94–7, 112–6; and

vocational training 109–12; and DPs’ emigration overseas 164–6; and hard-core cases 157–8; and the hakhsharot 70–2, 155; and the Italian government 143–4; and Libyan Jews 159–63; statistics by 57, 61, 70, 100 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (AAC) 75–7, 79, 122, 140, 150 Ankori, Zvi 24 Arazi, Yehuda 138–9 Arbe (Rab) 18, 31 Arnoff, Nachman S. (rabbi) 60 Artistic Ensemble 116–17, 196 Arzt Bergl, Evelyn 31 Ashkenazi, Elazar 103 Atlit 122, 152 Attlee, Clement 52 Aufbau (dramatic circle) 118 Auschwitz 1, 18, 103, 120–1, 135 Australia 1, 4, 136, 155, 164 Avigliana 97, 11, 196 Bacoli 106 Baderekh (hakhsharah) 25 Baderekh (newspaper) 118–19 Bar-Shiah, Zeev 24 Bari 69–70, 73, 102, 118, 146–7, 150, 152, 164, 189–91, 196, 198 Beckelman, Moses W. 160 Beit Ha-Talmid 116 Ben Dor, Yitzhaq 53 Bergen-Belsen 135 Berman, Morton (rabbi) 23 Bernstein, Leon 66, 69, 118, 145–6 Bernstein, Philip (rabbi) 20, 60

206 Index Betar 97, 100, 105–8, 182, 197, 199 Bevin, Ernest 75, 139 black market 27, 145, 148–50 Boder, David 179 Borzykowski, Binyamin Eliezer (rabbi) 103 Brichah 3, 52–7, 66–7, 79, 99, 105, 107, 146, 199 Brickman, Mendel 102 Brindisi 162 Brook, Benjamin 60, 70–1 Buchenwald 50 Bund 100–1, 118, 197 Bund Cooperative 118, 155, 197, 199 Campolecciano 97, 196 Canada 4, 103, 165–6 Cantoni, Guido 26 Cantoni, Raffaele 108, 123, 139, 150 Karpineks, Rivka 106 Cassin, Matilde 96–7, 115 Castel Gandolfo 106, 117, 194, 196–7 Central British Fund 57, 157, 160 chaplain(s) 20–1, 23, 25, 27, 50–2, 57, 60, 67–8, 79, 105, 113 Chiari 148, 198 children 17–18, 50, 60, 75, 77, 136–7, 146, 160–2, 165, 182, 193, 195–8; aid program for 29, 57, 59; and education 14, 23–5, 78, 93–7, 111–16; and religious education 102–4; statistics on 61, 64–5, 100, 145 children’s home(s) 93–8, 103–5, 111, 114–6, 161, 182, 195–7 Cinecittà 58–60, 189–91, 198 Cohen, Rivka 182 Contini, Nino 26 Cremona 58–9, 111, 164, 187, 190–1, 198 Cyprus 121, 136, 152–4, 191–2 Dachau 47, 50, 66, 110 Datit (hakhsharah) 25, 104 De Gasperi, Alcide 139–43 Delegazione per l’Assistenza agli Emigranti Ebrei (DELASEM) 14, 26–7, 32, 102 Dominitz, Tamar 115 Dominitz, Yehuda 115 Dror (hakhsharah) 27, 70 Dror (movement) 100–1, 193–6, 199 Duvdevani, Baruch 104, 161 Duvdevani, Yehiel 20, 53, 99

Eigerman, Yoseph 103 Eliner, Eliezer 105 Ellenbogen, Edward (rabbi) 20 Epstein, Angel Baruch 105 Etzel see Irgun Zvai Leumi Fano 11, 189, 195 Fascist Italy: attitude toward the Jewish refugees 12–13, 31–33; collapse of the Fascist regime 11; and the Évian Conference 12, 32; internment of the Jews 13–15 Fedala camp 72 Fedlon, Haim 160 Feldafing 50, 160 Ferramonti di Tarsia 3, 12, 14–15, 17, 19–20, 22–5, 31, 66, 73, 104, 189 Finkelstein, Chaim 63–4 Florence 96, 105–6, 115, 135, 139, 195–6 Foehrenwald 56 Friedman, Marcel 22 Garfunkel, Leon (Leib) 50, 66, 68–9, 76, 79, 97, 119, 139, 146, 150, 179 Gelbart, Gershon 94, 113 Gerber, Henry P. 61, 109 Gitlin, Murray 155 Giv’at Ha-Yeled (children’s home) 96, 115, 196 Goldfarb, Harold (rabbi) 60 Golding, David 160 Goldstein, Guta 135–6, 164 Golub (Tory), Avraham 99 Gordin, Elias 95–6 Gordonia 96, 100–1, 193–7, 199 Great Britain: aliyah and the British Mandate on Palestine 2, 12, 14–15, 50, 70, 72–5, 121–2, 150; American-British relations 51–2, 70; British control over Brichah 56–7; British occupation of Italy 2, 4, 11, 17; British occupation of Libya 159–63; Great Britain and the AAC 75–8; Italian-British relations 31–2, 123, 137–42, 152–4; Jewish DPs’ anti-British demonstration 56, 76–7, 122, 138, 150–2 Greenleigh, Arthur 10, 27, 29, 101 Grottaferrata 97, 106, 157–8, 194–7 Gur, Israel 159 Gutman, Nathan 107

