“Never Forget”

Posted on April 1, 2021 by babbityjean

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27 every year, which is marked with special commemorations and tributes to those who died, to those who survived, and to those who assisted the victims throughout World War II.  This year (2021), the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles offered its members an online video from 2006, Volevo Solo Vivere (I Only Wanted to Live).*  Directed by Mimmo Calopresti and executive produced by Stephen Spielberg, this documentary presents the Italian Jewish experience through the eyes of nine Italian citizens who endured countless horrors.  The film begins with the days of Mussolini and the Italian racial laws of 1938, and then recounts the memories of deportation and internment of these nine in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, the separation and suffering of all and the deaths of so many, through to the final days of their liberation on January 27, 1945.

One of the most compelling stories is told by a woman who, during liberation, watched in disbelief as some of the Nazis at Auschwitz removed their uniforms and tried to blend in with the prisoners.  For a moment, she had the opportunity to grab a pistol and shoot a former guard.  Her decision to abide by her own moral code triumphed over her desire for revenge.  She also described the first food she ate upon liberation—apricots given to her by an American soldier.  To this day, she associates the taste of apricots with the joy of freedom.

I watched this documentary with my friend Jean Perloff, who lives in Santa Barbara and is fluent in Italian.  Actually, we watched it in our own homes because of the pandemic, but talked about the film together after viewing it.  In the spirit of “Never Forget,” we also discussed our experiences at Holocaust museums.  Jean recounted her experience at the museum in Jerusalem: “Yad Vashem is Israel’s official memorial to Holocaust victims.  It is dedicated to preserving the memories of the dead, honoring the Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and the Gentiles who helped the Jews in need.  Built in 1953, Yad Vashem is located on the western slope of Mount Herzl, also known as the Mount of Remembrance.  The memorial consists of two types of structures:  some are dedicated to the scientific study of the Holocaust and genocide in general, and others are memorials and museums for the general public. 

“A fundamental goal of the founders of Yad Vashem was to recognize non-Jews who, at personal risk and without financial or evangelistic motivation, chose to save Jews from the ongoing genocide during the Holocaust.  Those recognized by Israel are honored in a section of Yad Vashem known as the Garden of the Righteous Among Nations.  These Righteous individuals protected their Jewish neighbors at a time when prejudice, hostility and indifference prevailed.”

I shared with Jean my experiences at two American Holocaust museums—one in Washington, DC, and the other in Los Angeles.  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is located on the National Mall, is American’s national institution for the documentation, study and interpretation of Holocaust history, and serves as America’s memorial to the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust.  Since its dedication in 1993, the Museum has welcomed more than 40 million visitors, including more than 10 million school-age children.  One of the most chilling and memorable exhibits for me in the museum was a display of thousands and thousands of shoes of those who died.  While this is a powerful image for adults, the museum is vital in teaching children and adults the dangers of prejudice and hatred and the need to cultivate a sense of moral responsibility.

The Museum of Tolerance—Beit HaShoah (House of the Holocaust) is a multimedia museum in Los Angeles designed to examine racism and prejudice around the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust.  The Museum deals with atrocities and genocide on all continents, along with issues like bullying and hate crimes.  Established in 1993, the museum welcomes about 350,000 visitors annually (before the pandemic), about a third of which are school-age children.  In the Holocaust section of the museum, one learns about the 6 million Jews murdered, along with countless others, including homosexuals, Poles, gypsies, and the handicapped.  To balance the statistics on an individual, human level, each visitor at the museum entrance receives a computer-generated card with the name and picture of a Jewish child.  At the end of the museum experience, one deposits the card back into the computer, which then prints the card with the eventual destiny of the child.  In my case, I received a card of an Italian Jewish boy … who perished in the Holocaust.

*Organized by the Cultural Institute in Los Angeles and the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles with the Holocaust Museum LA, the Museum of Tolerance Los Angeles, USC Shoah Foundation, AJC Los Angeles, ADL Los Angeles and the Milken Community School.

