Robert Gordon: The Holocaust in Italian Culture at Kings Place

Fascist Italy was the model for Nazi Germany, and Mussolini Hitler’s prime World War Two ally. Italy was a theatre of war and a victim of Nazi persecution after 1943 as resistance, collaboration and civil war raged. Many thousands were deported to concentration camps across Europe. But how did Italy deal with unresolved questions about the Holocaust? After the war, Italian culture produced a vast array of stories, images, and debate through which it sought to come to terms with what had happened. Looking at examples from literature and film, from Primo Levi and Natalia Ginzburg to Francesco Rosi and Roberto Benigni and the capital city Rome itself, Robert Gordon explores how Italian culture has confronted, or failed to confront, the darkest moment of 20th century history.