Index  207 Ha-Bonim (hakhsharah) 25, 100, 195–6, 199 Ha-No’ar (hakhsharah) 25 Ha-No’ar Ha-Tzioni 97, 100–1, 193–6 Ha-‘Oved 78, 100–1, 193–5, 200 Ha-‘Oved Ha-Tzioni see Ha-‘Oved Ha-Po’alei Ha-Mizrahi 96, 100–2, 193–6, 200 Ha-Shavim (hakhsharah) 105 Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir 97, 100–1, 193–4, 196, 200 Haganah 20, 106–8, 122, 151–2, 181, 199 hakhsharah 4, 67, 69, 73, 97, 160–2, 178; inception of 24–5; aliyah from 101, 156; for children (see children’s home); cultural and artistic production in 116–20; education and vocational training in 108–16; expansion of 70–2; and the He-Halutz 100–1; health conditions in 63; Jewish DPs living in 65, 100, 137; list of 193–7; military training in 151–2; “non-Palestine bound” 155; for orthodox and haredi 101–5; for revisionists 106–7 hakhsharot see hakhsharah Halperin, Adam 106 hard-core cases 4, 156–9 Harrison Report 49, 51–2, 75–6, 179 He-Halutz 70, 98–102, 108, 115, 150, 156, 161–2, 180, 197, 200 health: abortions 64–5; general conditions in camps and hakhsharot 62–5; hard-core cases 156–9 Hebrew 24–5, 56, 70, 95, 103, 105, 114, 158 Herzer, Ivo 18 Herzog, Esther 182 Hever Ha-Kvutzot 100, 199–200 Holzer, Hanoch 106 Hoppe family 164 Hyman, Joseph 59, 101

International Refugee Organization (IRO) 4, 136–7, 144–8, 150, 154, 156–7, 160–6, 180 Irgun Zvai Leumi 106–8, 122, 150–1, 199 IRO’s Preparatory Commission (PCIRO) 137, 144 Italian Jews: assistance to Jewish DPs 14–15, 26–8, 32, 58, 71, 96, 115, 123, 148 Itzkovich, Meir 106

In Gang (magazine) 119 Infiltrees (Jewish) 49, 72, 107, 136, 143–8, 160 Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) 12, 27, 51, 70, 73, 144

Kalk, Israel 14–15, 54–5, 147, 149 Kibbutz 3, 20, 24, 94, 96, 99–100, 105, 114, 154, 200 Kibbutz Artzi 100, 200 Kibbutz Omanut 117, 196 Kielce 57, 122, 178

Jacobs, Israel 27 Jewish Agency 4, 24–5, 52–3, 66–8, 72–4, 77, 79, 99, 105, 115, 135, 154, 156, 159–60, 199 Jewish Brigade 3, 17, 53–8, 93, 99, 102, 104, 135, 180, 200 Jewish DPs’ feelings 59, 67, 78–9, 109, 119, 153–5; about aliyah 68–9, 72–4, 77, 120–2; after the end of the war 47–8; about home 49, 56, 68, 76, 79, 94, 97–8, 135; towards the British 56, 69, 76–7, 122, 138, 150–2; towards the future 1, 50–1, 68–70, 79, 97–8, 136, 164–5, 179, 183; towards the Italians 30–1; towards Zionism 70, 78; when meeting Jewish soldiers 78–9, 93 Jewish DPs in Italy: arrests 148–50; collective identity 3, 23, 50, 70, 79, 97, 120, 123–4, 179–80; hard-core cases 156–9; Italian population’s attitude 139, 145, 148; pregnancy and new-born babies 60, 64–5, 75, 112, 145, 164, 193, 195; religious life 101–5; self-organization and selfrepresentation 65–70; statistics by DELASEM 26; statistics by JDC 65; statistics by Merkaz LaGolah 58; statistics by the Allies 17, 59; statistics by the IRO 137; statistics by UNRRA 49, 59, 191 Joint Palestine Emigration Committee (JPEC) 23

