Daily Podcasts Video Research

How one Jewish woman fought the Nazis — and helped found a new Italian republic

JL;DR SUMMARY Teresa Mattei, a young woman with Jewish maternal roots, emerged as a formidable figure in the Italian Resistance during World War II. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

World War IiJewish HeritageFeminismNazi PersecutionWomen's RightsFlorenceItalian ResistanceTeresa MatteiConstituent Assembly Of ItalyItalian Constitution

Places mentioned

Florence, Tuscany, Italy
"On Nov. 9, 1943, 22-year-old Teresa Mattei watched a train full of fellow Florentines pull out of Santa Maria Novella Station, bound for Auschwitz."
Perugia, Italy
"Outside of Perugia, the truck in which she was traveling was hit by air strafing and the driver was killed."
Rome, Lazio, Italy
"She began hitch-hiking her way south with a draft of an underground newspaper sewn into the hem of her dress, to be with her parents who were in hiding in Rome as they awaited word about his fate."
Lithuania
"Teresas maternal grandmother had escaped a pogrom in Lithuania and moved to Italy decades earlier."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 51320
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-05-11 05:30:57 UTC
Curated 2025-05-11 08:30:30 UTC