Rome’s ghetto; a house; and a date: 16 October 1943“In reality all houses are cemeteries, as each generation succeeds the next. But it is also true that not every house had so many of its inhabitants taken away without warning, at dawn one day in October, jostled forward by German rifles, set down on the path to death.”
The central character in this novel is the House, with its columns, its thick walls, and its unexpected detours. It is here that on 16 October 1943, in the heart of the Roman ghetto at number 13 Via del Portico di Ottavia, the Nazis arrest more than 40 people (almost half of the house’s inhabitants). Believing that women and children will be spared, a number of men of working age have already succeeded in escaping. Because of this the victims will include the elderly, women and children.
This book presents the results of Foa’s research into the historical data and archives, but also of the memories of those who lived nearby, be they friends, neighbours or relatives. The house’s occupants are restored to life, as Foa reconstructs their stories and personal fate (salvation or death) in the terrible days of the Nazi occupation. A moving and engrossing account of the deportation of the Jews in Rome’s ghetto from the perspective of a House which, situated at the centre of a grid of places, shops and people, in addition to being the theatre of the persecuted, was also the theatre of the persecutors, of the Italians involved in the looting, and of German accomplices and spies.