208 Index Kindergartens see school Klausner, Abraham (rabbi) 50 Kleiman, Yoseph 103, 120–1 Knohl, Dov 104 kosher 62, 96, 101, 103, 105 Kovno (Kaunas) 49–50, 66, 99, 110 Krueger, Esther 178 Kutner, Leibel (rabbi) 102 La-Moledet (hakhsharah) 102, 104 La Spezia Affaire 138–40, 191 Landsberg 54, 110 Laski, Harold 139 Laufer (Rosenberg), Esther 1 Lazar, Haim 105–6 League of Nations 29 Leavitt, Moses 143 Lecce 9, 58–9, 61, 64, 76, 118, 145, 155, 183, 188 Lechowitzky, Yaakov (rabbi) 103 Lehi see Lohamei Herut Israel Leiman, Zvi 14–5, 53 Levi, Renzo 102, 110 Levi, Yitzhaq 53 Levine, Julius 148 Libya 14–15, 159–63 Libyan Jews 4, 20, 159–63 Lifshiz, Shuni 182 Lithuania 50, 63, 66, 98, 105, 110–11, 199 Lohamei Herut Israel (Lehi) 108, 122, 150, 200 madrikhim 22, 200 Majdanek 47 Makor Baruch (hakhsharah) 105 Mapai 99, 118, 200 Marseille 153, 161–2 Mayer, Sally 108 Merano 57, 64, 157–8 Merkaz Ha-Plitim 23–7, 53, 118, 200 Merkaz He-Halutz see He-Halutz Merkaz La-Golah 53, 58, 67, 70, 74, 78, 99, 102, 104, 147, 151, 192, 200 Milan 58, 69, 94–6, 108, 147–50, 178, 183 Miller, Zvi 182 Mitz, Benjamin 103 Modena 58, 60, 102–3, 148, 188, 190, 193 Monte Mario 97, 194, 196 Moskowitz, Miriam 117 Moskowitz, Shlomo 117

Mossad Le-Aliyah Bet 32, 54, 74–5, 120–3, 138–41, 152–3, 159–60, 191 Mussolini 11–13, 18, 31 Nahon, Umberto 73, 75, 139, 154 Naples 25–6, 29, 66, 105, 107, 155, 161 new refugees 3, 16, 33, 53, 58, 61, 65–6, 69 Nichelino 97, 193, 197 Noham 100–1, 193, 195, 200 North Africa 3, 11, 16–7, 20–1, 27, 94, 159–63, 169 Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) 161 old refugees 3, 12, 31, 118 Oleiski, Jacob 110 Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) 110–11, 158, 165 Organization of Jewish Refugees Physicians 69 Organization of the Jewish Refugees in Italy (OJRI) 3, 50, 79, 108, 150–1, 180; establishment of 65–70, and the AAC 76; and aliyah 97–8, 139, 146–7, 153–4, 179; and education, culture and arts 113–9; and the He-Halutz 70 Oshri, Ephraim (rabbi) 103 Ostia 69, 111, 194 Pahah 100–1, 193–5 partisans (Jewish) 3, 48–9, 53, 66, 79, 94, 99–100, 105–6, 136, 179, 181, 197, 201 Penn, Linda 164–5 Perlman, Max S. 27, 29, 66 Poland 17, 47–8, 54, 56–7, 75–6, 93, 98, 102, 105–6, 135, 165, 178, 199 Pontebba 57 Postwar Italy: anti-fascist government 28; agreement with UNRRA 29; attitude toward the Jewish refugees 137–44 Prato, David 68 Rabinovich, Isaac (rabbi) 103 Ravenna, Nurit 115 Red Army 47, 50, 53, 94, 164

