Mario Finzi Reflection of a Holocaust Victim

My choice for this was Mario Finzi, I chose him because of his age, he was older and I wanted to compare the life he had before the Holocaust and his life during and or after. 

He was born in Italy and was surprisingly an only child, to a Jewish couple. Even during the power of Benito Mussolini, Jewish people in Italy lived rather safe lives. What I found most interesting about Mario was his hobby which had been playing the piano and the fact that he had chosen to study law after high school. Just going into the beginning of these slides made me feel bad, knowing this boy had such high hopes for himself and dreams and knowing in slides to come I'd find out he would have the same fate as many other Jewish people during the Holocaust. 

It all start in 1938 when the "racial" laws were issued and Mario could not continue practicing law in Milan. This man seemed to be rather humble knowing he picked up after this and worked with a Jewish agency that helped refugees. But the sun always sets on good events and in 1943, Benito Mussolini was overthrown and the German forces occupied Italy. From there, him and other Jewish people were all sent to a German transit camp (at Fossoli di Carpi). Finally he was deported to the largest concentration camp of its kind, Auschwitz. 

When I got to the slide where I chose what I expected to be Mario's fate, I wanted to be as hopeful as possible and chose the happy ending. I was sadly brought to reality when the answer I chose was the wrong one. I clicked the skull and crossbones, and found out that he threw himself onto the high-tension wire and even wrote a note for forgiveness to his parents. He was still rather young, at 31 years old. It hurt me to know that this man's life had been cut short due to this racist act that went out of control. 

It made me realize how far we have come from how bad things were with being prejudice, while it is still an issue today, it is not as bad as the Holocaust. Though this is one of my favorite events to learn about in history, it is also one of the saddest. Knowing how many innocent lives were taken just because the blame was passed onto these groups about the troubles following the war.