Documentary Discussion: Syndrome K

Syndrome K is a documentary, which tells the story of three doctors  Adriano Ossicini. Prof Giovanni Borromeo, Vittorio Sacerdoti who saved members of Rome's Jewish community by convincing the Nazis that these Jews were infected with a deadly and contagious disease that the doctors called Syndrome K. (It is thought that the K is mocking in nature and represents the K in Albert Kesselring- the General of the German army  and chief for Italy or the K in Herbert Kappler, the chief, colonel of the SS in Rome.) The occupying Nazis deported over 1,000 Jews to Auschwitz from the Jewish Ghetto in Rome in October 1943. During that period, some Jewish people sought refuge in Fatebenefratelli hospital where the doctors invented the disease to protect them. The hospital is located on Tiber Island in Rome and 200 meters from the Jewish ghetto and near to the great synogogue of Rome. At the time it was run by Catholic friars and controlled by the Vatican. Resa engages guest discussants Dr. Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino, a transplant surgeon, scientist, and former politician, who was Mayor of Rome from 2013 to 2015, Dr. Silvana Boccanfuso, a phD historian with extensive training and experience leading tours in Europe and specifically Italy, and an author of a 2019 biography of Ursula Hirschmann, and Stephen Edwards, the film director and producer, who is best known for his work as a film composer.  Further reading: 2016 article on Syndrome K

There are almost 30,000 Jewish people in Italy today. They are concentrated in Rome (13,000) and Milan (8,000), with smaller communities in Turin (900), Florence (1,000), Venice (600) and Livorno, was (600). Other communities number in the few hundred can be found in Bologna, Genoa, Triste, Ancona, Naples Padua, Pisa, Modena, Siena, Parma, Verona and other areas.