Testimony of Shoshana (Cassuto) Evron, born in Firenze, 1936, regarding her experiences as a child in Firenze, Milan and in hiding using a Christian identity

Testimony of Shoshana (Cassuto) Evron, born in Firenze, 1936, regarding her experiences as a child in Firenze, Milan and in hiding using a Christian identity Her father, Natan Aminadav Cassuto, is a rabbi and ophthalmologist; her is mother Miriam; witness is the granddaughter of Rabbi Moshe David (Umberto) Cassuto, a well-known professor of Bible studies; details about her extended family; religious observance; religious Zionist atmosphere; her grandfather's aliya to Eretz Israel and his work at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1938; her grandfather's attempts to obtain work for her father in Eretz Israel; her grandfather sends aliya certificates to the family, 1939; Italy closes its borders and the family's inability to depart for Eretz Israel, 1939-1943; her father is forbidden by the authorities to work as an ophthalmologist; her family moves to Milan; her father works as the Deputy Rabbi to Milan's Chief Rabbi; her father opens an eye clinic for Jews; Allied air-raids; witness attends a Jewish nursery school; return of her family to Firenze and appointment of her father as the Chief Rabbi of Firenze, 1943; abuse in school by an antisemitic teacher; refugees arrive from eastern Europe; her family establishes youth groups to help assimilated Jews; entry of the Germans and her family goes into hiding, 16 September 1943; establishment of a general committee by her father, in cooperation with a priest and local non-Jews, to help the city's local Jews and Jewish refugees from other places; move of witness' mother and the children to a monastery; the birth of her sister Hava; family leaves the monastery due to searches by the Germans; family's wanderings from one hiding place to another; capture of her father after being informed on; capture of her mother and her uncle Campagnano and their deportation to Auschwitz; uses a Chistian identity and hidden in a monastery; her sister's death; transfer of witness to a partisan family, 08 May 1944; Allied air-raids and the liberation of Firenze, March 1945. Aliya to Eretz Israel with relatives, Pesach 5705/1945; life in her grandfather's house; aliya of her mother to Eretz Israel, October 1945.