Aldo Finzi (politician)
Aldo Finzi (Legnago, 20 April 1891 – Rome, 24 March 1944) was a Jewish-Italian politician.
Finzi started out his political career as an alderman in Badia Polesine. At the end of First World War, he was one of the fighter pilots in Gabriele D'Annunzio's campaign to drop propaganda leaflets over Vienna, Austria. Afterwards, he studied law in Ferrara. In 1921, he was one of the nine Jewish deputies elected to parliament for the Fasci italiani di combattimento.[1]
Finzi had to resign as under-secretary of the interior, when in 1924, the Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was murdered. From 1925 to 1928, he was president of the Italian National Olympic Committee. He would leave the chamber of deputies in 1928. He became a fierce opponent of the fascist racial laws of 1938. After deposition of Mussolini by the Grand Council of Fascism Finzi became engaged in the resistance struggle against the German occupying forces.[2] In February 1944, he had been captured by the SS and identified as an opponent of the German Occupation of Italy. In retaliation for a bomb attack which claimed the lives of 33 members of the German Polizeiregiment Bozen on 23 March, he with 330 other Italians became victims of the Ardeatine massacre on 24 March 1944.[2]
References
- Franklin Hugh Adler (2005). "Why Mussolini turned on the Jews". Patterns of Prejudice. 39 (3): 285–300. doi:10.1080/00313220500198235.
- Kesselring, Albert (March 15, 2007). The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring (Revised ed.). Greenhill Books. ISBN 1853677280.