UN MONDO SENZA NOI

A saga of Italian Jews before the Holocaust, a story that evil was unable to stamp out, in its mad attempt to 'write' a world without them, without the Jews. But there isn't a them and us, and a world without them would be a world without us. Without all of us.

In 'Un Mondo senza Noi' ['A World without Us'] Manuela Dviri tells the story of generations of her family in Italy. "Before the racial laws came into effect in Italy in 1938, my mother, my father, grandparents, uncles, cousins, were normal Italian citizens. Until they were deemed to be of Jewish race, and lost their work, dignity, security, and finally also risked their lives: the choice was to escape, or die. Some were deported. Some did not return. My mother and father mother met at a Jewish camp after World War II, and regained normality." Born Manuela Vitali Norsa, in 1949 in Padua, Italy, she lives in Tel Aviv, Israel, and spends time in Tuscany, Italy. After the death in 1998 of her son Yoni while he was serving in the Israeli army she undertook to work actively for peace. On the humanitarian front, she founded the project 'Saving Children', within the Peres Center for Peace; in ten years they have managed to get thousands of Palestinian children treated in Israeli hospitals. She recently participated at the meeting with the Pope for Shimon Peres and Abu Mazen at the Vatican.