The Calandra Italian American Institute released a message in light of the upcoming International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27th. The Institute has joined Italian historian Patrizia Guarnieri and her team of researchers in their mission to gather data on Italian Jewish individuals who fled Fascism and Nazism in World War II.
Once collected, Patrizia and her team will publish the information on their survivors’ individual and universal experiences on the “Intellettuali in fuga dall’Italia fascista” website. The website serves as a catalog of past memories; it resuscitates the stories of those who were persecuted and too easily forgotten while giving them back a voice on a public platform accessible to all. This historical clearinghouse is an ongoing project, routinely updated to reflect its increasing data collection and progressively building a more fleshed-out narrative as it evolves.
The online platform describes its content as follows: “The forgotten stories that emerge also speak of resourcefulness and talent, commitment and determination, and recognize the value of the contributions made by exponents of Italian culture abroad.”
On the 80th anniversary of the “racial laws,” the University of Florence launched the Intellectuals Displaced from Fascist Italy project. The project received financing from the Regione Toscana (Bando Memoria 2018) and benefits from the patronage of additional international institutions and organizations, assisting it in facilitating access to resources to further its research. These generous organizations include the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, CUNY, the Central Archives for the History of Jewish People Jerusalem, the New York Public Library and the Council for At-Risk Academics in London. The latter two have enabled the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars(ECADFS) and the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL)’s papers to be made available.
