FULVIO CANETTI
Author “War and the Shoah”
“I remember one day, Silvio, the construction worker, dug a hole with a pick in the cave where we were, to the left of the entrance. On the edge of the hole, there was a trunk of a greenish color, where my mother had hidden her most cherished objects. This was all that was left of our wealth, swallowed up by the wickedness of the world. My poor father had already been taken away by the war and our family was destroyed by its relentless violence.”
Born in 1939, Fulvio Canetti was a child during the World War II, and he was born into a Jewish family in central Italy. In order to escape the Nazis and deportation, his family fled to the mountains, near Montecassino. After working as a doctor for many years in Italy, he now lives in Jerusalem with his large family, including children and grandchildren. Seventy years since those events, he has gathered his memories, and those sent to him by his family, in a book entitled “War and the Shoah” published by Edizioni Terra Santa and presented in Jerusalem on February 25th.
FULVIO CANETTI
Author “War and the Shoah”
“Man has to ask and look within himself in order to understand how deep his abyss of evil has become. If we do not do this, the problems we have here will be amplified and will never be resolved. There is no human dignity. “If this is a Man” by Primo Levi also applies here. What is ISIS doing? Putting soldiers in cages and burning them up: we are at the same level.”
Since there are many books on the Holocaust and since many conferences are often held on the topic, the new venue for this presentation is significant: the Custody of the Holy Land in the heart of the Arab Christian part of the Old City.
Fr. PIERBATTISTA PIZZABALLA, ofm
Custos of the Holy Land
“No Jew, Muslim or Christian should ever again be excluded from meeting others or from the desire for relationships. The lesson is always the same one, and unfortunately man never fully learns his lesson, which is that no one should ever be excluded: we are all God’s children and we all belong to each other.”
Along with personal memories, Canetti’s text also includes two other stories: the witness of a deportee in Auschwitz, whom he interviewed, and an account of the Caiazzo massacre that killed 22 civilians. Rainier Fontana, theologian and expert on the Jewish world, commented on the work and he reflected on the duty of memory, also in the light of redemption; and the young rabbi Pierpaolo Punturello, who stressed Canetti’s choice to tell the story from a child’s perspective. It is a child’s very perspective that can bring a spark of hope to a tragic event like war.
Fr. PIERBATTISTA PIZZABALLA, ofm
Custos of the Holy Land
“Even during that terrible, dark time were pages of light. Being aware of that, helps us find pages of light even in the present life and in the tragedies that the Middle East is experiencing.”
FULVIO CANETTI
Author “War and the Shoah”
“We have to be optimistic: we must believe in man and in the best part of him. Only this way can we can resist and defeat evil that is within us.”
Author “War and the Shoah”
“I remember one day, Silvio, the construction worker, dug a hole with a pick in the cave where we were, to the left of the entrance. On the edge of the hole, there was a trunk of a greenish color, where my mother had hidden her most cherished objects. This was all that was left of our wealth, swallowed up by the wickedness of the world. My poor father had already been taken away by the war and our family was destroyed by its relentless violence.”
Born in 1939, Fulvio Canetti was a child during the World War II, and he was born into a Jewish family in central Italy. In order to escape the Nazis and deportation, his family fled to the mountains, near Montecassino. After working as a doctor for many years in Italy, he now lives in Jerusalem with his large family, including children and grandchildren. Seventy years since those events, he has gathered his memories, and those sent to him by his family, in a book entitled “War and the Shoah” published by Edizioni Terra Santa and presented in Jerusalem on February 25th.
FULVIO CANETTI
Author “War and the Shoah”
“Man has to ask and look within himself in order to understand how deep his abyss of evil has become. If we do not do this, the problems we have here will be amplified and will never be resolved. There is no human dignity. “If this is a Man” by Primo Levi also applies here. What is ISIS doing? Putting soldiers in cages and burning them up: we are at the same level.”
Since there are many books on the Holocaust and since many conferences are often held on the topic, the new venue for this presentation is significant: the Custody of the Holy Land in the heart of the Arab Christian part of the Old City.
Fr. PIERBATTISTA PIZZABALLA, ofm
Custos of the Holy Land
“No Jew, Muslim or Christian should ever again be excluded from meeting others or from the desire for relationships. The lesson is always the same one, and unfortunately man never fully learns his lesson, which is that no one should ever be excluded: we are all God’s children and we all belong to each other.”
Along with personal memories, Canetti’s text also includes two other stories: the witness of a deportee in Auschwitz, whom he interviewed, and an account of the Caiazzo massacre that killed 22 civilians. Rainier Fontana, theologian and expert on the Jewish world, commented on the work and he reflected on the duty of memory, also in the light of redemption; and the young rabbi Pierpaolo Punturello, who stressed Canetti’s choice to tell the story from a child’s perspective. It is a child’s very perspective that can bring a spark of hope to a tragic event like war.
Fr. PIERBATTISTA PIZZABALLA, ofm
Custos of the Holy Land
“Even during that terrible, dark time were pages of light. Being aware of that, helps us find pages of light even in the present life and in the tragedies that the Middle East is experiencing.”
FULVIO CANETTI
Author “War and the Shoah”
“We have to be optimistic: we must believe in man and in the best part of him. Only this way can we can resist and defeat evil that is within us.”