Dante’s Beach, Ravenna

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna

We were en route to the junk shop in search of a pair of robust tongs for the fire in the kitchen, which is a vital source of heat in winter, and I was rowing with my family about the Jews.

There were seven of us inside the Land Rover Defender: me at the wheel in notional control with my ‘Comandante’ Basque beret on my head to cover my bald patch. Next to me was my wife Carla, who has the best deck this side of Rimini, and five of our six children behind.

The language being spoken was Italian as usual, but there were frequent shouted bursts of English from the back such as ‘Just shut the fuck up!’ or ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’, often involving several voices in unison like a chorus. The aim was to taunt me, as such expressions – so it is claimed – are the only English I have ever taught my children. They are also designed to shout me down and make me lose the plot.

What prompted the row was the forthcoming trip this week by Magdalena, 18, with her class from music school, to Fossoli near Modena to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Fossoli was one of very few prison camps in Italy where Jews were held before transit by train to the Nazi extermination camps. I was hoping that a visit to Fossoli might at least change Magdalena’s understanding of what the word ‘genocide’ actually means.

As I’ve said before, she – like her mother and her brothers and........

© The Spectator