THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
World War II 'Race for Rome'
By PAUL MASSERMAN
"The Race for Rome" is a
gripping historical work
describing one of the key
campaigns of World War II.
On June 4, 1944, two days
before D-Day the Allied
Armies liberated Rome.
However, the accomplish-
ment was overshadowed by
the greater impetus of the
landing in Normady, on
June 6, which dominated
the headlines and the his-
ma tory books.
Dan Kurzman spent three
W years gathering material for
this Doubleday book, which
reads like a novel. He inter-
viewed more than 800 peo-
ple, read 500 books and
studied thousands of docu-
ments and he came up with
the following revelations:
• The details of Hitler's
plot to kidnap Pope Pius
XII, and to take over the
Vatican;
• Hitler's blackmail of
the Pope which caused him
to keep silent about the de-
portation and destruction of
many of Rome's Jews;
• The German plan to de-
stroy Rome, deport its peo-
ple and turn the city over to
the Communists.
The book is devoted (with
many, many disgressions)
to the rivalry and "the race
within a race" for Rome be-
tween General Mark Clark.
commander of the Ameri-
can Armies; Sir Harold Al-
exander, the British general
who commandered the 15th
Army Group and the
French commander, Gen-
eral Alphonse Juin, each
trying to be first to enter
the Holy City.
A
Many other personali-
ties fill the book, including
Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli,
who converted to Catholi-
cism; SS General Karl
Wolff; Princess Enza Pig-
natelli Aragona; Baron
von Weiszacker, German
envoy to the Vatican; Pope
Pius XII; SS Lieutenant
Colonel Herbert Kappler,
the Gestapo chief in Rome;
the OSS spy Peter Tomp-
kins and many others.
The final race for Rome
took less than four weeks —
from May 11 to June 4 —
but Kurzman depicts the en-
tire nine-month campaign,
which began with the Allied
landing in Italy in ,Septem-
ber, 1943. The route from
the boot of Italy was con-
tested fiercely at Salerno,
the Volturno, the Rapidan,
Cassino and at the Anzio
eachhead.
Kurzman devotes a chap-
ter to the Jews of Rome,
who numbered about 8,000.
The author quotes Rabbi
Zolli as claiming that he
tried to warn the Jewish
leaders of the Roman com-
munity that there would be
a bloodbath.
Many of the rich Jews left
Rome, but the poor re-
mained. Rabbi Zolli was
among those who hid, and
_ was removed from his post.
On Sept. 26, 1944, a little
more than two weeks after
the Germans had taken
Rome Lt. Col. Kappler
called in the Jewish leaders
and demanded a ransom of
50 kilos of gold. (Kappler
claimed he did this in order
to avert the planned expul-
sion and destruction of the
Jews to prove to Heinrich
Himmler that Jews could be
useful as a source of loot).
The gold was never used
by the Nazis and was dis-
covered stored away in an
office. The gold was col-
lected by the Jewish com-
munity itself, even though
the Vatican had agreed to
lend gold.
Meanwhile, the Nazis had
raided the Jewish com-
munal offices and seized
lists containing the names
of all the affiliated Jews in
Rome. The Jews breathed
more easily after the ran-
som was paid.
However, on Oct. 16, 1944,
the Nazis staged a sudden
roundup. The Vatican re-
mained silent as more than
2,000 Jews were loaded in
freight cars and shipped to
Auschwitz, where within
less than two weeks they
were incinerated.
Zolli was reinstated when
the Allies reconquered the
city but the Jewish commu-
nity was bitterly split and
Zolli's assistant, Rabbi
David Pancieri, pulled him
from his seat on the pulpit
and. declared that it no
longer belonged to him.
-Zolli then began secretly
to take Catholic instruc-
tion while remaining in his
position as chief rabbi of
Rome.
On Feb. 13, 1945, Israel
Zolli and his wife received
the sacrament of baptism.
Jews were shocked at first,
but his conversion seemed to
unite the Jewish community
to reaffirm its faith.
Zolli changed his first
name from Israel to "Eu-
genio" in honor of the Pope
and took a job at a small sal-
Booklet Lists Jewish Patriots
NEW YORK — A booklet
citing Jewish patriots in
American history has just
been published here by the
Joseph Jacobs Organization,
sponsored by Maxwell
House Coffee. The booklet is
published in commemora-
tion of the Bicentennial.
The 19-page booklet be-
gins with a brief description
of the arrival of the first
known Jewish settler in the
U.S., Jacob Barsimson, who
arrived here in 1654. Bar-
simson won several conces-
sions for Jews from the then
governor, Peter- Stuyvesant.
Also included is the weal-
thy Touro family, which is
memorialized by the Touro
Synagogue in Newport, R.I.,
the oldest existing syn-
agogue in the U.S.
Among the notables in-
cluded in the booklet are
Uriah P. Levy, Judah P.
Benjamin and Ernestine
L. Rose, one of the 19th
Century's most progres-
sive women.
For copies of the booklet,
at 50 cents each, write Jew-
ish Patriots, Box 4488
Grand Central Station, New
York, N.Y. 10017.
ary in the Vatican Library.
Some say that he helped to
influence the revision of cer-
tain passages in the New
Testament that had re-
flected unfavorably on the
Jews. Zolli died in 1956 a
"lonely and impoverished
man."
Kurzman, a former
Washington Post corre-
spondent, is an award win-
ning journalist and the au-
thor of four widely
acclaimed books, including
"Genesis 1948," the brilliant
account of Israel's War of
Independence, which be-
came a best seller.
In "The Race for
Rome", he has uncovered
many facts hitherto unrev-
ealed. He interweaves the
threads of panic, terror
and desperation inside
Rome with vivid glimpses
of the final Allied drive for
the city, which in some
cases had a serio-comic as-
pect. The Americans won
the race.
There are so many char-
acters that the narrative
sometimes becomes con-
fused, and the chronology
becomes blurred. However,
the virtues of the book far
outweigh the faults. Kurz-
man makes history live.
"The Race for Rome" is an
unforgettable experience for
the reader.
Jewish Law School Plans Fall Opening
NEW YORK — The trou-
bled Touro Law School, ded-
icated to the study of Jewish
Law, has announced that it
will open its doors in the fall
to an initial class of 65, plus
15 graduate students.
Yale Prof. Eugene V. Ros-
tow, Touro's director of
planning, said the school
was originally scheduled to
open at the time of the out-
break of the Yom Kippur
War in 1973.
A later set-back was the
withdrawal of a multi-mil-
lion dollar pledge by bene-
factor Samuel H. Wang,
because Touro's chairman,
Eugene Hollander, was in-
volved in a nursing home
scandal in New York.
Rostow announced that
the school had acquired
other funds, but was going
ahead with a law suit
against Wang to obtain the
funds he pledged.
Friday, March 28, 1975 13
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