Project Suggestions for Anna

Below are topics for research. Students can write a paper or create a multi-media presentation about one or more of these topics.

  1. Find out more about the history of Jews in Rome and describe some of their distinctive traditions.
  2. Find out more about the rise of fascism in Italy.
  3. Find out more about the Hitler Youth in Germany, and compare their attitudes towards Jews to the attitude of the fascist youth towards Anna and her Jewish friends in Italy.
  4. Like Anna, many of the people of Italy did not want their country to align itself with the Nazis. Find out more about the Italian groups that fought against the Germans from within Italy during the war.
  5. What might have happened to Anna and her family if they were deported? Find out more about the fate of Jews who were deported from Italy.
  6. Find out more about the Allied landing in Salerno, known as “Operation Avalanche.” How did the fighting progress “up the boot” in Italy after the Allies landed? Why did Churchill call Italy the “underbelly of Europe”?