One year after the birth of the web platform "Pagina della Memoria", the collaboration for the collection and dissemination of documentation and testimonies regarding the impact of the Nazi-fascist racial laws on the Italian scientific and academic community was formalized and expanded.
With the Agreement signed on January 10, 2023, theINGV, CNR Accademia dei Lincei andInApp, together with theUCEI and the CER, will work closely together to the collection and dissemination of testimonies and documents designed to outline the impact that the so-called "racial laws" had on the Italian scientific and academic community.
The collaboration will implement the platform “Memory page” inaugurated by INGV last January 2022, precisely with the aim of studying, collecting and disseminating testimonies and documentation relating to citizens of Jewish religion and/or origin, discharged, exempt, expelled or removed from research institutions, universities and Italian academies.
With joint initiatives, the institutions will promote documentary, historical and bibliographic research, as well as the making of cultural, study and dissemination events in order to underline the dramatic impact of that corpus of legislative provisions which, starting from the Royal Decree Law n. 880 of 19 April 1937, were then called "racial laws".
"The look fundamental of this project consists in the construction of a common and shared path between research institutions and Jews, for the collection, study and dissemination of testimonies and documents relating to the application of the so-called "racial laws" in institutional contexts linked to high training. We thus want to underline the irreparable damage that was done to Italian scientific and cultural progress", need Aldo Winkler, creator of the project. "Furthermore, we intend to enhance the testimonies concerning the expulsion of many women, whose participation in studies and academic life in Jewish society was absolutely avant-garde compared to the customs of the time, as well as the documentary material on those who managed to escape abroad, transferring their high skills with them. Our further hope is to be able to involve, in this shared path, other institutions related to study, research and culture".
Secondo Carlo Doglioni, President of INGV, "The memory of events is the basis for a knowledge society, both to defend against natural hazards and to prevent the repetition of human behaviors that go beyond any ethical limit. Italian science has suffered the serious consequences of the racial laws and it is appropriate that such a dramatic phase of our history be studied and disclosed so that it does not have to repeat itself".
La President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Noemi Di Segni, also points out that "the memory of what was - accompanied by research and rigorous examination of the facts - is the necessary premise so that we can reach a greater understanding of the events. Furthermore, the common reflection of institutions and scholars of different backgrounds is an important basis for identifying the best future conditions for civil and democratic coexistence, within the framework of our precious Constitution"
"Many do not remember and many do not know the absurd persecutions perpetrated in that sad historical period - he claims Sebastiano Fadda, President of the National Institute for the Analysis of Public Policies - But the courage of those who have suffered the sad horrors of deportation and of those who, not giving in, had to leave their academic and research communities to continue their activities in exile must be remembered and held up as an example in a world that still often sees stifle the dignity and freedom of man. People die and with them the memory risks dying too, but memory must be deposited in the institutions, so that it too does not die out with the succession of generations. Therefore we too feel committed to this task".
"Due to the racial laws of 1938, women and men, eminent scientists, young researchers and technicians were exempt from service in our institution, as in others. A persecution of rights which, shortly thereafter, would become a persecution of lives. With that initiative in the world of research, a process was generated that still today represents one of the darkest pages of the twentieth century and which originated the destruction of scientific schools, as well as entire families", he declares Maria Chiara Carrozza, President of the National Research Council. "This project aims to bring together painful and little-known events and to bring to light what has been, trusting that the fragments of life that will be recovered through research can now give voice to those who did not have it then".
"The participation of the Lincei in this initiative is fully placed in the history of our Academy - Declares President of the National Academy of Lincei Roberto Antonelli - which also suffered from the persecution of the Jews which began with the racial laws. Among the many Italian Jewish personalities who were members of our academy, I would like to mention at least three Presidents: Vito Volterra, Guido Castelnuovo and Beniamino Segre. Vito Volterra was a clear example of human, civil and democratic ethics. Senator for life in 1905, he was one of the signatories in 1926 of the Manifesto of anti-fascist intellectuals promoted by Benedetto Croce and one of the twelve Italian university professors who refused in 1931 to swear allegiance to fascism thus falling from his chair and then from the Accademia dei Lincei. Guido Castelnuovo, who with great generosity as a scientist and as an Italian, lavished all his energy to re-found the Lincei in the Republic suppressed by fascism by collaborating with his vice-president Luigi Einaudi who as President of the Republic appointed him senator for life in 1949. Beniamino Segre, painfully initially exiled in England, as president of the Lynceans, continuing the work of his predecessors, he founded the interdisciplinary center of the Lynceum. Volterra, Castelnuovo and Segre were fully Italian Jews who, like many other Jews, contributed to science and to our civil democracy".
Events cultural events, congresses and seminars will also be addressed to the general public, so as to restore, also through the involvement of family members and descendants, appropriate dignity and visibility to those who have been tragically affected by the tragic persecutions.
Furthermore, the institutions will take care of the archiving, including digital, treatment of the collected documentation rebuilding, as far as possible, biographical profiles of the persecuted.
The Memory Page will be preserved and continuously updated, as a warning of what will never happen again.
Link to download the photos/videos of the event:
Useful links:
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) - Page of Memory
National Research Council (CNR)
National Academy of the Lincei
National Institute for the Analysis of Public Policies (INAPP)
