The Secret Inquisition

The Untold Story of Mussolini, the Vatican, and Fascist Italy's War on the Jews
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-0-19-793762-4
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Based on never-before-examined Fascist and Vatican archives, a shocking, groundbreaking history of Italy's 1938 racial laws and the desperate measures thousands of Jewish families took to save themselves before and during World War II

In 1938, Benito Mussolini shocked Italy and the world by announcing a campaign against the country's small but ancient Jewish minority. As an ally of Hitler and the Nazi regime, Mussolini implemented strict "race laws," requiring Jews to register their existence, while throwing all Jewish children out of the country's school and many of the adults out of their jobs. What followed, David I. Kertzer argues, was nothing short of a twentieth century inquisition as the Fascist authorities, often aided by the Vatican, determined who was and was not subject to persecution and, ultimately, arrest and deportation to Europe's death camps. These designations, however, were often arbitrary, bureaucratic, and contradictory, leading many Jews to apply to change their identities and claim Christian, "Aryan" status in a desperate attempt to save their families and themselves.

Based on thousands of previously unexamined archival files, The Secret Inquisition focuses on eleven stunning, dramatic cases, including Mussolini's longtime Jewish lover, Margherita Sarfatti; Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi and his Jewish wife; a young man who befriends Primo Levi at Auschwitz; and the pope's dentist, who misguidedly believed his closeness to the Vatican and Mussolini's inner circle would protect him.

In this unprecedented work, Kertzer, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his history of the rise of fascism in Italy, brings his subjects' untold stories to life, shining a light on their hopes, fears, and human dignity, while reminding us of the dangers of fascism and the inevitable debasement of life under dictatorship, lessons all too relevant for today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kertzer, David

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Timeline

- Foreword

- Prologue

- 1: Persecution

- 2: Nobel

- 3: The Dictator and the King

- 4: Beatrice

- 5: Mussolini's Lover

- 6: The General

- 7: The Pope's Dentist

- 8: The Intellectual

- 9: The Spy

- 10: The Suicide

- 11: The Fascist Professor

- 12: Father and Son

- 13: Changing Race

- 14: Postscript: The Trial of Antonio Le Pera

- Acknowledgments

- Archival Sources and Abbreviations

- Notes

Über Autor(innen)

David I. Kertzer is Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science and professor of anthropology and Italian studies at Brown University, where he served as provost from 2006 to 2011. He is the author of twelve books, including The Pope and Mussolini, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the American Historical Association prize for best book on Italian history, and The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997. He has twice been awarded the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies for the best book on Italian history and in 2005 was elected to membership in the American Association of Arts and Sciences. He and his wife, Susan, live in Providence, Rhode Island.