1 Prologue

It should come as no surprise to people of the West and East alike that they are all, to some degree related. Only by breeding animals can a pure race exist.

This phenomenon certainly exists among humans who for generations have mated or have been raped. Society is incapable of controlling the "purity of the race."

Jewish blood flows in the veins of many Europeans, even among anti-Semites who cannot bear the thought that they, too, might have Jewish genes. Even the most extreme Orthodox Jews are not of pure race; in their veins flows the blood of Cossacks who raped their wives and daughters in Ukraine and Polish villages and those who have chosen a mixed marriage with members of a different race or belief.

Who it really does interest are geneticists or those interested in delving into their roots and exploring their past.

Italian Jewry is one of the oldest Jewish communities in Europe. It goes back more than twenty-one hundred years when the Hellenes and later the Romans brought the Jews from Palestine as prisoners. During the middle ages, many Jews from Germany and France immigrated to Italy and settled there. After Spain expelled their Jews in 1492, many deportees fled to Portugal and Italy and established new Jewish communities.

In Sicily, the Jews suffered from severe persecution. In 1514 all the Jews in the Kingdom of Sicily, which was then under Spanish rule, were expelled. Ten years prior, the Jews from Naples were exiled.

On July 14, 1555, two months after he was chosen, Pope Paul IV issued the Bula, which stated that Jews must live separately from their Christian neighbors. This decree eventually led to the establishment of the Rome Ghetto.

A year later, in the port city of Ancona, twenty-four martyrs who fled Spain to Italy and tried to return to Judaism were sentenced to death and were burnt alive.

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain and later from Portugal caused the "New Christians" (those Jews forced to convert to Christianity) to migrate to other countries. Some settled in North Africa, while those who did not want to live among Muslims, continued to the Netherlands, Italy, and South America. "New Spain," as the Spanish conquerors called Mexico, attracted many "New Christians." Among them; merchants and peddlers, artisans, some doctors, and even some military men. Most of the international trade was in the hands of the New Christians who established relationships with European Jews, most notably with Jewish merchants in the Netherlands.

The New Christians intermarried among themselves and, with significant risk, met to pray in hiding places, to prevent the neighbors from finding out and accuse them of being Jewish. In the 16th century, ghettos were established in many cities in Italy. Major ghettos were located in Venice, Rome, and Florence. In 1593, a Jewish community in Livorno was founded by Spanish and Portuguese immigrants. This community was among the few communities in Italy where Jews did not live in ghettos.

After the conquest of Italy by Napoleon in 1796, the Jews of Italy were emancipated, and it signaled the beginning of a flourishing Jewish presence in Italy. In the liberation movement headed by Garibaldi, many Jews were prominent military leaders and statesmen. The Jews were granted their civil rights thanks to the referendum's passage in 1870, whereby Rome joined the Italian empire.

In the early years of Mussolini's fascist rule, Italian Jews enjoyed complete freedom and equal rights and even attained high standing. Italy viewed Zionism favorably. Early on, few Jews joined the Fascist party. Some partook in Rome's parades, mainly soldiers and officers who fought in the First World War beside other privileged Jewish groups.

In 1938, when racial laws against the Jews were enacted, thousands of Jews were fired from key government positions, the army and navy, and all educational institutions.

For them, it was truly tragic. They did not believe that the country they helped establish would turn against them in such a manner. The situation for the Jews, which already was precarious and uncertain due to the racial laws, worsened with the Italian Social Republic establishment.

On December 1, 1943, the government issued an order requiring all Jews to present themselves at police stations. From there, they were transported to central prisons and eventually taken to concentration camps. Fossoli concentration camp, located in the village of Fossoli near Modena-Verona railway line, was the main camp.

Of the approximately 45,000 Jews who lived in Italy and Rhodes at the end of 1943, the time of the proclamation of the Republic of Salò, more than 8,500 were deported. The death toll is estimated to be around 8,000; although many cases of assistance to the Jews are known, the active participation of the Republic of Salò, its police, and officials in locating the Jews, assembling them, and eventually sending them off to the East was a significant contribution to the fate of those victims.