Magazine

Balbo Drive in Chicago and Jews in Italy, 1938-1945

Mr "Anonymous" (but WHY keep "anonymity"?!), just some afterthoughts at a distance of 3-4 months. Long delay, but to the specific point. Thanks for the information about Denmark and its 99% survival of Jews: it confirms the Danes are highly civilized people. It is also true that the Jews in Denmark numbered about 8,000, in Italy 40,000: now, it's surely easier to protect and shelter 8,000 than 40,000, isn't it? In Rabbi David Dalin's estimate, 80-85 percent of Italian Jews were spared and/or subtracted from elimination. There were about 40,000 Jews in Italy at that time, 80-85 percent survivors means between 32,000-34,000. It can be said, methinks, not bad at all - matter of fact, excellent - for a country the German occupation of which was much fiercer than in Denmark (we were NOT under a "model protectorate" régime: we were "occupied" by a disapponted (and very sore) former ally: period). Count in the 6-7000 of them who were deported by the Germans to their "vacation resorts" after the notorious round-up in Roma in October 1943, count the ones who were shot by the Germans right here in Italy, THERE is almost the full number "40,000". Italians (troops or even fascist police) did NOT shoot or deport Jews. Nothing like in France, Belgium, Holland (this last one, with Poland) the nation where collaborationists were more rampant and the reporting of rthe whereabouts of Jews, single or as whole families, had gotten to be almost a national sport. Any thought on WHY Denmark had that high rate of success in comparison with other nazi-occupied countries? There are two obvious reasons, one historical and one geographical. Historical: Denmark was under a "model protectorate", one might say a "privileged occupation" and "was spared many of the difficulties other areas of Europe suffered" (Wikipedia); the occupation of other European countries, Italy included, was of a rather harsher type. In the.specific case of Italy, there was also the resentment of Germans for having quit them (see the several massacres of civilians carried out in Italy, unheard of in Denmark). Geographical: it can be seen in any atlas that the vicinity of Denmark with then neutral Sweden greatly facilitated the evacuation by boat of Jews. Thus, the Danes did not have to keep the Jews on their hands, immediately and directly: if a certain expression can be used, they could "get rid of them", so as not to have to justify a hot presence in a certain house or hide-out. Mind you, a perfectly valid and decent way to do it, no criticism nor malice intended: but undoubtedly, not available to any other country. The distance over the sea between the two countries is minimal, less than half the narrowest point of the English channel. It's even less, if all the boat has to traverse is the distance between the Danish Archipelago to the Swedish coast. The 2 nations so close, that it has been possible (in 2000) to build a bridge connecting them (Malmoe-Oeversund bridge, total length (including the inland approaches) 16 km = 10 mi.; central spam shorter than the Verrazzano's in NYC). The closest point they could have been taken to from Italy by boat, would have been across the 145 km (90 miles) of the Stretto di Sicilia to Northern Africa - where, if I'm not mistaken, a war was then raging and which could not be considered therefore as a very safe haven. We Italians used to host the Jews, feed and clothe them (in times of severe rationing), in our own houses (or in shelters the property of which could be easily assessed) for the whole duration of the German occupation. Don't you think these two factors should be kept in consideration? Better to realize that not everything can be reduced to numbers, percentages and statistics. Matter of fact, it's rather ridiculous. All the above confirms that, at least from the point of view of the treatment of Jews during those tragic years, we Italians really were "brava gente". We were also from other viewpoints, but I'll not go on them - although, I could, if nothing else to belie certain renegade Italian asses with academic "distinguished" degrees. They make me puke.

