Italy_And_The_Holocaust

Italy And The Holocaust The Holocaust in Italy In 1945, at the end of World War II, the realization of the Holocaust - that is, the systematic state-sponsored murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators - was difficult for many people to comprehend and, moreover, accept. Those who visited concentration camps after the war in Eastern Europe were confronted by things that, in the words of United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, beggar description.1 What so shocked those observers initially in 1945 was in fact only a small part of the vast killing program established by the Nazis in Europe. Not until much later was the magnitude of the Holocaust understood: two millennia of Jewish civilization in Europe had come to an end. Italy was one of Nazi Germanys allies during the war; yet, the vehement and obsessive anti-Semitic racial ideology of Nazism gained far less appreciation in Italy than it did in Germany. For several reasons, which shall be explored here, the nature of the Holocaust in Italy differed from elsewhere in Europe. Susan Zuccotti, whose historical analysis provides valuable insight into the Holocaust in Italy, purports an interesting dichotomy of questions. jews, italy, italian, war, holocaust, jewish, been, german, people, one, after, 1943, italians, about, fact, own, nazis, mussolini, germans, two, turn, september, out, never, began, until, even, europe, come, century, allies, work, very, small, rome