Senior officials of the Jewish community in Rome are demanding that the authorities remove the name of the Italian King Vittorio Emanuele III from public buildings across the country.
The king was remembered by Jews for his silence during the Holocaust when Italy began to adopt anti-Semitic laws that exposed his Jewish subjects to persecution and finally to extermination under pressure from Germany. He was notorious for having given the premiership to Benito Mussolini, signing his racial laws in 1938 and Mussolini's decision to join World War II alongside the Nazis, even though he took no further steps. The subject came up about a month ago, when the bones of the king were brought from Egypt where he died and was buried, and he was buried again in a full state ceremony in Italy.