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Mitologia greca e romana

Posted on March 18, 2021 by babbityjean

La mitologia greca è un insieme di storie sull’origine del mondo, sulle vite e le attività di divinità, eroi e creature mitologiche e i rituali degli antichi greci. La mitologia romana raccoglie storie tradizionali incentrate sulle antiche origini e sulla religione dell’Impero Romano. La mitologia romana fu largamente influenzata da quella greca; l’altra fonte di ispirazione rilevante per i romani fu la civiltà etrusca. Sebbene le storie nella mitologia romana non fossero così estese come nella mitologia greca, entrambi produssero immagini rispettivamente famose come: Romolo e Remo allattati dalla lupa e il cavallo di Troia.

I romani erano desiderosi di identificare i propri dei e di reinterpretare le storie delle divinità greche con i nomi delle loro controparti romane.  Divinità greche come Zeus, Poseidone e Ade erano conosciute a Roma come Giove, Nettuno e Plutone; Atena divenne Minerva e Afrodite divenne Venere. Tuttavia, un dio mantenne lo stesso nome in entrambe le civiltà: Apollo, dio della Sole, della medicina, della musica, della poesia, del tiro con l’arco e della giustizia. Apollo aveva molte responsabilità. Nella sua transizione alla mitologia romana, era più concentrato sulla guarigione e sulla profezia, piuttosto che sul Sole. Tuttavia, la gemella di Apollo, Artemide, divenne Diana nel mito romano.

Entrambe le mitologie ci vengono dalla letteratura, da opere come l’Iliade e l’Odissea di Omero e l’Eneide di Virgilio, e attraverso le arti visive. Poiché la letteratura latina era più ampiamente conosciuta in Europa durante il Medioevo e il Rinascimento, l’interpretazione dei miti greci da parte dei romani spesso ebbe un’influenza maggiore sulle rappresentazioni narrative e pittoriche rispetto alle fonti greche. In effetti, le versioni dei miti greci nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio, scritte durante il regno di Augusto, vennero considerate iconiche. I miti romani furono ampiamente utilizzati da molti artisti dal tardo Rinascimento, al Neoclassicismo, al Romanticismo.

 La mitologia greca e romana hanno avuto un impatto duraturo sulla nostra cultura in modi: nella denominazione dei nostri pianeti, delle stelle, dei mesi dell’anno e dei giorni della settimana. Nella Via Lattea, la maggior parte dei pianeti prende il nome da divinità romane: Mercurio, Venere, Marte, Giove, Saturno, Urano, Nettuno e persino Plutone (che non è più considerato un pianeta). Solo la Terra non ha un nome derivante dalla mitologia romana. I nomi delle costellazioni invece derivano da creature e animali mitologici greci, come Toro, Orsa Maggiore e Minore, Cintura di Orione, Pleiadi (Sette Sorelle) e Pegaso.

I mesi dell’anno invece hanno diverse origini sia in italiano che in inglese. Gennaio (January) prende il nome dal dio romano Giano, che aveva due facce per poter vedere il futuro e il passato. Febbraio (February) prende il nome dalla festa romana della purificazione. Marzo (March) prende il nome da Marte, il dio romano della guerra. Aprile (April) prende il nome dalla parola latina aperire, che significa “aprirsi” come fiori in primavera. Maggio (May) prende il nome dalla dea greca Maia e giugno (June) prende il nome dalla dea romana Giunone. Luglio (July) e agosto (August) prendono il nome da Giulio Cesare e dal primo imperatore di Roma, Augusto. Infine, settembre (September), ottobre (October), novembre (November) e dicembre (December) hanno preso il nome dai numeri romani 7, 8, 9 e 10: originariamente erano il settimo, l’ottavo, il nono e il decimo mese di l’anno romano, che iniziava a marzo. Dopo una riforma del calendario, furono aggiunti gennaio e febbraio.

