Poundians:

I'd rather talk about Leon's book, but a response to Ian's response is in
order, I think, because most of Ian's complaints seem to result from a
less-than-close reading of my message.

I specifically distinguished between concentration camps and more deadly
forms of Nazi activity--a crucial distinction if we are to remember that
there was a concentration at Fossoli (not so far from Rapallo) in the
later war years.

I didn't mention non-Jewish inmates because they weren't relevant to the
issues that I objected to in Leon's work.

And I never asserted unconditionally that Allied news or propaganda
reached Pound directly (although he did listen to the BBC) and that he
refused to believe it--I only meant to suggest that the genocide could
have come to no one, least of all a Fascist propagandist with contacts
among anti-Fascists, and one who bandied about plenty of murderous
anti-Jewish rhetoric, as a total and shocking surprise.  What did Italians
think was happening to Jews who were, if not shot, forcibly rounded up and
disappeared after mid-1943?

But for the record, I believe Leon states that Pound learned about the
genocide in St. Elizabeths, but isn't there an account of him being told
on the plane there.

Jonathan Gill
Columbia University