JEWS, ITALIANS,BOOKS AND A SPARROW

Some weeks back my good friend on FB Stephen Sparrow from Christchurch New Zealand, recommended to me "A Thread of Grace" by Mary Doria Russell. I was able to secure it via Audiobook from Audible.Com and to have it accompany me on my daily Rehab. Walk for some days.  I am very grateful to Stephen for the recommendation, because the book itself is a very worthwhile, well-researched fictionalised account of real events. 

But that is not the only reason I found it so satisfying. In fact it cross- referenced loosely with another book (actually two books) which were given to me in Audiobook format by my Brother -in - Law. The books are "The Winds of War " and "War and Remembrance" both by Herman Wouk (best known perhaps for writing "The Caine Mutiny" made into a fine film starring Humphrey Bogart, Fred MacMurray and Van Johnson). 

To further enhance the experience, it also cross-referenced well with the grand novel "The Red Horse" by Eugenio Corti published some years back by Ignatius Press and which I read in hard copy back in the day.

" A Thread of Grace" is the beautifully told story of several Jews who find themselves moved, under the threat of Nazi persecution, to escape firstly to France, then to Italy and the tale unfolds as various Italian Catholic families and groups including Dioceses, Convents and Parish Priests and Partisan groups, spirit them along and hide them in mountain valleys, in convents, in caves - wherever they can be made safe from the Fascist Regime at first and later from the invading , and later retreating Nazis. The fact that the author's research has been so thorough, enables her to base all the events on actual happenings in that time of great struggle. I would recommend this book without reservation. It is beautifully written and the story sensitively told without mere sentimentality. The author is a self-proclaimed convert to Judaism. ( I have never been convinced of the validity of such a process - how can one elect to become a member of a racial group of "Chosen People"?). 

"The Winds of War " and "War and Remembrance" are   superficially very American  - the story of an American Naval Family and their lives in the lead up to and during World War II. But the Jewish Author  Herman Wouk has a lot more in mind as he sets about  unfolding his truly ambitious epic tale. For the two novels allow him a very broad canvas upon which he displays several things simultaneously. Yes, there is the story of the American Naval family, whose patriarch "Pug" Henry rises to Admiral status via a brilliant career and significant dealings with world leaders.  But we pretty soon begin to realise that the Henry family are really the backdrop to Wouk's main effort to give his view of World War II, and an alternative view of it as well, via a fictitious German General's Commentaries.  And in the very foreground is the plight of the Jews in Europe in the lead up to, and during the War. At the same time Wouk , through his characters makes devastating assessments of world leaders, including Franklin D.Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and the French military and political leadership of the time. Much of his analysis is only possible because of the perspectives that he chooses, and is not necessarily objectively correct.  But there is no doubting the brilliance of his work. In following the lives of Natalie Jastrow who marries into the Henry family, and her wealthy author Father who lives in Italy, and her efforts to escape Italy to re-join her husband, we see reflections of the same struggles so well told in "Thread of Grace" in a more restricted geographical area. I commend both of Wouk's novels to any reader for the quality of conception, writing and research. Much of what was involved, I  was familiar with, in military and naval history, as well as political history. In these areas he is really solid. As for the Jewish angle - he is much more obvious than Russell in "Thread of Grace" , but it is not suffocating.

I took these two photographs outside the Palazzo Communale facing onto Piazza Maggiore in the heart of Bologna in 2009.  Bologna has been a centre of Italian Left politics for decades. The photographs show some of the fallen Partisans.   The lower photo gives some statistics Partisan combatants  14,425 (2212 women), Partisans fallen 2,059, Partisans wounded 945, Patriots Arrested 6,543, Patriots executed as reprisals 2,350 Patriots Died in Nazi Prison Camps 829, Recognition of Military Valour 22 Gold Medals, 40 Silver Medals. (N.B. The relatively small number of wounded compared to the number of Fallen is testimony to the ferocity of the fighting.  I do not believe it could be taken for granted that all of the fallen were victims of the Nazis, but some victims of other Partisan groups of different political persuasion

"The Red Horse" by Eugenio Corti is a story of heroic proportions It is years since I read it, but the above novels refreshed my memories in a  number of ways. In this case, the novel gains its authentic character because the author was in fact one of the principal characters in real life. Needless to say the particular character is a very attractive personality as we read along . He is very active politically and when he is called-up, his military service takes him deep into Russia where events of the blackest horror take place. The book is extremely well written, characters are finely drawn and the tale is thoroughly engrossing. Along the way it recounts the complex stories of the Italian Partisan groups. It is a complicated situation. Many but not nearly all, were Communist , and the various groups were just as adept at fighting each other, as they were  fighting the Germans. The bitterness of this internicine strife was truly terrible and led to vicious post war vengeance being carried out. The book also brings out the peculiar character of Italian Communism which was a much less ruthless strain than was to be found in Northern Europe. Much of the responsibility for this lay with the leadership of the Party and the experience of Palmiro Togliatti  Leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927until his death in 1964. Togliatti, like so many other Communist sympathisers went to Russia before the war to get close to the authentic Communist spirit. He got a little too close for his comfort and, when the Revolution started consuming its own children, he found himself on one of the extermination lists and quickly did a runner back home to mother Italia! From then on, he talked the talk , but he and his followers were always careful where and how they walked.The result was a form of Communism that was big on rhetoric but not so big on ruthlessness. "The Red Horse" is another novel of heroic proportions, but the author never loses control and the whole is finely crafted, and reveals many things not known at all in the West generally, including the terrible fate of the huge numbers of Italians who fought in Russia during the War.  The Jews do not figure largely in this novel for it is telling another story, but , in its extensive coverage of the Partisans it is even more revealing than Russell's book. Again, this is a book well worth reading, to complete one's understanding of wartime and post War Italy.

To sum it all up, my thanks to Stephen Sparrow for introducing me to " A Thread of Grace" for its own value, and also inadvertently causing me to complete and deepen my knowledge of the Italian experience of World War II .