Remembrance and Renewal

This richly illustrated volume traces the history of five of the author's ancestral families in Jewish Italy. One of those families traces its lineage back to Rome at the time of the Caesars, three to Spain in the 1400s, and one to 15th century Hungary. During the Renaissance, these families were all bankers and diplomats serving clients ranging from royalty, to local governments, international merchants and regional agricultural and commercial interests. As the international and economic policies of the independent Duchy of Savoy evolved, so did the occupations and personal fortunes of these families. At various times, they became manufacturers, wholesale tradesmen, property investors, and, beginning in the mid-1800s, professors, doctors, and lawyers. During this 500-year time span they had periods of great prosperity and social importance, and other periods in which they were forced to live in segregated ghettos walled off from the rest of the local towns and cities in which they lived, and whose gates were locked from sundown to dawn. Their ghettoes were first opened when Italy was occupied by Napoleon's army, reestablished after the fall of Napoleon and opened a second time in 1848. The book ends with the emigration of the author's immediate family from Italy to Switzerland and France in 1939, and from France to America in 1940. It also discusses how most of those who remained behind in Italy survived the Fascist Racial Laws and Nazi occupation of their homeland.