Per i giorni della settimana, i nomi italiani derivano direttamente dagli dei latini.  In italiano, lunedì è il giorno della luna, martedì è il giorno di Marte, mercoledì è il giorno di Mercurio, giovedì è il giorno di Giove, venerdì è il giorno di Venere e sabato è il giorno di Saturno. In inglese, sabato, domenica e lunedì derivano rispettivamente dai nome latini di Saturno, del sole e della luna. Gli altri quattro giorni prendono il nome da altri dei germanici che gli anglosassoni adoravano probabilmente prima di migrare in Inghilterra.

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Greek and Roman Mythology

Posted on March 18, 2021 by babbityjean

Greek mythology is the set of stories about the origin of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the rituals of ancient Greeks.  Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories centered on the ancient origins and religion of the Roman Empire.  Roman mythology was largely influenced by the Greek one; the other relevant source of inspiration for the Romans was the Etruscan religion.  While the stories in Roman mythology were not as extensive as in Greek mythology, they both produced famous images like Romulus and Remus suckling the she-wolf for the Romans and the Trojan Horse for the Greeks.

The Romans were eager to identify their own gods and to reinterpret stories about Greek deities under the names of their Roman counterparts.  Greek gods such as Zeus, Poseidon and Hades were known as Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto in Rome; Athena became Minerva and Aphrodite became Venus.  However, one god kept the same name in both iterations—Apollo, god of light, medicine, music, poetry, archery and justice.   Apollo had many responsibilities.  In his transition to Roman mythology, he focused more on healing and prophecy, rather than light.  However, Apollo’s twin, Artemis, became Diana in Roman myth.

Both sets of mythology come to us from literature, such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, and through the visual arts.  Because Latin literature was more widely known in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the interpretation of Greek myths by the Romans often had a greater influence on narrative and pictorial representations of “classical mythology” than Greek sources.   In fact, the versions of Greek myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, came to be regarded as canonical.  The Roman myths were used extensively by many artists from the late Renaissance through Romanticism, to Neoclassicism.

Greek and Roman mythology have had a lasting impact on our culture in other ways—in the naming of our planets, stars, months of the year, and days of the week.  In the Milky Way Galaxy, most of the planets are named after Roman deities:  Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and even Pluto (which is no longer considered a planet).  Only Earth does not have a name based on Roman mythology.  The names of constellations, on the other hand, are based on Greek mythological creatures and animals, such as Taurus, Orsa Major and Minor, Orion’s Belt, the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) and Pegasus.

For months of the year, there are several origins both in Italian and English.  Gennaio (January) is named after the Roman god Janus who had two faces so that he could see the future and the past.  Febbraio (February) is named after the Roman festival of purification.  Marzo (March) is named after Mars, the Roman god of war.  Aprile (April) takes its name from the Latin word aperire, which means ‘to open’ like flowers in the spring.  Maggio (May) is named after the Greek goddess Maia, and giugno (June) is named after the Roman goddess Juno.  Luglio (July) and agosto (August) were named after Julius Caesar and Rome’s first emperor, Augustus.  And finally, settembre (September), ottobre (October), novembre (November) and dicembre (December) were named after the Roman numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10 as they were originally the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months of the Roman year, which originally began in March.  After a calendar reform, January and February were added.

For days of the week, the Italian origins primarily lie with the Romans, who named their days of the week after the planets, which in turn were named after the Roman gods.  In Italian, lunedì is the day moon, martedì is the day of Mars, mercoledì is the day of Mercury, giovedì is the day of Jupiter, venerdì is the day of Venus, and sabato is the day of Saturn.  In English, Saturday, Sunday and Monday are named for Saturn, the sun and the moon, respectively, following the Latin.  The other four days are named for other gods that the Anglo-Saxons probably worshipped before they migrated to England. 

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