Deportation

This October 16th marked the 70th anniversary of the deportation of 1022 Italian Jews from Roma to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.  Only 16 of the 1022 returned to Roma.  (Two of them are still alive today.)  There have been a couple of events in Rome to commemorate this stain.

Paola suggested that we go to the exhibition about the deportation that is currently at the Vittoriano.  Paola, Xeno, and I went on Wednesday.  It was very good.  I have gone to lots of European Holocaust museums over the years.  All of them are moving.  But, for me, I sometimes find them to be overkill -- they can be overwhelming when they have too much.  I appreciated this exhibition for its relatively concise and streamlined scope.  It really focuses on the Jewish experience in Rome from the late 19th Century through the 1940s, and it shows the history through official documents, personal papers, media reports, objects like books, and photographs -- photographs of regular Roman children and families ripped from their homes and sent to their death in cattle cars.

The list of what Jews could take from their homes before boarding the trains for Auschwitz

During our visit to the exhibition, it struck me that -- at this point -- I am more familiar with Rome than with any other city on Earth.  I have not spent nearly this much time walking the streets of NYC, San Francisco, or anywhere else.   And so the exhibit that I found most effective was a very simple but incredibly powerful map.  It is a map of Roma from 1940.  Almost every street in the city is labeled, and you can look for your apartment, your hotel, your favorite sites, etc. right on the map.  The map also has colored dots showing the places from which Jews were deported in October 1943.  The color indicates how many people were sent to Auschwitz from each location -- e.g., a black dot where 1 person was taken, a red dot where 2-5 people were taken, a green dot where 6-10 were taken, etc.  Simple.  Clean.  Clear.  Powerful.

One person was taken literally right around the corner from my current apartment.

The places just north of Piazza del Popolo -- a 5-minute stroll from my apartment -- from where Jews were taken.

A much more concentrated area of victims was located right around my old apartment on Via de Pettinari, just a couple of blocks from Campo de' Fiori.