peer review classmates answer about Bassani Giorgio, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.

Q) How does Bassani's novel illustrate the dire transnational ethical implications of nationalism, conflict, and genocide in regard to the Holocaust or Shoah for Jews in Italy amidst the rise of fascism which fostered racial laws and religious persecution?

What is the tremendous significance of considering Jewish memory and history through Bassani's novel as to how he addresses paradigms of identity, belonging, culture, and community?

How did Douglas Radcliff-Umstead or Daniel R. Schwarz deepen your understanding of the novel?

First peer review: 135 words

Amidst the establishment of racial laws and intensification of religious persecution, Bassani depicts the harrowing implications of nationalism, conflict, and genocide in relation to the holocaust for Jews in Italy under the rise of fascism. Through the lens of the main characters, Bassani explores the isolation of the Jewish community within the Italian society, and the complex dynamics of identity and belonging. The tragic consequences of nationalism and fascist ideology led to the severe marginalization and eventual deportation of Italian Jews. The Jewish elite Finzi-Continis created a secluded and “protected” world within their garden, shutting out the growing threat of fascism and antisemitism. The garden symbolizes their attempt to preserve a sense of normalcy and identity in the face of imminent persecution.  

Bassani addresses the several crucial paradigms that are central to the Jewish experience. He delves into the importance of memory and history in shaping individual and collective identities. The characters struggle to reconcile with the complexity of their dual identities as they are torn between their Italian nationality and Jewish heritage. Their concept of belonging increasingly fractured as the threat of the holocaust loomed larger as they experience the exclusion of being Jewish. These questions surrounding culture and community are as relevant in that era as they are in contemporary society. As an “outsider,” how much of your culture and background can you hold on to or let go in order to assimilate and gain “acceptance.” or fit in. Integrating and immersing in a different culture is an arduous task, especially after escaping a conflict zone.  “Nothing could remain permanent before the destructiveness of physical time and the fate of those trees, which symbolized organic continuity across the created timelessness of the garden, reveals the fundamental vulnerability of the Finzi-Continis world” (Radcliff-Umstead, 1975), this quote reflects the theme of impermanence and vulnerability, which further suggests that despite the apparent beauty of the garden owned by the Finzi-Contini's, nothing within it can escape the destructive power of time and persecution. Radcliff-Umstead further strengthened my understanding of the novel through his analysis of the passive attitude and the unwillingness to confront reality on the part of the Finzi-Continis. The family chose to live in a sort of self-imposed exile within the confines of their estate and attempted to shield themselves from the harsh realities of the rise of fascism, racial laws, and persecution of the Jewish people.  

 Second peer review: 135 words

 The rise of nationalism and fascism in Europe encouraged divisiveness amongst countries but also within societies, whether in Germany, Spain, or Italy, in cities big and small, people started to turn against each other, choosing their side as they went, along political, socio-economic, or religious lines. Unfortunately for the Jews, it seemed that no matter what side or tribe they chose to be a part of, in the end, they were always considered Jews first, and that alone was the ultimate differentiator, which throughout history meant that, sooner or later, they were destined to lose.  In The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Bassani’s unnamed alter-ego, argues angrily that non-Jews always try to find reasons why Jews are somehow responsible or deserve what happens to them: “One of the most odious forms of anti-Semitism was precisely this: to complain that the Jews were not enough like the others and then, vice versa, having ascertained their almost total assimilation into their surroundings, to complain of the opposite (Bassani 114).Bassani is not only a prodigious writer, but also an important witness, who suffered the losses of family and friends, went to jail, and had to flee to survive. Through his fictionalized accounts, he documents the terrible legacy of fascism, and how it actually felt to be a Jew in Italy before and after the war, a young person such as himself, just starting his life, his dreams crushed, and the pain and disappointment of having his own town and neighbors turn against him. “They may have dreamt of reconfiguring or reinventing themselves, of realizing their potential, of transfiguration through love and politics, but history usually mocked those dreams” (Schwarz 37). The fact was that in the real-live small city of Ferrara, as in everywhere else, Jewish people were not a monolith. There were rich Jews, and poor Jews, and middle-class Jews, and Jews that identified as Spanish, Italian, or Levantine. There were even fascist Jews. None of that mattered in the end. Not even if, like the fictional Finzi-Continis, they isolated themselves behind stone walls. They were still marched to concentration camps, all the same.

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