“All Jews, even if discriminated against, whatever nationality they belong to and in any case resident in the national territory must be sent to special concentration camps; all their movable and immovable property must be subjected to immediate seizure pending confiscation in the interest of the Italian Social Republic, which will allocate them for the benefit of the destitute affected by enemy incursions”. “Meanwhile, the Jews are concentrated in provincial concentration camps waiting to be gathered in specially equipped special concentration camps.” By this order of 30 November 1943, the Italian authorities had officially taken the initiative of persecuting the lives of Jews.
In the note between 5 and 6 December, the Repubblichina Fascist Guard and the Police Headquarters made a great raid in Venice: more than one hundred people were arrested, men, women, children from three to fourteen years old. A chronicle, based on testimonies, reports that “all those torn from their homes and those taken from the Nursing Home were at first taken to the headquarters of the Marco Foscarini college that constituted an improvised prison without beds”.
In the summer of 1944, a group of SS, which had come from Treblinka under the command of Franz Stangl, was particularly active in the search for and deportation of Jews. In a first raid, the SS deported about 90 people, including twenty-two over-seventy-year-old guests of the Nursing Home and chief rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi.
