With a wistful look, he told me while he couldn’t identify this specific pan, he did know about its history. They were called ‘Patelnyes’, used to cook food over open fires, and almost all the families in the Jewish Ghetto had at least one, two if they kept a kosher home. The majority took them with them when they were rounded up for deportation by the Nazis beginning in the fall of 1943, and were told they were to be relocated to a safe place outside the city. Their suitcases and other belongings were to be left on the train station platform and would be later forwarded to them, which of course never happened. Personal belongings were sorted by concentration camp inmates and looted of anything valuable, the rest destroyed and burned as trash. The patelnyes were discarded as being worthless and given the circumstances their owners were in, they were.
When Germany occupied northern and central Italy in early September 1943, there were approximately 12,000 Jews living in Rome and the occupiers sought to include them in the “Final Solution“. German and Italian fascists began an efficient campaign against Jews, capturing many and sending them to the camps. The commander of the German security police in Rome levied a ransom on the local Jewish Community, demanding over 110 pounds of gold in exchange for their safety. Despite the ransom being delivered Jews were seized by the SS and taken to a military college in the centre of Rome that was less than 100 steps away from the Vatican. The Pope refused to comment or say anything to save the Jews. That was the silence of the church. After several days, they were deported to the Auschwitz – Birkenau killing center. Few returned.
Jews, Muslims and other minorities were brought to train stations where the freight trains waited. Families were shoved into the freight cars at gunpoint, forcibly torn apart, not allowed to travel together, and had no idea where they were being taken. They travelled for days with no food, no toilets, little air. Many of them died, and at each stop, soldiers would drag the dead bodies out and leave them in the ditches by the side of the railroad tracks. The trains in effect had become moving coffins. In total over 9000 Jews were sent to the camps with less than 10% surviving. Haim’s voice began to quiver and it was several minutes before he could continue.
Another phenomenon that occurred was ordinary Italians denouncing their Jewish neighbours or coworkers by reporting purported violations of a race law to the police. Propaganda that depicted Jews as less than human ramped up and many survivors wrote in their memoirs instances of being slapped while walking in the streets and their children being bullied. That was the least of it. Store owners were forced to get down on their knees and use toothbrushes to scrub the sidewalks. These sadistic savages felt beatings were insufficient when compared to humiliation.
