Donato Di Veroli: The last of Rome’s Jews to survive the Holocaust dies

The 98-year-old survived Auschwitz and Dachau

On 16 October 1943, a raid of Rome’s Jewish households saw 1,023 members of the community arrested and deported to Auschwitz – just 16 of them survived (EPA)

The last Roman Jew to survive the Holocaust has died at the age of 98, the capital’s Jewish community announced this week.

Born in Rome in 1924, Donato Di Veroli was one of eight siblings raised in the central Piazza Campitelli, a stone’s throw away from the city’s Jewish quarter.

He was 14 when, in September 1938, fascist dictator Benito Mussolini announced the implementation of racial laws aimed at discriminating against Italy’s Jewry.