on arrival at the capitoline museums i was abruptly told in the biglietteria that the exhibition did not in fact finish on the 19th february as a number of official art websites and magazines had told me (sorry, of course...who would trust them), but that it had finished on the 12th. sunday. just gone. two. days. ago. bitter with cold and anger, i stormed out of the campidoglio and down michelangelo's steps-having never appreciated them less-and headed to find the nearest copy of vedere a roma. apart from spitting at the fact that this giornale also told me that the exhibition of leonardo and michelangelo finished on the 19th february, i noticed an exhibition on i ghetti nazisti and knew that was where i was headed. having made the decision to study classical civilisation over my own at the age of 16, i have always been starved of (and thus highly interested in) a knowledge of modern history. for this reason, this post is not going to be a long one (as you can see i have already spent a whole paragraph managing to talk about artists of the renaissance), but i would like to share with you all how much of an impact this exhibition had on ignorant old me.
not only does my limited knowledge of the second world war impair this article, but the fact that the exhibition was entirely conducted in italian meant that my miniature minute tiny pocket-size dictionary and i had a few difficulties making out a fair amount of the information given. for me, being the visualista that i am, it was the photos, video footage and collection of items that made the big impression.
for those of you who are as ignorant as i, the term ghetto is used for a section in a city which is inhabited by a particular group of people who are separated from the surrounding society for legal, social or economic issues. the 'ghetti' that this exhibition refers to are those of the jews during the second world war which were set up by the nazis in the cities of occupied eastern europe. these are not to be confused with the ghetto that we have in rome, which was created earlier in the 16th century under pope paul iv in order to segregate the jews from the 'purer' christians; the irony lying in the fact that the former were here long before the latter. but this overlap of ideology between the 16th century popes (who at the time seemed to be more political leaders than spiritual ones) and the 20th century german government, although perhaps a futile observation, is one i find interesting and worth a mention.
we are constantly reminded of the horrors that took place in the nazi concentration camps through film, books, photographs and indeed survivors, but what i certainly hadn't realised was the extent to which these things had started to happen already in the ghettos beforehand. an aerial view of auschwitz emphasised the size of these hellish institutions and it seemed to me that these ghettos were simply an 'inbetween stage' whilst the camps were meticulously created by these nazi savages.
before murdering 1.6 million jews at the polish concentration camps in 1942, the nazis imposed famine, maltreatment, humiliation and an extremely low quality of life upon those inhabiting the ghettos in the country. the physical effects of their treatment can quite clearly be seen from the distressing photo below. i pondered over whether to include this image in the article, but decided that it had been included in the exhibition for people to see and so i was to do the same thing. it is important for the world to recognise and understand what these victims suffered. when we refer to 'the holocaust' we must remember that within the broad term, there were millions and millions of individual people involved. although it is impossible to know and understand each and every one of their stories, we must remember as many as we can.
this photograph instilled me with fear, pain, grief and most notably, intense anger. the nonchalant expression on the nazi's face as he roughly handles the skeletal corpse of a woman is disgusting and inhumane. the same goes for the nazis in the image below. it shows five of them laughing heartily as they abuse a jewish man lying in the street. for me, not in any way intending to belittle the physical action taken upon the jews, it is the mental act of humiliation that distresses me the most. for all we know, the man in this photo may have been an expert in his professional field, a father whose children looked up to him, or simply a member of the jewish community; but here he is lying beneath a group of men who ignorantly believe that they are superior to him and have the right to treat him as they wish. the public embarrassment of being placed in these ghettos and being physically tagged as a 'jude' would have been unbearably humiliating and damaging to one's self-worth. it is this helplessness and subjugation of innocent and perfectly able human beings that i cannot fathom.
i found it difficult to swallow the meagre size of the last section on jewish resistance and survivors. stupidly expecting more of a happy ending to my visit, the exhibition finishes this final section almost as soon as it starts; accurately implying that although resistance was achieved and people did survive, it cannot be compared to all that had gone before.
i feel words do not do this period of history and my reaction to it any justice, hence i am keeping this entry particularly short. but i can assure you that your reaction will be much the same as mine (and a little more informed if you can speak half decent italian), but although i have tried to articulate it as best is possible, you need to place yourself into this gallery space to feel what i felt this morning.
