Specimen of a leaflet dropped by American aircraft (in this case the 47th BG’s A-20) behind the Italy’s front line on 1944 and directed to Italian soldiers of the Fascist Repubblica Sociale Italiana asked to defection. The translation of the text (written in correct Italian) is: Italian Soldiers Think! Throw away yours arms and presented yourself with this manifesto to our sentry. You will be safe and well treated. Victor Sierra

Italian Soldiers Think!

The Duce, Futuristically portrayed by Gerardo Dottori in 1933, with halo of stylised aeroplanes.  Not sure whether his future Nazi friends would have been impressed by such images.  Best regards, JR.

Mussolini, Anno XI, by Gerardo Dottori.

"Self-Portrait with Jewish Pass" by German-Jewish Surrealist painter, Felix Nussbaum (1943).  Nussbaum was born at Osnabruck, Hanover, in 1904.  His father was a WW1 German war veteran.  Felix and his wife, Felka Platek, went into exile in Belgium following Hitler's accession to power.  After the German occupation of Belgium, Nussbaum was  interned in France, but escaped and went into hiding along with Platek in Brussels.  Support from Belgian friends enabled them to live, and Nussbaum to continue painting.  In July, 1944, the couple were arrested in an attic hiding-place, and transported East.  They ended up in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August, 1944, and were murdered there on or about that date.  This painting, among others, was found in his hidden studio after his arrest.

Felix Nussbaum's father and mother had been killed at Auschwitz earlier in 1944; a brother, sister-in-law and niece would be killed there in September of that year.  His other brother died of ill-treatment at the Stutthof concentration/death camp in Danzig.  The family was thus extinguished.

Rest in Peace.

JR.