‘HIERARCHS ON THE RUN.
WHERE THE NAZIS ESCAPED,
WHO HELPED THEM AND WHO WELCOMED THEM’ EXHIBITION
Jewish Museum in Bologna
Until the end of August, the MEB-Jewish Museum of Bologna is hosting an exhibition entitled ‘Hierarchs on the Run. Where the Nazis escaped, who helped them and who welcomed them’, curated by Ivan Orsini, Emanuele Ottolenghi, and Francesca Panozzo.
The end of Nazism didn’t coincide with the end of its hierarchs. Some were captured and put on trial in Nuremberg. In the chaos which followed the collapse of Nazi Germany, though, many of those responsible for the extermination of Jews and of war crimes simply went back home, where they lived undisturbed for
a long time. Others, after finding
a temporary refuge in Europe, managed to flee. They were often helped by support networks which got them fake documents to emigrate.
Among the many destinations chosen by members of various rank in the Nazi nomenclature, among which prominent figures such as Adolf Eichmann and his vice, Alois Brunner, along with soldiers, bureaucrats, scientists, and tormentors of every rank and background, Latin America and the Middle East stand out. Here, regimes partially inspired by Nazi-fascism welcomed them in, granted them asylum, and recruited them in the ranks of their bureaucracy, propaganda, and armed forces.
Many passed through Italy. Here, some high-ranking clergymen of the Catholic Church, such as bishop Alois Hudal, having chaos as their accomplice, helped them flee towards Latin America, where clerical-reactionary regimes such as that of Juan Perón in Argentina, didn’t hesitate to welcome them, give them new identities, or, like in the case of Johann von Leers, a scholar, member of the SS later an employee of Goebbels’ ministry of propaganda, allow them to continue their career of ruthless antisemitic propaganda.
In the meanwhile, in the Middle East, where the conflict between Jews and Arabs on the future of the British Mandate in Palestine already raged, Arab governments and Palestinian militias welcomed the fleeting hierarchs, enrolling them both to strengthen the war effort and, later, to help the new nationalist regimes to consolidate their power and launch a ruthless campaign of antisemitic propaganda against first the Jewish settlement and later the newborn Jewish state.
In the exhibition, we will tell you their stories, their routes, and the complicity which made their escape easier. Furthermore, the exhibition features an in-depth analysis of women and their role within the Third Reich; a section dedicated to the so-called 'Nazi hunters'; and a brief focus on Nazi hierarchs in film.