Rome Ghetto Nazi raid anniversary

On October 16, 1943, Nazi occupation forces conducted a raid on the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, arresting over one thousand people. Following two days of imprisonment, a convoy departed from the Tiburtina station on October 18, bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of the 1,022 deportees who arrived at the camp, only 16 survived the Holocaust.

The raid was the culmination of years of escalating persecution following the 1938 publication of the Manifesto of Race. Under Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, a series of anti-Jewish laws were implemented, including the September 5, 1938, decree that excluded Jewish teachers and students from public schools, and the November 17, 1938, decree regarding the defense of the Italian race, which systematically stripped Jewish citizens of their rights, property, and social participation.