Balbo Drive brou-ha-ha

There is a hilarious bit in this text by the Distinguished Professor (BTW, wasn’t “history” mentioned in there at some time – “Modern European”, if I remember well?): he charges me with a supposition (mark you, just a supposition) that I’d get “outraged” (WHAT a term! What an intensity of feelings!) at learning that “one of the signers of the anti-Balbo petition, Deidre N. McCloskey (born Donald McCloskey) is a transgendered person, surely confirming the good doctor’s opinion that we in academia are all somehow politically, culturally and sexually beyond the pale.” “Outrage”, Mr Distinguished Professor??!!! But no, rest assured: at the most, “ironic amusement”. This is a ridiculous speculation on something the writer himself considers as a mere “possibility”. Really, I couldn’t give a lesser d**n about the anatomical and/or physiological sexual attributes, sexual orientations, inclinations and proclivities of anyone in that bunch, in its whole or in one of them. I am quite satisfied with mine, thank you, and I keep them; I don’t belong to the world of trans-genders, trans-sex, and viados: it’s simply not my scene. If the matter is one of “pales”, that person knows where he/she can shove up his/hers… This has been a process to a mere lucubration of a possibility. Please don’t mind, Mr Distinguished Professor, if I call you this way: it’s a bit of tit-for-tat for that ironic “good doctor” you used on me. You are not the first one, there was another H-Itam-er who did that. He, too, used to pose as a “scholar of history” (“independent”, he would specify). Who knows what authorizes all these “experts of history”, with or without academic qualifications, to look down their noses at someone who’s not in the same field. It just so happens, I received a good classical education, in history too; my profession taught me to carry out research AND, nowadays, Internet is available. So, I am not very easy to be fooled, as some “initiated”, esoteric happy goose of a priestess/prophetess can be. This text I’m commenting a detail of here is an amass of ludicrous nonsense. It would be too long to pick out all the ridiculous details: I’ve tried it analytically and, frankly, it comes to SEVEN pages-plus: much too long to inflict on anybody. The “Balbo Drive” name should be kept as the memory of a very valiant aviator who brought to the USA, in those times, a sign of friendship; and that there undoubtedly are in the vast USA plenty of streets, avenues, boulevards, places, etc. to be named after Italians, e.g. Fermi, Toscanini, Meucci, Faggin, > ∞ - in the hope this won’t find the opposition of a bunch of vociferous, anti-Italian racist egghead professors (term originally not mine, Distinguished Professor, read well…)

Survival of Jews

Mr "Anonymous" (but WHY keep "anonymity"?!): thanks for the information about Denmark and its 99% survival of Jews: it confirms the Danes are highly civilized people. It is also true that the Jews in Denmark numbered about 8,000, in Italy 40,000: now, it's surely easier to protect and shelter 8,000 than 40,000, isn't it? In Rabbi David Dalin's estimate, 80-85 percent of Italian Jews were spared and/or subtracted from elimination. Any thought on WHY Denmark had this high rate of success in comparison with other nazi-occupied countries? There are two reasons, one historical and one geographical. Historical: Denmark was under a "model protectorate", one might say a "privileged occupation" and "was spared many of the difficulties other areas of Europe suffered" (Wikipedia); the occupation of other European countries, Italy included, was of a rather harsher type. Geographical: it can be seen in any atlas that the vicinity of Denmark with then neutral Sweden greatly facilitated the evacuation by boat of Jews. Thus, the Danes did not have to keep the Jews on their hands, immediately and directly: if a certain expression can be used, they could "get rid of them", so as not to have to justify a hot presence in a certain house or hide-out. Mind you, a perfectly valid and decent way to do it, no criticism nor malice intended: but undoubtedly, not available to any other country. The distance over the sea between the two countries is minimal, less than half the narrowest point of the English channel. It's even less, if all the boat has to traverse is the distance between the Danish Archipelago to the Swedish coast. The 2 nations so close, that it has been possible (in 2000) to build a bridge connecting them (Malmoe-Oeversund bridge, total length (including the inland approaches) 16 km = 10 mi.; central spam of the bridge, shorter than the Verrazzano's in NYC). The closest point they could have been taken to from Italy by boat, would have been across the 145 km (90 miles) of the Stretto di Sicilia to Northern Africa - where, if I'm not mistaken, a war was then raging over there, and which could not be considered therefore as a very safe haven. We Italians used to host the Jews, feed and clothe them (in times of severe rationing), in our own houses (or in shelters the property of which could be easily assessed) for the whole duration of the German occupation. Don't you think these two factors shoukld be kept in consideration? Better to realize that not everything can be reduced to numbers, percentages and statistics. Matter of fact, itr's rather ridiculous. Very truly,

Prospero

Balbo

As one whose family came from Liguria and who fought in the American forces against fascism in World War II and who lives in a city that named its airport after the odious pro-fascist Charles Lindbergh, I support the argument of renaming any street in Chicago from Italo Balbo to most anything else, especially after the esteemed Enrico Fermi.

