Italian television, seeking high ratings and Nazi loot, emulated America’s TV personality Geraldo Rivera last Thursday night by breaking open a cellar thought to contain Nazi paraphernalia.
But like Rivera, who last year broke open “Al Capone’s safe,” in Chicago, Italian TV explorers for the program “Samarcanda” found nothing when the television lights came on but three playing cards, a buckle and a bone.
Excavators digging into the walled-up cellar of a castle near the northern Italian town of Merano had hoped to find documents, counterfeit money or other relics left behind by the SS, who requisitioned Labers Castle in 1943.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
