In anticipation of Menorah’s Celebration of the Jews of Italy, we reveal a little-known story of the rescue of Italian Jews by Catholic priests during the Holocaust. Set in the Italian town of Assisi during World War II, the film tells the true story of a network of Catholic clergy, nuns, and lay persons who secretly provided shelter and aid to Jewish refugees escaping from the ravages of the war, German pursuers, and Fascist loyalists. Ben Cross, James Mason, Irene Papas, and Maximillian Schell star in this thrilling tale of heroism.

More on the Italian Jews and the Holocaust: The Italian Jewish community, one of the oldest in Europe, numbered about 50,000 in 1933. Jews had lived in Italy for over two thousand years. By the 1930s, Italian Jews were fully integrated into Italian culture and society. There was relatively little overt anti-Semitism among Italians. Despite its alliance with Germany, the Fascist regime responded equivocally to German demands first to concentrate and then to deport Jews residing in Italian occupation zones in Yugoslavia, Greece, and France to killing centers in the German-occupied Poland. Italian military authorities generally refused to participate in mass murder of Jews or to permit deportations from Italy or Italian-occupied territory; and the Fascist leadership was both unable and unwilling to force the issue. Italian-occupied areas were therefore relatively safe for Jews. Between 1941 and 1943, thousands of Jews escaped from German-occupied territory to the Italian-occupied zones of France, Greece, and Yugoslavia. The Italian authorities even evacuated some 4,000 Jewish refugees to the Italian mainland. Incarcerated in southern Italy, these Jewish refugees survived the war.