In recent years Joseph Perella, one of the giants of the American private equity world, has become obsessed with Italy’s history. The periods that normally attract attention, such as the Renaissance or the Roman empire, are not what interests Perella. Instead, what has sparked his passion is a saga that is relatively unknown in America today, namely how ordinary Italians treated their Jewish minority during the second world war.
最近几年，美国私人股本行业巨头之一约瑟夫•佩雷拉(Joseph Perella)开始对意大利的历史着迷起来。他感兴趣的并非是文艺复兴或罗马帝国等通常吸引人们关注的那些时期。激发他热情的是一个如今在美国相对不那么出名的故事，即意大利普通人在二战期间是如何对待犹太人少数群体的。

This week Mr Perella (whose parents hail from Italy) shares this obsession. Rome’s film festival, which opened on Thursday, showcases a documentary that Perella has financed, along with a group of powerful Italian-American business leaders. This film relates how men such as Gino Bartali, an Italian cycling legend, worked with hundreds of other largely unknown Italians to keep thousands of Jews alive during the Holocaust.
最近，佩雷拉（他的父母来自意大利）与人们分享了他的这种着迷。罗马电影节展映了一部由佩雷拉以及一些重量级意大利裔美国企业领袖出资的纪录片。这部影片讲述的是意大利自行车界传奇人物吉诺•巴尔塔利(Gino Bartali)等人在纳粹大屠杀时期与其他数百名大多不知名的意大利人合作，让成千上万犹太人得以幸存。
It is a fascinating project for all manner of reasons. For one thing, it is a powerful reminder of how ethnic heritage creates networks among the US business elite. The consortium of Italian Americans that Perella pulled into this $1.5m project features people such as Kenneth Langone (head of retailer Home Depot), Maria Bartiromo (the television journalist) and Joseph Tucci (head of EMC, the computer data storage company).
从任何一个角度来看，这都是一个吸引人的项目。首先，它强有力地提醒人们，民族传统是如何在美国企业精英中间打造网络的。佩雷拉将一个由意大利裔美国人组成的财团拉入这个150万美元的项目，其中包括零售商家得宝(Home Depot)创始人肯尼思•朗格尼(Kenneth Langone)、电视记者玛丽亚•巴蒂罗姆(Maria Bartiromo)和电脑数据存储公司EMC首席执行官约瑟夫•图奇(Joseph Tucci)。
But the more important issue is the subject of the documentary. Until last weekend I (like many FT readers, I suspect) knew almost nothing about how Italians treated Jews during the Holocaust. As a child in north London, I heard Jewish friends talk about the horrors inflicted on the Jewish communities in Germany, Austria and Poland. I also heard tales of heroism in places such as Holland, and watched films such as Schindler’s List.
但更为重要的问题是这部纪录片的主题。在此之前，我（与很多英国《金融时报》读者一样，我猜）对纳粹大屠杀时期意大利人如何对待犹太人几乎一无所知。当生活在伦敦北部的我还是个孩子的时候，我听一些犹太朋友谈起过犹太人曾在德国、奥地利和波兰面临的可怕遭遇。我还听说过荷兰等地的英雄主义故事，看过《辛德勒名单》(Schindler’s List)等影片。
But until I saw the Perella-financed film, I did not know that about 80 per cent of the Jewish population in Italy survived the war.
但直到我看到由佩雷拉出资的这部影片，我才知道，在意大利有大约80%的犹太人在二战中幸存了下来。
And while that high survival rate partly reflects the fact that the Nazis never completely controlled Italy, the attitude of the Italian population was also crucial. Although some Italians co-operated in shameful ways with the Nazis to send Jews to concentration camps – with tragic results – many others created networks to protect them, often at great personal risk. And despite the Vatican failing to speak out against the Holocaust, Catholic priests and nuns played a central role in these rescue missions, in sharp contrast to those in countries such as Poland.
