2023-10-17 20:41:35
From Rome
October 16, 1943 is remembered by the Jewish community of Rome and by the inhabitants of the Italian capital, as one of the worst days in the history of the 20th century. That day the Nazis, who had already occupied Rome under the pretext of helping their fascist allies since September 10, carried out an enormous search through different neighborhoods, taking more than 1,000 Jews, most of them women (many men had already escaped thinking that they would come to look for them only) and nearly 200 children, who were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. Only 16 of them managed to return at the end of the war.
Before the raid, the Nazis had asked the Jewish community for 50 kilos of gold in exchange for the safety of their people. The gold was delivered but the SS nevertheless began kidnapping and deporting the city’s Jews.
Some families did not want to leave their homes, they did not believe that what happened could happen. Other families did everything they could to hide. Among these is the Jewish family of Elda Citoni, today a lucid lady of almost 89 years, who told PáginaI12 about that painful experience.
With five children, four girls and one boy, Elda’s mother, who was very far-sighted, obtained a convent where the four daughters were housed during the nine months of Nazi occupation of Rome. Elda’s mother, father and brother, always in Rome, changed the place where they took refuge at least 12 or 13 times.
“My mother’s cousin called us on the phone to warn us that the Germans were taking the Jews. In previous days, my mother had been busy looking for shelter for us, the four daughters of 5, 8, 12 and just over 15 years old. She finally found a convent that was in Monte Mario (not far from the Vatican, ed.). The seven of us went on a tram there. My brother couldn’t be there because it was an all-girls school. It was an elementary school so we, the little ones, studied there. My older sisters studied on their own. My parents and my brother, who was almost 15 years old, went around the city to find different shelters. Our parents made us change the last name of each of the family. Only my youngest sister, being only 5 years old, sometimes didn’t remember which one she was. The new last name was Moroni, but she said Citoni. And when she didn’t remember the teacher she would challenge her. Telling all this like this doesn’t seem like anything. But instead it was something terrifying. “I was very sensitive, very shy, I suffered a lot from not seeing my family for so long,” Elda said.
Rome suffered a terrible bombing in July 1943 by the Allies who wanted to weaken the fascism of Benito Mussolini. The bombs fell in the San Lorenzo neighborhood but then also in other locations near the city, such as the Ciampino airport and the Guidonia airfield. It is estimated that more than 1,500 people died. And these tremendous events, which preceded the Nazi invasion, also caused a lot of suffering and pain to the city’s inhabitants. “During the bombings we escaped to the basement of the building where we lived. When we were in the convent there were no more bombings but we felt the sirens and saw the planes passing by,” he said. In 1957 Elda married Adriano Castelnuovo. They had three children and she was widowed. One of her children lives today in Israel with his family.
-What would you say to today’s young people after having lived these tremendous experiences?
-That humanity is not a good humanity, that there is a lot of evil in the world and we must always be attentive. I recommend that you always be very attentive.
-Is it important to remember the past?
-Yes, it is important to remember so as not to repeat the same mistakes. It’s very important.
Events
After the recent attacks in France and Brussels by Islamic terrorists, the climate of insecurity and prevention measures are spreading throughout Europe. In Rome you can hear the sirens of police cars racing through the streets and you can see army helicopters flying through the skies.
Despite everything, this week, numerous events have been organized in the Italian capital to remember the Jewish raking of 1943.
Among them, an exhibition at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, the municipality’s museum, “I sommersi. Roma 16 ottobre 1943” (The Submerged, Rome October 16, 1943). The exhibition, very moving, brings together memories of the families who disappeared at that time, children’s toys and drawings, jewelry, documents, diary texts, certifications from Roman authorities of the time, photographs.
“80 years after the rounding up of the Jews of Rome, we have felt the duty to carry out an exercise in collective memory about this day of horror, about its causes and its consequences,” said the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, a member of the Democratic Party ( center left), when opening the exhibition. “Rome cannot and does not want to forget that abominable fact,” he concluded.
“80 years have passed but the memory is still alive and the wound has not healed. Our Community cannot and does not want to forget the suffering that these events caused then and for entire successive generations of Jews,” said Victor Fadlun, president of the Jewish Community of Rome.
In fact, in order not to forget, a week of events titled “We remember the past because we are interested in the future” has been organized. These are screenings of allusive films, debates in schools and universities, walks on foot through the different places that remember those moments in Rome, conferences on the subject at different universities in the capital, a memory march, plays and a official commemoration ceremony attended, among others, by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, and the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni.
#Elda #Citoni #survivor #Nazism #remember #avoid #making #mistakes #years #Hitlers #troops #Jews #Rome