When the Dodecanese, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, became an Italian protectorate in 1912, Rhodes, the largest island and historical capital, was given new roads and monumental buildings. As a result of the strategy of integration the Italian Fascist regime adopted in the 1920s and early 30s, Rhodes became a melting pot where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together peacefully. This was the Rhodes where Rosa Hanan, who has died aged 101, spent her formative years.

The island’s Jewish quarter, the Juderia, was home to a 4,500-strong vibrant community supporting five synagogues and from 1928, a rabbinical college was established partly due to the support of the island’s Italian governor, Mario Lago. The local Jews enthusiastically embraced Italian life and culture, and the Rome government actively courted a community described as “law-abiding, hard-working and intelligent”. 

One of the eight children of Moses, a craftsman, and Miriam Leon, a housewife, Hanan grew up in a religious household where, as in most of the local community, Ladino was spoken. For several years life under Italian rule was comfortable and peaceful, but that idyllic set-up started disintegrating from the mid-1930s as Italy’s Fascist government moved closer to Germany.  The 1938 Racial Laws — which restricted the civil rights of the Jews — were a painful awakening for Hanan, her family and friends. 

The rabbinical college was immediately shut and a large number of Jews left the island. Hanan’s older brothers joined the exodus and left for Africa. The situation took a turn for the worse after September, 1943 when the Germans invaded Rhodes. 

On July 23, 1943 Hanan, her brother Herzl and her mother, were rounded up with the rest of the island’s Jewish community and crammed into an old cargo ship destined for Athens. There they boarded the death trains for Auschwitz-Birkenau. All in all, that dehumanising journey lasted almost a month.

On arrival Hanan became Number A-24360 and was assigned the task of carrying heavy loads from one side to the other of the camp. It was exhausting work and many of her friends didn’t last long, yet she never lost faith.

Transferred to Dachau before the end of the year, she was subsequently moved to the Kaufering subcamps near Landsberg, in Bavaria, where working conditions were just as bad. In April, with the Allies advancing, Hanan and three other women from Rhodes managed to escape and hid in a farm in the nearby forest. They remained in hiding for a week and returned to the camp when it was eventually liberated by the Allies.

In June the four women arrived at the Offenburg camp, which was now under the command of the French, and with the help of the French commander — who was himself Jewish — were given accommodation nearby.

But Hanan’s tribulations weren’t over: an accidental bomb explosion killed the commander and severely injured Rosa who spent a month in hospital. After her discharge she moved to Milan where she met Rhodes-born Giuseppe Mallel, another Auschwitz survivor who had lost his wife and children in the camp.

The two married in Rhodes in 1947 and their first son, Nissim, was born later that year. After a brief spell in Rome the family moved to the Belgian Congo where she gave birth to their second child Herzl, named after her brother who had died in Mauthausen. 

After a few years in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, they returned to Italy in 1954 and settled in Rome. Although Hanan lived the rest of her life in the Italian capital, she maintained a strong connection with Rhodes and the island’s Jewish community. She also re-established contact with a childhood friend and fellow survivor, Sami Modiano, and together they kept alive the memories and traditions they had grown up with. “I’m heartbroken to hear of her death,” said Modiano. “We used to meet often, we celebrated together her children getting married and rejoiced in each other’s happiness”.

Others remembered her “unforgettable and moving” Shabbat evenings which Hanan celebrated with the rituals of her youth and the Ladino songs she had grown up with – which she could still sing by heart.

One of Italy’s few remaining Holocaust survivors, Hanan never tired of bearing witness to the new generations, urging them not to forget. “If they find themselves with someone who is racist or denies the Holocaust, they should get away from them,” she often said. 

She had one great regret, as she told a friend, the writer Italo Arcuri. It was “not to have spoken earlier. I was terrified I wouldn’t be believed,” she said. To the end she was someone who treasured the gift of life: “When they opened the gates of Auschwitz, I thought of bread, which for me meant survival. From that day of freedom I never wasted a crumb.You might think it strange but even now for me life is bread: I don’t throw away any of the memories, I relive them, chew them, swallow them.”

Hanan’s husband, Giuseppe Mallel, predeceased her. She is survived by her sons Nissim and Herzl and grandchildren.

Rosa Hanan Mallel: born September  8, 1920. Died January 2, 2022