November 18, 2024 – March, 2025
Ruth Gruber, an indefatigable photojournalist instrumental in rescuing 982 Italian Jews from the Holocaust, was 90 when Eric Finzi, the American-born son and grandson of two of them, approached her at a reunion of survivors and their offspring. “I thanked her,” recalls Finzi, there with his wife and two grown children. “I realized my children existed only because of her. To realize one person could make such a difference! I told her I exist only because of you. She just smiled. She said, ‘It was my pleasure to shepherd all these wonderful people across the ocean to America.’” The Finzi name is perhaps better known linked to its Contini relatives, as in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, the acclaimed Academy Award-winning 1970 Vittorio De Sica film, based on a historical novel, that captured the plight of affluent and educated Italian Jews as the Fascist vice was tightening. The story Eric Finzi tells resembles their plight, but in his real-life version there is an escape and a happy ending. Ferrara, a city in northern Italy whose Jewish population dates to the 13th century, is Eric Finzi’s ancestral home and the setting for the film. For this exhibition, Finzi’s sculptures and paintings will be on display to tell his story.