Balbo was a henchman and showpiece for a murderous regime that regarded democratic values held by the USA as contemptible. Balbo helped crush liberalism in post World War I Italy and replace it with a murderous regime that called Nazi Germany an ally and shared its gamble for world conquest at the expense of European and other peoples those nations tried to enslave. It does no good for any American to celebrate the dedicated enemy of this nation by naming anything of value for him, his actions or the ideals for which he struggled. Balbo ought properly to be regarded as much of an enemy to the United States as Stalin, Jefferson Davis and Osama bin Laden were.

Americans who respect their country's ideals ought to be ashamed of this street and their predecessors' gullibility that allowed such a mistake in good judgement. Balbo's flight was a triumph of his country's flawed doctrine and the naming of a street for him by Chicagoans only made that ugly victory worse---and embarrassing for the rest of us who knew the meaning of history. Celebrating fascists celebrates what they stood for and what they stood for was what we fought a war against to keep democracy alive. No one with any conscience or sense of dignity, democracy or love of this nation should waste time or thought on Mussolini's second banana, Balbo. Surely, we can do better than that.

Jews in Italy, WW-2

If "Jews in Italy had the second highest survival rate in Europe", may we be told WHERE was the HIGHEST? The first? Thank you. Giorgio Iraci

Balbo Dr.

Here is a copy of a letter that I wrote to the Chicago Trib about a week ago--so far no response or publication.

The very idea of changing the names of streets or anything else in Chicago based on a moral or political litmus test is preposterous. I'm sure that we could rustle up a noisy minority to advocate changing just about any street name---Washington and Jefferson were slaveholders, just about every great man that we know of cheated on his wife, Dan Ryan was a political hack. Even the Tribune's Col. McCormick was a reprehensible isolationist! Using the litmus test that the Tribune editorial suggested would leave us with streets named only after numbers, letters and trees. Doesn’t the Editorial Board have any better things to do with its time?

Those who seek to change the name of Balbo Drive (including distinguished history professors) insist on reading history backward. Naming of the street commemorated a great event in Chicago history---the unprecedented trans-Atlantic flight of a squadron of airplanes to Chicago's Century of Progress Fair. It was like an astronaut landing on the moon. Moreover, it was flat out the proudest single day in the history of Chicago Italian Americans.

As you point out in the editorial, Balbo and his crew were the toast of the town---objects of admiration by the media, powerful political figures (including the president, the mayor and the governor), aviators, as well as humble immigrants. Read the Trib of that era more widely and you will find that Mussolini and Italian Fascism were praised by Col. McCormick and his crew in addition to the majority of public opinion.

The fact that 8 years later the Italian government became an enemy of the US and that Balbo (the most pro-American in Mussolini's administration) was sent to pursue his nation’s wrong-headed foreign policy, should not blind us to the momentus event commemorated by the street name. Moreover, we can be reminded by the street name that life is complicated---today's hero might play a very different role as time goes by.

Dominic Candeloro, Author of Chicago's Italians: Immigrants, Ethnics, Americans

La speranza non muore mai.

Stan, your statement ("What I am asking for — what I am pleading for — is a more nuanced understanding of history.") is asking for more than "nuance"; you are asking for a paradigm shift in the thinking of people who tend toward essentialism and, when finding themselves in disagreement with others, engage in denigration and dismissal. Such acts are, further still, often accompanied by inarticulate, grammatically incorrect articulations. Nonetheless, I second your plea, basically because "la speranza non muore mai."