Index  209 Red Cross 13, 25–6, 32, 57 Refugee camps in Italy: distribution 58–9, 187–9; living conditions 59–62; types 58 rehabilitation 4, 23–5, 28–9, 51, 59–65, 67, 80, 160; of child DPs 112– 15; from health issues 156–9; through culture and arts 116–20; through vocational training 108–11; Zionist-oriented 23–5, 67–72, 77–8 Religious Kibbutz Movement (Kibbutz Ha-Dati) 100, 105 repatriation 3, 16, 18, 25, 27, 29, 30–1, 48–9, 51, 58–9, 68, 73, 76, 79, 95, 98, 136–7, 166, 188–9 resettlement 2, 4, 12, 25, 30, 32, 48, 51–2, 54, 68, 70, 74, 77, 94, 100, 109, 11, 120, 135, 136–8, 155–8, 164, 166, 180 Resina (Ercolano) 161–2 Resistenza 11, 40 Resnik, Reuben 60 Reznikoff, Marvin M. (rabbi) 60 Rice, James 160 Riger, Menachem 117 Rishonim (hakhsharah) 24–5 Risiera di San Saba 18 Rivoli 111, 191, 198 Rome 27–9, 53, 63, 67–70, 97, 101–3, 106, 110–11, 117–20, 136, 141, 144, 146, 150–1, 155, 157, 161–2, 165, 183, 191, 193–4, 196–7, 200 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 12, 30, 53 Rosenberg, Jacob 1–2 Rubinstein, Shmoel Mordechai 78 Saaroni, Sarah 56 Santa Cesarea Terme 19, 63, 102–3, 106, 189–91 Santa Maria al Bagno 1, 19, 25, 61–3, 66, 73, 78, 105–7, 109, 115–9, 145, 164, 182, 189–91 Santa Maria di Leuca 19, 63, 77, 114, 182, 189–91 Schools 14–15, 22–3, 25, 49, 75, 78, 103, 105, 110–11, 113–14, 154, 194–5, 198 Sciesopoli see Selvino Scuola Cadorna DP camp 147, 198 Segal, Ben 160 Selvino (children’s home) 93–6, 98, 111, 116, 182, 196

Sereni, Ada 74, 77, 121, 123, 138–9, 141, 153–4, 160, 183 Sereni, Emilio 142 She’erit Ha-Pleitah 3, 49–50, 54, 66, 97, 110, 179, 201 Shertok, Moshe 72–3 Shilo, Shmuel (Shmulik) 93–5, 97 shlichim 4, 25, 77, 98, 105, 109, 159, 201; see also Zionist emissaries and delegates Society of Writers, Journalists and Artists 117, 119 soldiers (Jewish) 2–3, 17, 20, 50–2, 66–7, 74, 138; and the Brichah 53–8, 135; and the He-Halutz 99, 101; meeting with survivors 78–9, 93, 181; relief and rehabilitation programs 20–5, 78, 109, 112–13, 117, 120, 159 South African War Appeal 57 sport 95, 113, 116 Stern (Oron), Arieh 99 Stern Gang see Lohamei Herut Israel Stone, Earl (rabbi) 20 Syngalowski, Aron 110 Sznejberg-Haltagi, Theodore 94, 148 Tarvisio 53–5, 57, 67 Tchaikovich, Bezalel 106 Teitelbaum, Samuel (rabbi) 20 Theatre 95, 117–19 Tkumah (dramatic circle) 118–19 Torah Ve-Avodah 100–1, 104–5, 155, 193, 200; see also Ha-Po’el Ha-Mizrahi Tradate 178 Trauma 3, 49, 52, 69, 118 Tricase Porto 19, 63, 189–91 Trobe, Jacob 108, 147, 150 Truman, Harry S. 4, 30, 51–2, 75–7, 122, 141 United Kibbutz Movement (Kibbutz Ha-Me’uhad) 99–100, 199, 200 United Nations (UN) 28–9, 32, 49, 58–9, 67, 112, 114, 136, 142, 148, 152–4, 156, 179 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) 150, 152–4 United States 4, 27, 30, 32, 48, 51–2, 61, 77, 140–2, 144, 153, 155–6, 157, 164–5

210 Index UNRRA 3, 28–9, 32, 48–9, 57–66, 71– 3, 79, 109, 112, 116, 122, 137, 142–5, 155, 180, 187–91 Urbach, Efraim E. (rabbi) 21–2 Varadi, Max (Meir) 96–7, 104, 115, 161 Vatican 67, 116, 154 Via Unione 58, 94–5, 146–50 vocational training 29, 78, 108–9, 111, 158 War Refugee Board 29, 30, 72 Wdowiński, David 106 wedding(s) 1, 105, 112 welfare 3, 16, 29, 32, 63, 65–6, 95, 110, 112, 137 World Jewish Congress 68, 163 Yerushalmi, Eliezer 66, 119 Yeshivah Me’or Ha-Golah 103–4, 196

Yiddish 1, 68–9, 117–9 Yishuv 17, 22, 24, 68, 70, 99–101, 106, 113, 120, 123, 150, 180–1, 199, 201 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) 116 Youth Aliyah 24, 95, 111, 115, 199; see also Aliyat Ha-No’ar Yugoslavia 17–8, 30, 31, 53–4 Zeiri, Moshe 94–7 Zionism 3, 67, 70, 73–5, 77–80, 97–8, 121–4, 153, 179–81; and Brichah 52–8; education and rehabilitation programs 20–5, 93–7, 110, 112, 114, 116, 118; factionalism 98–101; and orthodox DPs and 101–5; and revisionist DPs 105–8 Ziskind, Baruch 105 Zoltak, Sidney 116