Partisans, Allies and Jewish Brigade: A Shared Memory
On Sunday, April 26, the flags of the Jewish Brigade and the United States flew at the Military Cemetery in Milan to honor Italy’s Liberation Day from Nazi-fascism. The ceremony, organized by the Jewish Community of Milan under the auspices of the UCEI, took place the day after April 25 because the actual date fell on Shabbat this year. Gadi Lazarov, who supported the celebration within the Jewish Community council, explained that the ceremony “highlighted a lesser-known site in Milan and was a way to reiterate our gratitude toward the Allied Forces. Without them, Italy would not have been liberated.”
During the ceremony, a moment of reflection and prayer was dedicated to three Jewish soldiers who died in WWII and are buried in the Allied Cemetery: Robert John Kahn, A. Rosenberg, and Ernest Willy Rosenstein. Representatives of the youth movements Hashomer Hatzair, Bene Akiva, and the Union of Italian Jews reconstructed their stories.
Kahn was born in 1912 in Pforzheim, Germany. After the Nazis took power, he moved with his family to the UK. He joined the British Army as a driver in a reconnaissance and mechanized transportation unit. After being captured by Italian soldiers on the Egyptian front, he was transferred to a prison camp in Sulmona, Abruzzo, and later to Montalbo camp in Piacenza. He was killed in August 1941 while attempting to escape.
Instead, almost nothing is known about Rosenberg. He was an engineer in the Jewish Brigade, the Jewish volunteer corps of the British Army that was recruited in Mandatory Palestine (the future State of Israel). Nonetheless, his name and origins remain unknown. During the ceremony, it was said that “we can imagine him as a young man crossing Europe to escape Nazi persecution,” reaching Mandate Palestine, and going back to Europe, this time “to fight against those who had hunted him.” Rosenberg died after the war ended, but he never had the opportunity to return to either his native or adoptive country.
As for Rosenstein, his father, Willy, was a multi-decorated pilot in the German air force during World War I. His family left Germany, seeking refuge in South Africa. There, Rosenstein enlisted as a fighter pilot in the South African Air Force. He was killed in the Italian skies on April 2, 1945, at 22.
Representatives of political institutions and civil society participated in the ceremony with the president of the Jewish Community of Milan, Walker Meghnagi; Chief Rabbi Alfonso Arbib; and UCEI councilor Massimiliano Tedeschi.