The Many Meanings of Mina: Popular Music Stardom in Post-war Italy by Rachel Haworth, Bristol, Intellect Press, 2022, xix + 240 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-789-38560-1

Abstract

of condemned prisoners at the Fosse Ardeatine: two chosen at random and eight names of Jews. According to him, these eight Jews owed him their lives. Debenedetti reconstructs Alianello’s logic. Alianello wants to prove in the court of public opinion that he was one of the good guys. If the most characteristic connotation of Fascism was the persecution of Jews, he will offer the most incontrovertible connotation of antifascism: the protection of the Jews (p. 59). Debenedetti disqualifies this double game: you cannot transform black into white, massacre into magnanimity. A reflection, perhaps, also on the ineffectiveness of postwar justice and purge processes. Crimes against Jews became very difficult to prosecute after the amnesty issued by Minister of Justice Palmiro Togliatti in June 1946, and many criminals were not convicted. La nave di Teseo’s new edition of these two stories is welcome and necessary. Debenedetti’s message is important today more than ever to fight resurgent racist discourse. The publishing house perhaps missed an opportunity to add to the tributes in the book one from a present-day historian: such an engagement would have further enhanced the long-standing documentary value of Debenedetti’s book. Nevertheless, the edition is clear and easy to read, and the two tales are short and poignant, making the book a good educational tool for students.