BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: GIOVANNI PALATUCCI AS RIGHTEOUS AT CENTRO PRIMO LEVI AND NYU'S CASA ITALIANA ZERILLI MARIMO'. The main point seemed to elaborate a new strategy in the representation of a man who is documented as having saved one Jewish woman from nazifascist persecution,may or may have not saved at least a ship of refugees, while claims to his having saved 5,000 were mostly unpheld without substantiation by several cross the board organizations, from the Italian police, the Jewish Anti Defamation League and the Catholic church. This could be understood as a post war necessity, since US foreign policy at the time unconstitutionally and mistakenly did not support a denazification of Italy, and integrated many fascists through the Catholic church, which was the favored power organization to organize Italy by, rather than favor the more democratically inclined partisans, of whom Primo Levi was one. The lugar of the conference was telling and usual: the Casa Italiana, an institution founded by an aristocratic Italian donor, has been following the shifting sands of twenty year old Mussolini lauding Berlusconi politicking that seems resistant to its very demise: the Casa has in fact recently held an exhibition on poet Gabriele D' Annunzio, a fascist inspiration to many and this event has also been a veritable balancing act trying to make democracy and fascism compatible bed partners, much as naziism and communism have come to be portrayed as being structurally similar. In a world of unconstitutional extremisms wanting and paying for their place in the sun, the person who stuffs most his or her pockets agrees with them all. That organizational strategy was important was reiterated by the welcoming staff at the Casa, who asked me if I was part of an organization. When I replied I wasn't, I was relegated to the last two rows of seats in an entire small auditorium. Also, all questions were answered but mine, and most questions were non controversial with the presentation. As the stage was being set after the beginning time, two maidens carried a small side table and a pitcher of water on the premises. For that matter the Director of the Primo Levi Center saw it as her responsibility to fill two glasses of water for the guest speakers, who could have done so themselves.One question by Casa Italiana Director Stefano Albertini, who is conscious of the power inherent in being filmed by the Italian National Television, and whoever controls it politically for the season, asked if a member of the Nazifascist state of Salo', created as an alternative to Italian government in Italy to sustain the Nazi invasion after Mussolini fell from power could be considered righteous. This follows the current center rightist support for a law wanting to give pension benefits to those who participated in this anti government government, which was also responsible for war crimes and deportations to concentration camps as governmental policy. The Centro Primo Levi had a hard time of it: the moderator Alessandro Cassin posited Palatucci both as a fascist hero, hero intended as nation builder (last I checked, Italy was a democracy) and a savior of Jews. The Consul General of Italy, Natalia Quintavalle, brought up the usual even communists are responsible for warcrimes by mentioning the foiba executions, an ethnically cleansing crime that occurred in Yugoslavia after the fascist, who had slaughtered thousand for not being fascists, lost.It is currently being represented as a communist crime. What this had to do with Palatucci is uncertain, except for the geographical proximity of the crimes, but in that whole debacle all mention of the Chetnicks was lost, a pro Serbian monarchic group fighting at the time by ethnically cleansing all non Serbians from Serbian soil, while Tito's communist partisans fought to unite ethnicities.Another historian, Marco Coslovich, who has reservations as to the authenticity of Italian commitment to the day of memory and other celebrations of opposition to the holocaust, posited a Mussolini who let sail ships with Jewish refugees as being simpathetic to the plight of Jews, twice. He then proceeded to tell us that Mussolini did so because he found the situation an embarassment. I'd think at the time he couldn't get out of it, since he deported with confidence later. Coslovich also is mentioned in the program as a scholar of what he calls some concentration systems not as deathly in Italy as in Germany,with the exception of San Sabba and concentration systems existing both in Nazi Germany and Communist Yugoslavia. Palatucci, while the moderator speculated he could not join the Jugoslavian partisans because they were communists (part of the allied forces then) was sent to Dachau for contacting the British allied forces. There also was a mention of allied bombing in Southern Italy by the area of an interment camp for Jews, no specifics offered. The Catholic hurch is intent on canonizing Palatucci, even though nothing is known about his religious commitment.