Buffalo, New York - A bustling city welcoming Italian immigrants in the early 1900’s. (NY Historical Society)
The granddaughter of Italians who immigrated to Buffalo, N.Y. in the early 1900's, I am deeply enmeshed in Italian culture, language, cooking, and arts. Coupled with my love of travel and teaching history, I have visited Italy four times, seeking the experiences and connections I could only have accessed by foregoing the touristy routes and taking instead slow trains, riverside promenades, dormitory lodging, and dining in side street restaurants off the popular squares. I even joined gatherings in the public squares, engaging easily with the local people, who willingly overlooked my clumsy attempts at Italian conversation.
Italian immigrants waiting to board ships sailing to the New World and a new life of hope and prosperity.
The story told in my novel, THROUGH A CRACKED LENS, took shape as I learned of the desperation that led the Italians to seek a new homeland where they could be accepted and supported by "compadres" (cousins), and "paisans” (close friends). These hopeful immigrants arrived in North and South America where they hoped to leave behind tyranny and oppression. Those desperate circumstances which include tyranny, poverty and political prosecution, have been the drivers of immigration throughout history.
The busy streets of Buenos Aires are always full of people, local excitement, color, history and tradition.
While I was visiting the family of my Argentinian exchange student, her Italian grandparents spoke of their immigration from Italy to make a new life. I had walked the vibrant Buenos Aires neighborhoods and then Cordoba, and was struck by the prevalence of Europeans and their influence on the architecture and urban structure. I felt compelled to research what I had discovered, not as a scholarly treatise, but as the forgotten history behind this amazing immigration story.
Only now are secret files being opened that reveal the full extent to which many Catholic authorities aided Hitler
I was shaken by evidence that the Roman Catholic Church, the governments of Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Spain were all complicit in providing safe passage to the elite Nazis, who were perpetrators of the holocaust. That made them supporters of Hitler's plans for a pure Aryan race and his intention to occupy sovereign nations for "living space" to continue to grow his German Third Reich.
False papers and passports enabled many top Nazis to escape justice.
Safe passage for war criminals had to include considerable funds for bribery and support, thus the funneling of stolen gold, art and jewels along a network which some know as the "ODESSA LINE" and with which my literary family unwittingly is involved. The consequences of World War II, which spanned six continents over six years, were unimaginable horrors befalling between 55 and 80 million casualties, and generations of their family members.
Nazi administrators, judges, and generals await judgement for crimes against humanity after World War II at the Nuremberg Trials, 1945.
The themes of my book, tyranny, justice, deception and the need for sharper public vision, can be summed up in my belief that liberties are stolen from those who are not vigilant.