- Leone Ginzburg
Leone Ginzburg (
April 4 ,1909 –February 5 ,1944 ) was an Italian editor, writer, journalist and teacher, as well as an important anti-fascist political activist and a hero of the resistance movement. He was the husband of the renowned authorNatalia Ginzburg and the father of the historianCarlo Ginzburg .Early life and career
Ginzburg was born in
Odessa to aJew ish family, and moved with them toTurin at a very young age. He studied at the "Massimo d’Azeglio" "liceo" in Turin . This school molded a group of intellectuals and political activists that would fightBenito Mussolini 's Fascist regime and, eventually, help create the post-war democratic Italy. His classmates included such notable intellectuals asNorberto Bobbio ,Piero Gobetti ,Cesare Pavese ,Giulio Einaudi ,Massimo Mila ,Vittorio Foa ,Giancarlo Pajetta andFelice Balbo .In the early 1930s, Ginzburg taught
Slavic Languages andRussian Literature at theUniversity of Turin , and was credited with helping to introduce Russian authors to the Italian public. In 1933, Ginzburg co-founded, withGiulio Einaudi , the publishing houseEinaudi . He lost his teaching position in 1934, having refused to swear anoath of allegiance imposed by the Fascist regime.Persecution and internal exile
Soon after this, he and 14 other young Turinese Jews, including
Sion Segre Amar , were arrested for complicity in the so-called "Ponte Tresa Affair" (they were carrying anti-fascist lietrature over the border fromSwitzerland ), but Ginzburg's sentence was light. He was arrested again in 1935 for his activities as leader (withCarlo Levi ) of the Italian branch of "Giustizia e Libertà ", [ [http://www.pbmstoria.it/dizionari/storia_mod/g/g096.htm Giustizia e libertà ] at www.pbmstoria.it] the "Justice and Freedom Party", whichCarlo Rosselli had founded in Paris in 1929.In 1940, the Ginzburgs received the fascist punishment known as "confino", or internal exile, to a remote, impoverished village, in their case
Pizzoli in theAbruzzi , where they stayed from 1940-1943. Somehow, Leone was able to continue his work as head of the Einaudi publishing house throughout the period. In 1942, he co-founded the clandestinePartito d'Azione [ [http://www.pbmstoria.it/dizionari/storia_mod/p/p062.htm Partito d'azione (1942-1947) ] at www.pbmstoria.it] or "Action Party", a party of the democratic resistance. He also edited their newspaper "L'Italia Libera ".Capture and murder
In 1943, after the Allied invasion of Sicily and the fall of Mussolini, Leone went to Rome, leaving his family in the Abruzzi. When
Nazi Germany invaded in September, Natalia Ginzburg and their three children fled Pizzoli, simply climbing aboard a German truck and telling the driver that they were war refugees who had lost their papers. They met with Leone and went into hiding in the capital; twenty days later, Leone Ginzburg was arrested in Rome, this time by theGestapo . They subjected him to severe torture in the German section of the Roman prison, Regina Coeli. He died there from the injuries he received.References
*Natalia Ginzburg, "All Our Yesterdays"
*Natalia Ginzburg, "The Things We Used To Say"
*Susan Zuccotti, "The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival",University of Nebraska Press External links
* [http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/dpf/Fascism/Opposition.html Opposition to Fascism (Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison)]
*cite news
author=RICHARD BERNSTEIN
title=BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Telling the Bigger Story With the Small Details
date=1999-08-04
work=New York Times
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E3DE1F31F937A3575BC0A96F958260
accessdate=2008-08-10
*cite news
author=WILLIAM WEAVER; WILLIAM WEAVER IS THE AUTHOR OF "DUSE," A BIOGRAPHY, AND THE TRANSLATOR OF UMBERTO ECO'S "NAME OF THE ROSE."
title=WAR IN A CLASSICAL VOICE
date=1985-05-05
work=New York Times
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E5DB173BF936A35756C0A963948260
accessdate=2008-08-10
* [http://users.peacelink.it/crp/editoriale/index.php?ID=104 "La nonviolenza e in Cammino"] (in Italian)
* [http://www.einaudi.it/einaudi/ita/default.jsp Einaudi Publishing]
* [http://www.politicaltheory.info/essays/bobbio.htm Review of Noberto Bobbio's Autobiography, "Journal of Modern Italian Studies"]
* [http://www.pbmstoria.it/dizionari/storia_mod/g/g069.htm Brief biography of Ginzburg] (in Italian)
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