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In recent years Joseph Perella, one of the giants of the American private equity world, has become obsessed with Italy’s history. The periods that normally attract attention, such as the Renaissance or the Roman empire, are not what interests Perella. Instead, what has sparked his passion is a saga that is relatively unknown in America today, namely how ordinary Italians treated their Jewish minority during the second world war.
最近幾年，美國私人股本行業巨頭之一約瑟夫•佩雷拉(Joseph Perella)開始對意大利的歷史著迷起來。他感興趣的并非是文藝復興或羅馬帝國等通常吸引人們關注的那些時期。激發他熱情的是一個如今在美國相對不那么出名的故事，即意大利普通人在二戰期間是如何對待猶太人少數群體的。
This week Mr Perella (whose parents hail from Italy) shares this obsession. Rome’s film festival, which opened on Thursday, showcases a documentary that Perella has financed, along with a group of powerful Italian-American business leaders. This film relates how men such as Gino Bartali, an Italian cycling legend, worked with hundreds of other largely unknown Italians to keep thousands of Jews alive during the Holocaust.
最近，佩雷拉（他的父母來自意大利）與人們分享了他的這種著迷。羅馬電影節展映了一部由佩雷拉以及一些重量級意大利裔美國企業領袖出資的紀錄片。這部影片講述的是意大利自行車界傳奇人物吉諾•巴爾塔利(Gino Bartali)等人在納粹大屠殺時期與其他數百名大多不知名的意大利人合作，讓成千上萬猶太人得以幸存。
It is a fascinating project for all manner of reasons. For one thing, it is a powerful reminder of how ethnic heritage creates networks among the US business elite. The consortium of Italian Americans that Perella pulled into this $1.5m project features people such as Kenneth Langone (head of retailer Home Depot), Maria Bartiromo (the television journalist) and Joseph Tucci (head of EMC, the computer data storage company).
從任何一個角度來看，這都是一個吸引人的項目。首先，它強有力地提醒人們，民族傳統是如何在美國企業精英中間打造網絡的。佩雷拉將一個由意大利裔美國人組成的財團拉入這個150萬美元的項目，其中包括零售商家得寶(Home Depot)創始人肯尼思•朗格尼(Kenneth Langone)、電視記者瑪麗亞•巴蒂羅姆(Maria Bartiromo)和電腦數據存儲公司EMC首席執行官約瑟夫•圖奇(Joseph Tucci)。
But the more important issue is the subject of the documentary. Until last weekend I (like many FT readers, I suspect) knew almost nothing about how Italians treated Jews during the Holocaust. As a child in north London, I heard Jewish friends talk about the horrors inflicted on the Jewish communities in Germany, Austria and Poland. I also heard tales of heroism in places such as Holland, and watched films such as Schindler’s List.
但更為重要的問題是這部紀錄片的主題。在此之前，我（與很多英國《金融時報》讀者一樣，我猜）對納粹大屠殺時期意大利人如何對待猶太人幾乎一無所知。當生活在倫敦北部的我還是個孩子的時候，我聽一些猶太朋友談起過猶太人曾在德國、奧地利和波蘭面臨的可怕遭遇。我還聽說過荷蘭等地的英雄主義故事，看過《辛德勒名單》(Schindler’s List)等影片。
But until I saw the Perella-financed film, I did not know that about 80 per cent of the Jewish population in Italy survived the war.
但直到我看到由佩雷拉出資的這部影片，我才知道，在意大利有大約80%的猶太人在二戰中幸存了下來。
And while that high survival rate partly reflects the fact that the Nazis never completely controlled Italy, the attitude of the Italian population was also crucial. Although some Italians co-operated in shameful ways with the Nazis to send Jews to concentration camps – with tragic results – many others created networks to protect them, often at great personal risk. And despite the Vatican failing to speak out against the Holocaust, Catholic priests and nuns played a central role in these rescue missions, in sharp contrast to those in countries such as Poland.
