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Centro Primo Levi's online monthly on the work of Primo Levi, Italian Jewish history, culture and current affairs.
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Film and discussion
March 23
5:30 pm
Italian Academy at Columbia University, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue. Reception
Film screening: What the Allies Knew (2015)
by Virginie Linhart, produced by Cinetev�, historical supervision by Henry Rousso
Roundtable:
Umberto Gentiloni (University of Rome and author of Bombardare Auschwitz?, 2015), Fabienne Servan-Schreiber (producer), Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University). Moderator: Yasmine Ergas (Columbia University)
The circulation of the photos taken by liberating forces in the Nazi death camps were received across the world as if they were the first evidence of the mass murder of European Jews. Research however, has determined that information about the mass killings began to circulate as early as 1941, and that - by 1942 - leaders of the democratic world, as well as the Vatican, had knowledge of the extermination project.
In England and the U.S., the media had been reporting for years on the mounting attack on Jewish rights, culture, property, and individuals. Political leaders and the press kept the events under the radar, but made a clear distinction between the dangerous development of Fascist and Nazi politics and the plight of the Jewish minority.
When the flow of refugees from Europe caused nations to question the international order and immigration policies, some relief was sought through the Evian conference; but this established only that very little could be done. The countries that could potentially receive the Jews who were being expelled from Europe were primarily concerned about their own economies and social unrest.
Jewish refugees became pawns in each European country where they managed to arrive, as well as in the farther lands where the luckiest ones were permitted to enter. These refugees (who were bereft of everything, and whose only ambition was to survival) often became assets to exploit militarily, politically, and economically. Those who did not succeed in leaving Europe were - in many cases - destined for death.
The long story of international indifference over the persecution and - later - the extermination of the Jews depended not on lack of information but on a broader set of factors including the fact that people - both leaders and the public at large - had never experienced totalitarianism and its radical alteration in the relationship between government and its citizens.
Our attempt to understand the experience of persecution during World War II resonates in part with current political situations. Today, citizens at all levels of society hear of world events as they happen. Violence, refugee crises, and war unfold before everybody's eyes.
Yet the challenges of intervention remain, or are at least similarly divorced from the knowledge of facts. A panel of historians, media experts, and human-rights scholars will discuss the question of intervention in support of Jewish refugees and against the extermination project, as well as the ways in which that experience informed - or failed to inform - democratic societies in the post-war era.
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Americordo
A CPL Editions Book Presentation
March 28
6:00 pm
NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo', 24 West 12th Street. Reception
Book presentation:
Americordo. The Italian Jewish Exiles in America by Gianna Pontecorboli
Guest speaker:
Judge Guido Calabresi
The meaning and worth of this collection of voices remind us how many individuals and families were driven to flee- human beings deprived of everything, from their dignity to their possessions. It is absolutely essential to know these stories.
Gianna Pontecorboli's book is a long overdue account of a lesser-known aspect of the anti-Jewish persecution in Italy: the exile of Italian Jews to America. Forced to the US by the Fascist persecutions during the 1930's and 1940's, roughly one thousand Italian Jews with their families continued their work in a wide range of fields, from mathematics and biology to medicine, music, banking, textile manufacturing, art and antiques.
Pontecorboli retraces the threads of their stories, personal recollections and historical background, their strategies to exit Italy and those to find a visa to the US. She reconstructs their first steps in the New World, their networks of mutual support, their successes and drawbacks, their encounters with fascism and antifascism in America, their different and at times conflicting choices of adaptation and survival.
Written in a fast paced journalistic style, the book is both a good read as well as an important contribution to cultural history, marking a starting point for a whole new field of inquiry.
Among the protagonists of the book are Tullia Calabi e Bruno Zevi, Max Ascoli, Giorgio Cavaglieri, Achille Viterbi, Amelia Rosselli, Silvano Arieti, Emilio Segr�, Franco Modigliani, Paolo Milano, Salvador Luria, Massimo Calabresi, Ugo Fano and Giorgio Levi della Vida. Probably the smallest national group among European exiles, the Italians distinguished themselves for their willingness and ability to create from the start bridges between Italy and their new country.
The English edition, with its extensive bibliography, ample notes, and biographical sketches of the individuals mentioned in the text constitutes a substantial reference point for future scholarly research.
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Recent articles, news and academic announcements
The Erna Vinci Viterbi Italian Chazanut Roundtable
Confronting Italy's Colonial Adventure
Kyle Walker, The New York Transatlantic
Giudeo-Languages. Who Speaks, When, Where, and With Whom?
A seminar at the Center for Jewish Studies, University of Naples, L'Orientale
"Non contrarii, ma diversi", the question of minority in the eyes of Christians and Jews in Italy (early 15th-mid 18th century), Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales and �cole des hautes �tudes en sciences sociales
The Ghetto Reconsidered, University of Venice Ca' Foscari
Humanism and Hebrew Culture in the Italian Renaissance
International Studies Institute, Florence
The Secret of the Last Jews of Rhodes
Christiane Schl�tzer, S�ddeutsche Zeitung
An Evening for Bianca, Alessandro Cassin
A Third Model of Jewish Enlightenment? Adam Shear, H-Net Book review
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THANKS
Centro Primo Levi is the recipient of the endowment fund established by the Viterbi Family in memory of Achille and Maria Viterbi. CPL's activities are supported by the Cahnman Foundation, Peter S. Kalikow, Claude Ghez, David Berg Foundation, John Elkann, Charles Hallac z'l & Sarah Keil Wolf, Jeffrey Keil & Danielle Pinet.
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