I was fortunate enough this past week to be able to participate in a uniquely Roman event when I attended an event called "Camminata Silenziosa," which translates to "Silent Walk." The reason behind it, like most of my stories, requires some background information.
During World War II, the Nazis eventually made it down to Rome. When they arrived, they demanded that the Jews of Rome (one of the oldest, continuing Jewish communities anywhere, I believe) give them 50 kilos of gold within 36 hours if they didn't want to be carted off to concentration camps to be killed. For any North American or otherwise non-kilo-using countries, this was a completely unreasonable request from the poor Roman community. But, in a great story of interfaith interaction, the non-Jewish Romans also banded together with the Jews and donated their precious gold items--and they raised the entire amount.
But then the Nazis came anyway. On October 16, 1943, over 1000 Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz. 16 would return after the war, 15 men and 1 woman. So every year on the anniversary of this horrible event, the deportation of so many Roman Jews, they walk. Walk through the Jewish section of Rome, where there is the second largest synagogue in Europe, and where thousands of Jews were once confined in horrible conditions.
Have you visited the Roman Jewish section? It used to have gates, which would be locked after sundown for 350 years. The Jews were forced to finance the guards standing at these gates. Outside each gate was a church, in an attempt to convert the Jews to Catholicism as they entered or left (many of these still stand, one with Hebrew writing above its doors that was meant to appeal to the Jews). I have now visited the large Tempio Maggiore, an Orthodox synagogue, for services twice and once for a museum tour last week. Both times for services I felt uncomfortable--it's a gorgeous building, but too ornate for my taste (coming from a culture where usually synagogues seem to be pretty plain, with white walls, this one in Rome has so much decoration, which was the result of the finally-emancipated Jews, happy to be able to finally build a large synagogue in Rome, going a bit overboard). But more than that...the women's section is upstairs, behind a black wrought-iron fence. I can barely see or hear anything when I attend. But I do enjoy walking through the Jewish section (where most shops and restaurants are closed from Friday-Saturday night in observance of Shabbat).
So the "Silent Walk" (deservedly in quotation marks...G-d bless the Italians, but the walk was anything but silent) walked from the large synagogue through the (small) Jewish section, and concluded with a short presentation in the synagogue. The point of the walk in the past was to have the 16 survivors walk, but by now most have died from old age, so I believe two men were there from the original group. The group I went with was fortunate enough to briefly meet with the daughter and son-in-law of one of the survivor. Some local Jewish children sang, and the synagogue was packed.
At the Camminata Silenziosa, October 15, 2014. I have never seen so many yamulkes...
All in all, the idea of participating in a Shoah* (Holocaust) remembrance event was very moving. A great deal of being Jewish in the United States today has to do with remembering the horrors of the Holocaust. I mean, from easily age 8 or 9 I was reading books about the horrors of the Holocaust, simply because it was a part of my past, and because I knew the importance of remembering those who had died. "Never forget" is the saying in Jewish communities in the US today. But to be here--to walk the streets, see the places where these atrocities were committed, meet the people who suffered through these times--that was a whole different thing. While we lost a bit of the meaning because it was in Italian (and the acoustics were not great in the synagogue, so even though I understand a great deal of Italian it did not help much), I think just the fact that we stood in solidarity with the group was important. And there were a lot of people there. To think that the number of people there, maybe several hundred, was not even close to the number of Roman Jews killed...it was just incredible. That fact, combined with the fact that the Jewish children singing proved that the Nazis failed to wipe out the Jewish people, will really stick with me for a while.
In an interesting twist of fate, another Roman/Nazi connection came about last week, when the 100-year-old Nazi war criminal Erich Piebke died. Apparently, he was involved in a brutal murder of 335 civilians in caves outside of Rome in 1944.
He had been in hiding for almost 50 years, before he was found and extradited to Italy, where he has been living under house arrest in Rome since the '90s. When he died a little over a week ago, the Roman Catholic Church in Rome said they wouldn't bury his body. Argentina (where his wife is buried) said they wouldn't bury him. Then, when a small, splinter group of the Catholic Church (no longer accepted by the official Church hierarchy, I believe, and one that has been noted for antisemitic-leanings amongst some of its members) in southern Rome agreed to bury him (on October 15, the same day we participated in the Silent Walk), so many protestors showed up that the funeral was not allowed to proceed. On the exact. Same. Day. As the Silent Walk memorial.
Erich Piebke
He went to his grave denying that Jews were killed in gas chambers during the Holocaust.
Something particularly meaningful for me that brought all of this together happened on Wednesday afternoon when I met with a very sweet retired Roman couple, that (I think) I will be teaching English to this year as a type of side-job. When we eventually got onto the topic of what I'm doing in Rome (studying at a super-Catholic university) the question obviously became "Are you Catholic?" After giving that explanation (No, but my Mom is, I'm Jewish like my Dad) they mentioned the situation with Piebke, as well as the memorial of October 16th. I do not think that they are Jewish, so it meant a lot that even non-Jewish Romans were aware of the Jewish happenings in their city. Seems like, whatever its difficult past, maybe Rome is doing pretty well on the interfaith front today.
Never forget.
Now go out and love one another.
<3,
Allyson
*For those who are unaware, "Shoah" is the favored term in the Jewish community for representing the atrocities committed against the Jews during World War II. It is generally interchangeable with the word "Holocaust."
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