of the whole Axis was at hand. In Nice, a young refugee recorded that 26 July 1943 ‘was a night of delirium. People celebrated the event as though it was 14 July [Bastille Day, when the French celebrate the storming of the prison-fortress in Paris], the cafés remained open all night. It seemed that the nightmare was nearing an end and the war would be over any moment.’ 4
Over the following few days in early August 1943, more sober counsels prevailed. The Italians had been the bulwark between the Jewish communities and the combined anti-Semitic forces of the Vichy French and the Germans in the interlocking and overlapping administration of the Italian zone. Now it was said that the Italians would withdraw and leave the Jews to fend for themselves. In the first few hours of his administration Badoglio had tactfully declared that ‘The war continues on the side of our Germanic ally.’ 5 Who knew how long this might last?
On 15 August 1944, a deal had been struck in Bolzano between Generals Rommel and Gloria, between the German and Italian forces. The Regio Esercito would cede the territory to the west of the Var and Tinée rivers to the Germans and continue to hold theAlpine foothills and the Alpes-Maritimes themselves to the east. This meant not much more than a small enclave around Nice itself and was obviously a fragile, temporary arrangement, and from Annecy and Megève in the north to Saint-Martin-Vésubie and Nice in the south there was growing panic. Those Jews who had prospects of legally entering neighbouring Italy or Switzerland desperately sought the necessary papers to do so. Those without such hopes made other arrangements. In Saint- Martin-Vésubie , the Alpine settlement high above Nice, the Movement of Zionist Youth defied the orders of the Italian authorities to stay within the confines of the town. It sent scouts eastwards from Saint-Martin up to explore the two high passes over into Italy, the 8,342-foot Col de Cerise and the 8,106-foot Col de Fenestre. How practicable were these tracks for the very young and very old? These were their escape routes should the need arise.
In Rome, there was also action. At the end of August 1943 a ministerial meeting took the decision that the Jews in the assigned residence settlements should be returned to the small Nice haven. Lospinoso was duly instructed to make the necessary arrangements. Some were to be taken by train, some by truck. Meanwhile, in Nice itself, the Comité d’Assistance aux Refugés had conceived an ambitious plan to rescue all 30,000 Jews in the Alps by chartering four ships –
Duilio, Giulio Cesare,
Saturnia
and
Vulcania
. This was the brainchild of one of the less sung heroes of the war, a fifty-eight-year-old Jewish banker called Angelo Donati. These ships would ferry the Jews from all the assigned residence communities from the port of Nice to mainland Italy, thence to Allied North Africa. Here they would be placed in US and British camps.
Not knowing that the armistice between Badoglio and the Allies had already been signed, during the course of the second week of September, Lospinoso’s Jews from the north – from Barcelonnette to Vence – set off. Many of them actually arrived in Nice on 8 September itself, returning – as they thought – to the Italian sanctuary. That evening they heard to their horrorEisenhower’s announcement of the armistice. They knew what it meant.
*
Within thirty-six hours of the broadcast – on 10 September 1943 – a commando unit of German security forces arrived in Nice. It was led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner. This brave fellow was the right-hand man of one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann: he who had set up the office for Jewish emigration in Vienna. The thirty-one-year-old Brunner had already distinguished himself in his merciless treatment of Jews in Salonika, Greece’s second city, and at the Paris holding camp at Drancy.
At 3.30 p.m. on the day of his
Over the following few days in early August 1943, more sober counsels prevailed. The Italians had been the bulwark between the Jewish communities and the combined anti-Semitic forces of the Vichy French and the Germans in the interlocking and overlapping administration of the Italian zone. Now it was said that the Italians would withdraw and leave the Jews to fend for themselves. In the first few hours of his administration Badoglio had tactfully declared that ‘The war continues on the side of our Germanic ally.’ 5 Who knew how long this might last?
On 15 August 1944, a deal had been struck in Bolzano between Generals Rommel and Gloria, between the German and Italian forces. The Regio Esercito would cede the territory to the west of the Var and Tinée rivers to the Germans and continue to hold theAlpine foothills and the Alpes-Maritimes themselves to the east. This meant not much more than a small enclave around Nice itself and was obviously a fragile, temporary arrangement, and from Annecy and Megève in the north to Saint-Martin-Vésubie and Nice in the south there was growing panic. Those Jews who had prospects of legally entering neighbouring Italy or Switzerland desperately sought the necessary papers to do so. Those without such hopes made other arrangements. In Saint- Martin-Vésubie , the Alpine settlement high above Nice, the Movement of Zionist Youth defied the orders of the Italian authorities to stay within the confines of the town. It sent scouts eastwards from Saint-Martin up to explore the two high passes over into Italy, the 8,342-foot Col de Cerise and the 8,106-foot Col de Fenestre. How practicable were these tracks for the very young and very old? These were their escape routes should the need arise.
In Rome, there was also action. At the end of August 1943 a ministerial meeting took the decision that the Jews in the assigned residence settlements should be returned to the small Nice haven. Lospinoso was duly instructed to make the necessary arrangements. Some were to be taken by train, some by truck. Meanwhile, in Nice itself, the Comité d’Assistance aux Refugés had conceived an ambitious plan to rescue all 30,000 Jews in the Alps by chartering four ships –
Duilio, Giulio Cesare,
Saturnia
and
Vulcania
. This was the brainchild of one of the less sung heroes of the war, a fifty-eight-year-old Jewish banker called Angelo Donati. These ships would ferry the Jews from all the assigned residence communities from the port of Nice to mainland Italy, thence to Allied North Africa. Here they would be placed in US and British camps.
Not knowing that the armistice between Badoglio and the Allies had already been signed, during the course of the second week of September, Lospinoso’s Jews from the north – from Barcelonnette to Vence – set off. Many of them actually arrived in Nice on 8 September itself, returning – as they thought – to the Italian sanctuary. That evening they heard to their horrorEisenhower’s announcement of the armistice. They knew what it meant.
*
Within thirty-six hours of the broadcast – on 10 September 1943 – a commando unit of German security forces arrived in Nice. It was led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner. This brave fellow was the right-hand man of one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann: he who had set up the office for Jewish emigration in Vienna. The thirty-one-year-old Brunner had already distinguished himself in his merciless treatment of Jews in Salonika, Greece’s second city, and at the Paris holding camp at Drancy.
At 3.30 p.m. on the day of his
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