“San Rossore 1938” - on the eightieth anniversary of the imposition of racial laws in Italy, the University of Pisa, Scuola Normale and Scuola Sant'Anna organize commemoration events in Pisa
On 5 September 1938, at his Tuscan residence in San Rossore, King Victor Emmanuel III signed the act 1381 for the Defense of the Race: the Royal Decree Law concerning Jews of foreign nationality. The law supported discrimination against Jews in Italy. The Italian government then passed additional legislation and officially sanctioned the persecution and later deportation of about 10,000 (only 826 survived) Italian Jews. Italian universities responded to anti-Semitism with complicity and collaboration; Pisa University expelled 20 professors and approximately 300 students and in 1938 a ban on Jewish enrolment was instituted in Italian universities.
On the eightieth anniversary of the imposition of the racial laws in Italy, the University of Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna organized a series of events to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to emphasize the need for future generations to learn and remember the Holocaust and other genocides. On January 27 each year, the whole world participates in the official observance of the Remembrance Day to ensure that this anniversary and the unspeakable suffering of so many people will never be forgotten. Pisa City Council, Tuscany Region authority, the Italian Jewish community, the Provveditorato agli studi - Pisa, RAI, the Istituto per la Storia della Resistenza e della Società Contemporanea (Istoreco) - Livorno and Pisa Palazzo Blu Foundation will support commemoration events including:
Remembrance ceremony: 5 September 2018 - San Rossore Estate.
Commemoration events for students: Pisa universities and Schools
Exhibition “Ebrei in Toscana XX e XXI secolo”: organized by Istoreco Livorno , Scuola Normale Superiore and Pisa City Council.
Conference “Tendenze e sviluppi della storiografia internazionale sull’antisemitismo e sulla Shoah”: 20- 21 September 2018, a gathering of leading historians from Pisa, Torino, Chicago, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Jerusalem, Providence, and Paris.
Educational programs, Internet Festival, Robotics Festival, art exhibitions and film screening focused on the Holocaust: across town, date to be confirmed.
On the eve of Memorial Day, the 2018 Remembrance Day services were presented in Pisa at the Palazzo alla Giornata on January 22, 2017. Participants included: Nicoletta De Francesco, Sandra Lischi, Ilaria Pavan, Michele Battini, Pierdomenico Perata, rector of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Marco Filippeschi, Mayor of Pisa, Maurizio Gabbrielli, president of Jewish Community in Pisa. Guido Cava, age 88, President Emeritus of the Jewish Community in Pisa, provided his eyewitness testimony: “In 1938 I was 8. I distinctly remember the moment my father told me and my brother Enrico that we were no longer allowed to attend school. We asked him to explain why but he could not answer. How could he ever possibly explain the unexplainable? He just mumbled that we could no longer attend our school”.
Cover photo: from left to right, Maurizio Gabbrielli, Marco Filippeschi, Guido Cava, Nicoletta De Francesco, Pierdomenico Perata, Ilaria Pavan, Sandra Lischi.
