Thinking of Rome on D-Day Plus Two

Among the Second World War's remarkable stories is the liberation of Rome. I remembered this during D-Day, for two entirely separate reasons. The history books record June 6, 1944 as the day the Allies entered the Eternal City. That fact, which should have been an enormous propaganda coup for the good guys, was entirely overshadowed by the Normandy landings.

From Rome: Open City
Anna Magnani in a famous sequence from the movie
(Image: UCLA Film & Television Archive)

Well, it was overshadowed everywhere except Italy. Thanks to Roberto Rossellini (among others), a global audience has obtained a relatively faithful rendering of the events in Rome during early June, 1944. The Italian director's movie Rome: Open City not only provided a dramatic window into that historical episode. The film also heralded the entry and importance of the Italian film perspective known as neo-realism. That Italians felt an affinity to truthful depictions of painful historical events should be a source of inspiration to American film makers and others, myself included. It is striking that American audiences essentially do not want to come to grips with unpleasant historical events, such as the 2008 financial crash, the Iraq war, and the classist vise grip on the nation's wealth, political clout, and intellectual capital. (The contradiction between tough, truly shared "sacrifice" and convenient, self-satisfied "giving back" to achieve a greater social good begins to encapsulate this morally bleak state of affairs.)

I also thought about Italy on June 6th through a reminder that someone I knew from those days was celebrating her birthday in Rome. She had introduced me to a piano instructor who sacrificed his most fruitful days as a musician in protest against Fascism in the years prior to and during World War II. He lived his life according to his conscience; more importantly, he trusted his conscience over material convenience or a hollow dismissal of politics. He saw how people were twisted by rancid political ideology, how citizens were stripped of rights, how the innocent were singled out for murder. He thought they were worth protesting, fighting against, sacrificing.

The Roman piano maestro's actions have left a far greater impact on my thinking about World War II's great lessons than the big picture D-Day memorials have, or ever really could.

Reading Leonardo Sciascia on the D-Day anniversary

Today's ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of D-Day focused on the soldiers' heroism and the necessity of the Allied cause to triumph. The American media did not bother to look very hard under the celebratory hood, much as Steven Spielberg's Normandy invasion movie, Saving Private Ryan, did not.

The BBC's wave of stories on D-Day included a very poignant one about the destruction of the French port city of LeHavre, and 5,000 of its French civilian residents, during the 1944 Allied air blitz that framed the Normandy campaign. Those type of grim details tarnish the sheen on official speeches, such as the one President Barack Obama gave today.

Leonardo Sciascia

I recently started a novella by the late Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia set in a town liberated by American forces during World War II. The skillfully drawn picture includes people abandoning Fascism and shouting approval of the Allied advance. It also depicts what happened to the town after its changing of the guard from German to American occupiers. The black market resumes acvitity. Prostitution occurs somewhat openly or quite discreetly. Scores get settled. Lies about family connections to America expand like fish stories. The natural, centuries-old Sicilian suspicion about foreigners, especially military ones, maintains its grip on the local population.

One notion Sciascia implicitly raises is how little things change over time. This perspective notably contrasts with an unquestioning American belief in the constancy and positive value of change. That conundrum was not articulated during today's Normandy ceremonies, but it's worth considering after the good feeling from American triumphalism fades away.