如此之高的幸存比例在一定程度上反映出，納粹分子從未完全控制意大利，但意大利人民的態度也至關重要。盡管一些意大利人曾與納粹狼狽為奸，將猶太人送到集中營（結果是悲慘的），但還有很多人冒著往往巨大的個人風險聯手保護他們。盡管當時的梵蒂岡教廷未能公然反對納粹大屠殺，但天主教牧師和修女在解救猶太人的行動中發揮了重要作用，這與波蘭等國形成鮮明對比。
Some of these Italian rescuers are already in the history books: the documentary highlights how Bartali carried false documents for Jews across Italy as he “trained” on his bike, cycling for miles between monasteries and churches. But many other Italian protectors have never been celebrated. And that reflects another historical quirk: although Italy is often portrayed as a voluble nation, the rescuers of the second world war were often quiet about their role. So much so that Oren Jacoby, the film-maker, initially wanted to call the documentary Don’t Talk About It, before changing it to My Italian Secret.
其中一些曾解救猶太人的意大利人已被寫入歷史課本：這部紀錄片突顯出巴爾塔利是如何為意大利的猶太人傳遞偽造文件的：他騎著自己的自行車“訓練”，穿行于修道院和教堂之間。但其他很多意大利保護者從沒有被人稱頌過。這反映出另一個歷史謎題：盡管意大利人經常被描繪成一個能言善辯的民族，但二戰中的那些營救者對于自己的貢獻往往一聲不吭。以至于這部電影的導演奧倫•雅各比(Oren Jacoby)最初想把這部紀錄片命名為《不要談起》(Don’t Talk About It)，而后將其改為《我的意大利秘密》(My Italian Secret)。
Quite why this pattern arose is a matter of some dispute. One factor was that the Italian Jewish community was well integrated and only numbered some 50,000 (compared to three million in Poland). Another may have been a cultural propensity for ignoring rules: when faced with Nazi orders to hand the Jews over, many Italians simply found creative ways to flout them.
這種現象究竟為什么出現？這個問題仍存在一些爭議。一個原因是意大利的猶太人融入了主流社會，而且只有約5萬人（而波蘭有300萬）。另一個原因可能在于意大利有一種無視規定的文化傾向：面對納粹要求交出猶太人的命令，很多意大利人找到了創造性的方法來違抗這些命令。
But, whatever the real reason, the tale is worth celebrating – and not just among people of Italian descent or the Jewish community. In today’s world we tend to focus so heavily on human brutality that it is often easy to forget that humans have a capacity for doing great good as well. Insofar as we celebrate heroes, they tend to be towering figures who often assume near-superhuman status in Hollywood tales. In reality, when people get sucked into evil, it rarely occurs as a result of a binary choice; instead, a long series of tiny, half-conscious decisions creates a slide from good to bad.
然而，不管真正的原因是什么，這個故事是值得歡呼的——而且不僅是在意大利人或是猶太人中間歡呼。在當今世界，我們往往會將大量目光投向人類的殘忍，以至于我們經常很容易忘記，人類也能做出偉大的事情。在我們贊頌英雄時，他們往往成為那種高大人物，就像好萊塢電影里近乎超人的正面角色。實際上，當人們被卷入罪惡之中時，很少是二選一的結果；相反，很多微小、半潛意識的決定讓好人淪落為惡人。
Similarly, when societies combat evil, this does not always occur because of dramatic resistance from visible heroes – but as a result of quiet decisions taken by ordinary people to say “no”. “What this film shows is that if you are not indifferent then you can make a difference,” Perella observes. “But the remarkable thing about this story was that most of the people involved did not want to talk about it.” Which, of course, is precisely why stories like this need to be told as loudly as possible. Particularly in a world where genocide keeps happening, over and over again – and where it is the tales of evil, not good, that children overwhelmingly tend to hear.
類似的，當社會對抗邪惡時，并不總是因為那些看得見的英雄們的強烈反抗，有時也是因為普通人默默做出的“說不”的決定。“這部影片希望向人們展示，如果你不冷漠，那么你就可以讓事情變得不同，”佩雷拉認為，“但這個故事引人關注的一點是多數參與解救的人不想討論這件事。”當然，這恰恰是這種故事需要盡可能大聲講給人們聽的原因。尤其是在這個種族屠殺仍一次又一次發生的世界里，在這個世界，絕大多數孩子們往往聽到的是罪惡的故事，而不是善良的故事。