如此之高的幸存比例在一定程度上反映出，纳粹分子从未完全控制意大利，但意大利人民的态度也至关重要。尽管一些意大利人曾与纳粹狼狈为奸，将犹太人送到集中营（结果是悲惨的），但还有很多人冒着往往巨大的个人风险联手保护他们。尽管当时的梵蒂冈教廷未能公然反对纳粹大屠杀，但天主教牧师和修女在解救犹太人的行动中发挥了重要作用，这与波兰等国形成鲜明对比。
Some of these Italian rescuers are already in the history books: the documentary highlights how Bartali carried false documents for Jews across Italy as he “trained” on his bike, cycling for miles between monasteries and churches. But many other Italian protectors have never been celebrated. And that reflects another historical quirk: although Italy is often portrayed as a voluble nation, the rescuers of the second world war were often quiet about their role. So much so that Oren Jacoby, the film-maker, initially wanted to call the documentary Don’t Talk About It, before changing it to My Italian Secret.
其中一些曾解救犹太人的意大利人已被写入历史课本：这部纪录片突显出巴尔塔利是如何为意大利的犹太人传递伪造文件的：他骑着自己的自行车“训练”，穿行于修道院和教堂之间。但其他很多意大利保护者从没有被人称颂过。这反映出另一个历史谜题：尽管意大利人经常被描绘成一个能言善辩的民族，但二战中的那些营救者对于自己的贡献往往一声不吭。以至于这部电影的导演奥伦•雅各比(Oren Jacoby)最初想把这部纪录片命名为《不要谈起》(Don’t Talk About It)，而后将其改为《我的意大利秘密》(My Italian Secret)。
Quite why this pattern arose is a matter of some dispute. One factor was that the Italian Jewish community was well integrated and only numbered some 50,000 (compared to three million in Poland). Another may have been a cultural propensity for ignoring rules: when faced with Nazi orders to hand the Jews over, many Italians simply found creative ways to flout them.
这种现象究竟为什么出现？这个问题仍存在一些争议。一个原因是意大利的犹太人融入了主流社会，而且只有约5万人（而波兰有300万）。另一个原因可能在于意大利有一种无视规定的文化倾向：面对纳粹要求交出犹太人的命令，很多意大利人找到了创造性的方法来违抗这些命令。
But, whatever the real reason, the tale is worth celebrating – and not just among people of Italian descent or the Jewish community. In today’s world we tend to focus so heavily on human brutality that it is often easy to forget that humans have a capacity for doing great good as well. Insofar as we celebrate heroes, they tend to be towering figures who often assume near-superhuman status in Hollywood tales. In reality, when people get sucked into evil, it rarely occurs as a result of a binary choice; instead, a long series of tiny, half-conscious decisions creates a slide from good to bad.
然而，不管真正的原因是什么，这个故事是值得欢呼的——而且不仅是在意大利人或是犹太人中间欢呼。在当今世界，我们往往会将大量目光投向人类的残忍，以至于我们经常很容易忘记，人类也能做出伟大的事情。在我们赞颂英雄时，他们往往成为那种高大人物，就像好莱坞电影里近乎超人的正面角色。实际上，当人们被卷入罪恶之中时，很少是二选一的结果；相反，很多微小、半潜意识的决定让好人沦落为恶人。
Similarly, when societies combat evil, this does not always occur because of dramatic resistance from visible heroes – but as a result of quiet decisions taken by ordinary people to say “no”. “What this film shows is that if you are not indifferent then you can make a difference,” Perella observes. “But the remarkable thing about this story was that most of the people involved did not want to talk about it.” Which, of course, is precisely why stories like this need to be told as loudly as possible. Particularly in a world where genocide keeps happening, over and over again – and where it is the tales of evil, not good, that children overwhelmingly tend to hear.
类似的，当社会对抗邪恶时，并不总是因为那些看得见的英雄们的强烈反抗，有时也是因为普通人默默做出的“说不”的决定。“这部影片希望向人们展示，如果你不冷漠，那么你就可以让事情变得不同，”佩雷拉认为，“但这个故事引人关注的一点是多数参与解救的人不想讨论这件事。”当然，这恰恰是这种故事需要尽可能大声讲给人们听的原因。尤其是在这个种族屠杀仍一次又一次发生的世界里，在这个世界，绝大多数孩子们往往听到的是罪恶的故事，而不是善良的故事。