ABSTRACT
The film Life Is Beautiful presented a fantastic vision of the Italian experience of the Holocaust. Emphasizing Italians’ mischievous love of life and inherent humanity amidst violence perpetrated by others-generally Germans or misguided Fascists-it perpetuated a stereotype of “good Italians” that pervades the popular media and infuses scholarship as well. This image, combined with the fact that eighty-five percent of Italian Jews survived the Holocaust, has helped Italians to avoid censure for involvement in the persecution of Jews. Yet Fascist racial policies and attitudes had a devastating effect on Italy’s Jewish communities. In the case of Trieste, by May 1945 only ten percent of the city’s prewar Jewish population remained there.
