Recently I was helping a bright young Italian student of mine with her homework. She was studying the Second World War and Italy's role in it. Now in the UK we often make cruel jokes about the Italians based on this period of the country's history, calling Italians cowards and turncoats, but to fully understand this terrible period of Italy's history it must be remembered that a civil war was being waged between the fascisti, supporting Mussolini and the pact with Nazi Germany, and the partigiani, partisan resistance fighters who supported the allied nations.
Now back to my student. She's an exremely bright girl, with a photographic memory. She studies morning, noon and night to obtain excellent marks at her school in Rome. She was relating to me an account of the end of the war which she'd previously memorised off by heart, a learning strategy somewhat out of fashion in the UK but still widely-used over here. Suddenly she said something that instantly caught my attention. "Italy was liberated from the Germans" she proudly stated "in 1944, by the Partisans with the help of the Americans".
What? By the partisans with the help of the Americans? Wasn't it the other way around? The Americans came in their tens of thousands, with fighter planes, bombers, a naval blockade, army regiments with tanks and heavy artilliary. The partisans were a group of extremely brave Italian men and women, of that there's no doubt. They used adopted guerilla tactics, blowing up bridges and interupting communications behind German lines in support of the allies. To say that they liberated Italy with the help of the Americans, well it's a bit rich. The opposite was probably true.
My student showed me her Italian school text books, which confirmed what she'd told me. Italian historical creativity at its best! Now a whole generation of young Italians were learning that their grandparents had liberated themselves from those nasty fascists, with just a little bit of help from those nice Americans. Incidentally, all of those British,Canadians, French, Australians, New Zealanders and soldiers from many other countries who'd died in the allied push from Sicily to northern Italy had been wiped out of the history books. The fighting at Anzio, near Rome during the 'Operation Shingle' allied landings was said to be some of the worst seen in any theatre throughout the entire second world war. There's even an allied cemetery there to remember the thousands of dead.
This experience reminded me how selective our historical learning is. I am amazed about the detail in which young Italians are taught about ancient Roman and Greek history, language, art and science, learnings which add support to their claims to be the original centre of western civilisation. Ironically, whilst they learn about events from 2,000 years ago in great detail their studies of events which happened only 60 years ago here in Italy contain many gaps, omissions and errors.
The same is true for our historical knowledge in the UK where I went to school. We study the Napoleonic wars, we know that Nelson won the Battle of Waterloo, don't we? But do we also know that the British lost two battles in Buenos Aires in 1806 and 1807 in a planned invasion of the Rio del la Plata, modern day Argentina? Of course we don't because we lost!
Now back to my student. She's an exremely bright girl, with a photographic memory. She studies morning, noon and night to obtain excellent marks at her school in Rome. She was relating to me an account of the end of the war which she'd previously memorised off by heart, a learning strategy somewhat out of fashion in the UK but still widely-used over here. Suddenly she said something that instantly caught my attention. "Italy was liberated from the Germans" she proudly stated "in 1944, by the Partisans with the help of the Americans".
What? By the partisans with the help of the Americans? Wasn't it the other way around? The Americans came in their tens of thousands, with fighter planes, bombers, a naval blockade, army regiments with tanks and heavy artilliary. The partisans were a group of extremely brave Italian men and women, of that there's no doubt. They used adopted guerilla tactics, blowing up bridges and interupting communications behind German lines in support of the allies. To say that they liberated Italy with the help of the Americans, well it's a bit rich. The opposite was probably true.
My student showed me her Italian school text books, which confirmed what she'd told me. Italian historical creativity at its best! Now a whole generation of young Italians were learning that their grandparents had liberated themselves from those nasty fascists, with just a little bit of help from those nice Americans. Incidentally, all of those British,Canadians, French, Australians, New Zealanders and soldiers from many other countries who'd died in the allied push from Sicily to northern Italy had been wiped out of the history books. The fighting at Anzio, near Rome during the 'Operation Shingle' allied landings was said to be some of the worst seen in any theatre throughout the entire second world war. There's even an allied cemetery there to remember the thousands of dead.
This experience reminded me how selective our historical learning is. I am amazed about the detail in which young Italians are taught about ancient Roman and Greek history, language, art and science, learnings which add support to their claims to be the original centre of western civilisation. Ironically, whilst they learn about events from 2,000 years ago in great detail their studies of events which happened only 60 years ago here in Italy contain many gaps, omissions and errors.
The same is true for our historical knowledge in the UK where I went to school. We study the Napoleonic wars, we know that Nelson won the Battle of Waterloo, don't we? But do we also know that the British lost two battles in Buenos Aires in 1806 and 1807 in a planned invasion of the Rio del la Plata, modern day Argentina? Of course we don't because we lost!
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4 comments:
You are brilliant. Fabulous for you that you get to move on. This is a very educational blog. I'd expect nothing less from you. As for meeting Maradona, well, you know, some of us have to work! I wish you the best of luck. Just a few short years ago, we were both single and teaching in Rome....Now you're married, with a baby, and on your way to Argentina--and I've just started my own business and am almost married, and living in NYC. Life is strange...
Mary G.
New York, NY
Thanks Mary,
So glad that things are going well for you in NYC...I still dream of coming there one day so you might get a call from me! Let me know if you come to Argentina and please keep reading the blog-come to think of it if you get time send me a photo and write an article about your life in NYC for the blog-we have loads of mutual friends who'd be interested....
I Rick,
this is my first comment on a blog and from my English it will be immediately clear to everyone that I'm not an English speaker.
But I like to participate to your blog.
As ever, the History is written by who won.
In Italy partisans won and nazi-germans and fascist are not more here (but I have some doubts about fascists).
I studied Italian history at Liceo some years ago (1983-1988) and for me and my friends was clear that we have been liberated by the Allies with the help of partisans ("La Resistenza"). Therefore is a surprise for me to discover that now in some book of history the things have been putted down-up (a bad traslation for the Italian "sottosopra").
But I want to add something to your quite exact recostruction.
There is a quite clear and pacific historic view that the Allies deliberately decide to slow down the liberation of Italy (with severe prejudices to the Italian population) and it is true that some Italian towns (especially in the North) was liberated by partisans and not by Allies Army (of course the general pressure on Nazis of the Allies gave a very strong contribute to this liberation).
Of course, I will be for ever grateful to all foreign soldiers who gave their lives to liberate our country from the nazi-german-fascists.
Raffaele
Thanks Raffaele,
I agree with you about them slowing it down-but I'm interested in why-do you think it was because the allies wanted to keep as many German troops occupied in Italy and away from France and the eastern front?
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