April 2015 10 World imperial Rome. “Historically,” commented Di Castro, “because Italian Jews were shipped by ancient Romans directly from Judea we’re neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazi.” The museum director pointed out that some of the missing volumes were spotted at several American universities and that the bulk of the books might have been taken by the Russians when they entered Germany. What is known is that the volumes have never reached their target, which was to be a museum in Berlin documenting the “disappearance of the Jewish civilization.” The international plot for the recovery operations could not pass unnoticed and now it is being considered for a documentary to be filmed in Italy, the U.S., Germany, Russia and theNetherlands (one volume has reappeared in Amsterdam). The recovery was originally launched in 2002, when the Italian government instituted a special commissionwith the task of finding the Jewish texts and, today, it is also supported by the police unit for the Protection of Artistic and Cultural Heritage. To jumpstart the new recovery initiative, the JewishMuseum of Rome has created a committee of historians, rabbis and scholars to aid in the research. Pictured are director Alessandra Di Castro and a spokesman from the Jewish community of Rome, Fabio Perugia during the presentation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City Chinese MediaFunded OutsideChina Starting in 2015, a Chinese group and companies from the city-state of Singapore are putting the equivalent of U.S.$100 million into a fund for investments in China’s media and entertainment industry. The fund was formalized last month and includes games and theme parks. Funding the project are China’s Bona Film, Singapore’s Tembusu Partners and Singaporean media entrepreneur, Calvin Cheng. The existing film and TV co-production agreement between Singapore and China opens up opportunities for the fund to invest in projects that involve Singapore-based media companies. The fund is the first to allow foreign investors to participate in China’s media companies. Recently, Alessandra Di Castro, director of the Jewish Museum of Rome, went to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City to jumpstart the project for the recovery of more than 5,000 volumes out of 7,000 stolen in Rome, Italy by the Nazis. In an auditorium packed with Americans of Jewish and other faiths, Di Castro explained that on October 14, 1943, the Nazis loaded three wagons with 7,000 volumes taken from the library of the Jewish community of Rome. The operation ended two months later, on December 23. Only 2,000 books that were loaded onto the third wagon were found by American soldiers inOffenbach, near Frankfurt in 1949. From the first shipments, 25 books were saved because theywere hidden. Di Castro, an antiques dealer by profession, said that the Jewish community of Rome dates back to 70ADand that many of the stolen volumes are priceless. Some of the books bore testimonies of relations between Jews and Christians in postADoc on the Search for Old Jewish Books Stolen by Nazis in Rome (Continued from Page 6)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5